On to the second of the Four Brahma Viharas:
1. Metta: loving kindness
2. Karuna: compassion
3. Mudita: sympathetic joyt
4. Upekkha: equanimity
It seems to me that one immediate difference between metta and karuna is one of vectors. Loving kindness doesn't have to go in any one direction or have any particular target, but compassion is transitive. (It's also reflexive, but more on that later.) As the reliable Buddhanet has it, "it is clear that the degree and quality of compassion comes with the degree of understanding of what suffering is."
My life is turbulent right now - in the last six months, I have lost, to illness and death, two close friends and, worst of all, my mother. Now my uncle is dying, as well. Now feels like a particularly apt time to think about compassion. I'm receiving a lot of it, from more directions than I probably even know. I'm working on showing it to myself as much as I can. I tend to be pretty exigent where habits and expectations are concerned, and I'm trying to learn how to loosen up a bit, to give my grieving soul a little more freedom to breathe.
I'm also making sure that I show compassion to others. Even so-called "silly problems" can be important - we all have them - and I've been taking care to let my friends know that they can still vent to me and confide in me. If I haven't said it directly, let this be their notice that this is true. I wouldn't be able to get out of bed every day without the love that I receive from friends and family on an hourly basis, and I need to make sure that they know that I'm sending it right back, just as my mother always did.
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