Summary: Episode Description: This final segment of the series is mainly dedicated to a discussion of compassion. However, John precedes this with a brief foray into the idea of the "two truths." The two truths refer to two ways of speaking about reality, the "ultimate" and "conventional." The conventional is our phenomenal experience and the ultimate, in a way, is a perspective that prevents us from reifying the conventional. All suffering can be traced to the reification of reality, to a sense that we are real beings experiencing a real world, "out there." Adopting the stance of the ultimate enables us to see that there is no "real" reality and that there are no "absolute truths," including the very idea that there are no absolute truths! From here, John segues into compassion. As explained, the "samsaric stance," the stance of suffering, is that we are real agents in a real world. Suffering is imbued with a rigid conception of subject and objects. By contrast, the stance of compassion decentralizes this rigid conception. Compassion includes empathy, of feeling with others, and a sense of the flexibility, even contingency, of our subjectivity. By wisely practicing compassion, the rigid samsaric perspective can fade. John then introduces us to several beautiful compassion practices. He closes the seminar by tying compassion back to wisdom, stressing again that wisdom is fundamental to the bodhisattva path in that it is only with wisdom that a bodhisattva can be of maximum benefit, bringing happiness to sentient beings and eliminating their suffering. For Series description and Teacher BIO, please visit Part 1a. To access the entire series, please click on the link below: The Way of a Bodhisattva Series: All 6 Parts
