t?” The shortcoming of the culture of openness is that it relies too much on rationality and forgets compassion. The heart is forgotten, and therefore, we need the third culture called the “culture of compassion”.
The culture of compassion is a culture of the heart. In this culture, besides the reasoning of the mind, we need to remember that the heart sends us a very important message: humanity and our relationships with others. The heart guides us to do noble things that do not belong to reason, such as compassion, forgiveness, and faith. The culture of compassion gives birth to deep faith, but that deep faith is not superstition. That compassion is not a meek or possessive love, but an openness of the heart and the mind that radiates a feeling of warmth and caring to other people. This compassion is different from obedience. In the culture of obedience, we often want to possess others. We use our love to own others and make them do things for us. That is another problem that we will discuss later. Now we know that we have the culture of Obedience, of Openness, and of Compassion. The culture of compassion pervades all places. We clearly manifest the values of these cultures daily. These cultures overlap each other; none is above, below, higher or lesser than any other. The culture of compassion guides us, and it always comes first in what we think and what we do. It is our motivation in doing things, not just reason. Sometimes, our reasoning mind knows what is right, but at times, compassion urges, and drives us to do things. Compassion does not bear any trace of desires. It is not a possession. It is always sharing and giving. Compassion will heal us, our cruelties, jealousies, wickedness, and attachments to the culture of obedience, and even the culture of openness which is full of reasoning that we need to be cautious of.
Lastly, it is the “culture of enlightenment”. What is the culture of enlightenment? It is a culture that knows to apply the culture of compassion and openness as well as obedience in the right place at the right time. It is because the culture of enlightenment pushes us to always evolve. Our heart and our mind always open up to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. We always treat people everywhere with kindness and compassion. Finally, the culture of enlightenment brings healing to the environment. It never destroys the living conditions. The culture of enlightenment heals our relationships with others, not destroying them. The culture of enlightenment is surpassing since it knows to activate compassion, to use reason, to open up others, and knows when to obey. Otherwise, our ego is very big. As a result, the culture of enlightenment often leads to the last realm--selflessness.
I mentioned the four stages of culture above to integrate and present Lawrence Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development so today’s Buddhists can easily understand. We constantly change and dwell peacefully in the culture of compassion and enlightenment. We often rely on the culture of openness, but we cannot forget that openness without compassion, or compassion without openness does not work. Hence, the culture of enlightenment utilizes all other cultures: obedience, openness and compassion.
Thank you for listening to today’s Dharma Espresso. I wish you joy and awakeness.
Translated by the transcription and translation group of Compassionate Service Society