Compassionate Responses in Our Time: A Blessed Plurality of Inner Practice and Outer Action

January 17, 2025


This article originally appeared in the Gaia House newsletter on January 14, 2025 and can be found here. It is reposted on the SBN website with Yanai’s kind permission.

Yanai Postelnik has been teaching Insight Meditation and Buddhist practice internationally for over 30 years. He is a member of the Gaia House Teacher Council, a Core Faculty member of Insight Meditation Society, Massachusetts, and an activist for ecology, climate and social justice.

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The Buddha’s teachings call us to find our own path of heartful practice and engagement, while honouring the range and variety of different ways others may find to express what is authentic and true for them. We can be inspired by all who work compassionately for change in this world, and by all who engage in the transformative inner practices of awakening, for this world and beyond, each in their own way.

At Gaia House the Buddha’s teachings are expressed in a range of ways. We do not encourage teachings or ideologies that claim there is only one “right way”, only one “true Dharma” or assert that everyone should follow the same forms or practices. The Buddha was known for his remarkable ability “to teach each person as they needed to be taught.” This clearly implies that each person may need something different. Our freedom to explore and discover which path and practices are authentic and fruitful for ourselves, also requires that we allow others to find what is appropriate for them.

Yanai Postelnik

The Buddha spoke of the spiritual faculty of saddhā, the confidence and faith that we can engage with the path, cultivate that which is wholesome, and in doing so transform both ourselves and our world. With saddhā – faith and confidence, we also recognise that there are many ways, within the great path of awakening and compassionate action.

An ancient prayer asks: may I be protected from the cowardice that shrinks from new truths, from the laziness that is content with half-truths, and from the arrogance that believes it knows all truth. This arrogance looks similar to faith but is in fact opposed to it – and called a near enemy – which is something which looks similar to but is actually an opponent of something skilful and wholesome.

The near enemy of saddhā shows as a false confidence, that does not have respect for the truths that others find, which may be different than our own. Is it is skilful to notice when we fall into views asserting that our approach is superior to the approach of others. Such views are expressions of the fetter of conceit – māna. When his friend and disciple Ananda suggested to him that he was “the greatest Buddha ever…” and his teaching “the greatest Dhamma ever…” the Buddha invited Ananda to reflect on the fact that he had not known all the previous Buddhas nor heard their teaching, and so should not make such claims. We cannot ourselves, in one lifetime, explore all possible paths of practice, nor all possible courses of action. Thus, while we can learn what serves for our journey, and may be “right” for ourselves, others will often follow different but equally valid pathways.

We can rightly honour and be inspired by all those standing up, speaking out, and taking courageous direct action on the streets, in courtrooms and the corridors of power:

To all those calling attention to injustice, oppression, genocides, crimes against humanity, climate and ecology, and other harms in our world, and actively seeking to end them. Your embodied manifestation of our shared compassionate heart is a sacred offering for the welfare of all. Thank you. I bow to you all. My heart is supported and uplifted by your efforts and actions.

So too, we can honour all those engaged in the inner cultivation of peace, kindness and understanding, deepening sila – ethics, samadhi – unification and pañña – wisdom:

To all those whose practice is the very breathing life of all spiritual lineages dedicated to awakening, compassion and freedom. Your patient cultivation, ripening and deepening realisation truly makes a difference in our world, generating subtle but powerful ripples in transformative and beneficial ways. Thank you. I bow to you all. My heart is supported and uplifted by your precepts and practice.

Compassion – karuna is born of feeling our human hearts sensitivity and recognising our connection to all who experience suffering – dukkha: that which is hard to bear. We can experience karuna – compassion, as having two distinct but overlapping expressions: tender compassion that acts for the healing of pain and soothing of distress, directed to those who are afflicted; and the fierce protective compassion which engages with the harm itself, opposing harmful actions that cause suffering, and seeking to protect those affected by them. Just as many different inner practises and perspectives have their place, so too with our compassionate responses, ranging from offering metta – friendliness, kindliness and love for all beings, to direct action energetically protesting and protecting against harm.

As we are moved to engage with inner and outer expressions of compassionate action, however that may look for ourselves, it can be helpful to reflect on the teachings of the “near enemies”. The near enemy of tender compassion is pity, which is disconnected from and perceives those who are suffering as something “other” and separate from ourselves.

Righteous anger is the near enemy of fierce compassion – it looks like fierce compassion and it wants to help, but it creates suffering. While fierce compassion may be energised by outrage at harmful actions or inaction, in contrast, righteous anger generates judgement or contempt towards those persons perceived as causing harm or failing to take action to end the harm. Fierce compassion has passivity as its “far enemy” its obvious opposite, an inability to act in response to our heart, usually born of fear of harming others, ourselves or of getting it wrong. Righteous anger often arises, in response to the perception of passivity in others or oneself.

Unskilful righteous anger often comes with a rigid sense of certainty as to the rightness of one’s view. This is very different to the confidence of saddhā, and expresses a kind of fundamentalism – that does not allow room for other perspectives or value forms of action other than one’s own. It often generates a contraction or tightness in body and heart, that signals its presence. It can be so helpful to ask ourselves “has my heart closed down to those who I see as causing or colluding in harm, through their actions or their inaction?” In the famous simile of the saw, the Buddha spoke of the possibility of having metta- friendliness in one’s heart, even for those who may be attacking us, which also applies to those we disagree with.

Fierce compassion in contrast, generally has an expansive, open expression and tone, as it stays connected and caring towards all parties to the harm. It does not claim to be the only right way or valid response, while being confident to act passionately and powerfully to protect those who are subject to harm, and to end the activities which cause it. In practicing with sensitivity to our body, mind and heart, we can discern when we might encounter these different responses in ourselves and in others, and extend compassion towards all suffering. In honouring our compassionate aspirations and reflecting on the way we are all subject to the suffering of being affected by passivity and righteous anger, we can practice forgiveness for ourselves and each other, while continuing to find our own authentic expressions of responsive compassionate action.

May we all be free to find our own authentic way, expressing our hearts deep care for others, ourselves and our world.

For our own deep wellbeing, for the welfare and liberation of all beings, and for the wellbeing of all that lives.


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One Reply to “Compassionate Responses in Our Time: A Blessed Plurality of Inner Practice and Outer Action”

Anne-Laure Brousseau

Dear Yanai, thank you for this beautifully wise reflection. Here in the US right now, in our fragile, vulnerable communities, I think it’s difficult—more so than it’s ever been in my lifetime—to recognize the truly self-governing nature of one’s own agency, the autonomy of one’s own path, and to offer that recognition to each other. To recognize ourselves and others in this way changes the nature of our lives together; it is compassionate in a way that flies in the face of the kind of judgmental disrespect that cuts to the quick. At the end of reading your teaching here, I felt so clearly free of all that. Thank you, thank you.

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