The Four Locks and Keys + Metta Meditation: Part Two- Compassion Towards the Unhappy

By cultivating an attitude of friendliness towards the happy,

compassion towards the unhappy, 

delight towards those who are virtuous, 

and disregard to those who are wicked, 

the mind remains calm and the obstacles to self-knowledge are lessened.

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 1:33

(taken from several translations)

Something so wonderful and inherent in contemplative practice is that each time we come to it, we arrive to it anew. Whether it is meditation, breath, or movement based, we are dropping into the present moment with whatever we have been carrying.

One of my meditation instructors said that the secret to his decades-long happy marriage was that each morning he never expected his wife to be the same way she was before. He met her anew each day. I think in wonder about this often. How much unhappiness inside of us is due to expecting things to be the same?

As I have come back to the Yoga Sutras over the years, I have used the same few translations and always read this second lock and key as, “Compassion towards the unhappy.”

Only recently (in the depths of my own unhappiness after the loss of my niece) have I looked deeper at some of the Sanskrit words the verse uses: “karuna,” “maitri,” and “dukkha.”

Karuna is translated as compassion. Maitri can translate to loving-kindness, friendliness, or benevolence, and dukkha translates to suffering, unsatisfactoriness, or stress, referring to the lack of ease, pain, or fear due to the impermanence of life.

My first introduction to these words was at Naropa University (where I met the professor mentioned above). Naropa University is a Buddhist university in Boulder that I learned about from my friend, Tom. Tom was a friend from NJ who had moved to Boulder. We were on the phone once and he was telling me about a housemate who was constantly out on the lawn practicing Tai Chi. “He’s a Tai Chi major,” he said amusedly.

At that point I was living in Maui. In seeking to learn about how we hold emotions and stress in our bodies and how it affects our health, I had found myself in massage school. There hadn’t been a major for that in college, so I had taken all of the required credits I could and then left to find out where I could learn more.

I was reading Louise Hay, practicing Gabrielle Roth’s 5 Rhythms, reading books on Yoga, meditation, faith, and philosophy, and studying holistic nutrition (which was a lifelong experiment- Thanks, Mom!). I really wanted to understand things that I didn’t have the language for. There wasn’t an internet yet, and even interdisciplinary studies didn’t have the courses on the things I was wanting to know. Massage seemed like a good starting point.

Learning massage in Maui meant I was blessed to be introduced to the practice of Lomi Lomi, a Hawaiian healing method that uses massage, movement, intention, and chanting to raise the Mana (life force, like Prana in Sanskrit) to encourage healing.

As a massage therapist I learned a lot from my clients about the body, stress, and how people hold or release it. I also realized that in such an intimate space, I was honored that people trusted me enough to share things with me. I noticed how when clients talked to me about what was going on in their lives during a session, they would have a deeper release. I also noticed that when working with certain areas of the body, specific things would come up. It was like clockwork.

I also was blessed to work with professional athletes right from the beginning because they would come to the clinic. In class I would often be paired to practice with another student who was a large Tongan man. Due to his size, the instructors spent extra time with me showing me how to do the deep work his body needed with the body mechanics to ensure I wouldn’t hurt myself. This has served me incredibly well in my massage career with athletes. I began right away learning that even the densest tissue responds when its own unique need for the balance of attention and pressure is met.

What I found over years of massage is that this lesson in bodywork can also be applied to many kinds of suffering. Compassion, loving kindness, and friendliness soften things.

Just like muscles, our densest parts don’t release because we force them to. They release when the Nervous System feels safe. In my massage practice I often talk out loud about the Nervous System and what is happening in the tissues. I address the language of the body, the breath, to encourage my client’s Nervous System to feel safe enough to switch from defend/protect to relax/release. This can’t happen by forcing, criticizing or pushing - which is sometimes how we approach others and ourselves.

So… I was working as a massage therapist in Maui (and feeling a sense of responsibility to better understand how to support the safety required for emotions to unwind) when Tom told me about the Tai Chi major. I immediately asked, “Where can you major in Tai Chi?”

“It’s a hippy school in Boulder,” he said. “You’d love it.” I could hear his eyes rolling. I looked it up right away and found the words for the thing I had been searching for in movement, massage, and meditation: Contemplative & Somatic Psychology. I applied and moved to Boulder.

And here we arrive back to being introduced to the idea and practice of Maitri.  Meditation practice was a requirement for many of my classes. At Naropa there were 5 rooms called the Maitri rooms where we practiced postures and practices representing the 5 Buddha families: 5 negative emotions and the qualities that could come from transforming the shadow to wisdom.

There are a lot of crazy stories about these rooms (I’ll let you research on your own), but in simplified terms this practice was meant to support us in coming face to face with our own negative states and emotions, to practice compassion so that the wisdom underneath had the opportunity to arise.

The shadow and wisdom in our emotions are meant to be turned inwards toward ourselves as well as outward toward others. Some find it easier to extend compassion towards others and some find it easier to be compassionate towards themselves.

I had a boyfriend once who used to get really annoyed with other drivers while he was commuting to work. One day he told me he had discovered the key to road rage. “When someone is driving really erratically and carelessly, I tell myself, maybe they just really have to poop.” That was his version of extending compassion towards the unhappy and it really worked for him.

Extending compassion towards our own suffering can also be challenging. There is a concept in Human Design called “the Inner Opponent.” Human Design expert Jenna Zoe talks about this being the inner voice that tells us about our not-enoughness in all of its flavors. It can feel very confronting to the already tense places inside of us, like bringing deep pressure to an already tight muscle.

When we continue to hear this voice over and over again, the Nervous System spins stories and gathers proof of scarcity and blame (which certainly are easy to find fuel for). This can cause a lifelong habit of tensing up and lashing out in order to protect and defend ourselves.

However, when we slow down, pay attention, and allow space, we begin to understand the fears and subconscious beliefs underneath the hard shell of unhappiness. Compassion arises from our awakened hearts (in Sanskrit, Bodhicitta).

An awakened heart does not have scarcity. It knows that all of us are shining the light from the same Source. That one light does not diminish the others but instead calls forth more of the light from within. An awakened heart knows that the inner opponent and the Light are the same. The inner opponent reveals the places that need attention and healing. Following this healing path provides you with a personalized curriculum to learn exactly what you need to in order to fulfill your highest purpose.

There is a phrase used in contemplative learning, “Clean the mirror, shine the light.” The subconscious beliefs that are being brought to your attention through your own unhappiness are shining a light on something deeper if you can take a step back to look, and through compassion to clean up your view and interpretation of what is really going on.

When we hear the voices talking us down (comparison, shoulds, virtue signaling), these are the voices of a dirty mirror, but they also show you where you need to take a further look. What exactly needs attention?

This is where compassion comes in- taking a kind approach towards the smallness inside you that has been reflecting a distorted light, like a circus mirror.

Since Adelaide’s passing people have felt freer to share their stories of loss with us. It has been such an honor. Adelaide has created an opening for connection, which was something she was so skilled in doing in life. She walked into every place making eye contact and with an open heart, curious, asking questions, and really wanting to hear the answers. She had a beautiful awakened heart full of maitri.

Softening to our own unhappiness and suffering from her loss has made us a safer place for others to soften and heal. In real time it is revealing to us how we can reflect the light of the Divine in order to see more of how we were uniquely created to be and heal. This is how we humbly meet each other in each moment anew.