One thing to be clear when we use the words Compassion/Lovingkindness as we teach them is that they are not always being used exactly the same way by us as they are by some other teachers, particularly the word Lovingkindness, so please be clear about that.
Compassion for us means the wish that there is no more pain, that there are no more difficulties, that there is no more Dukkha. That is the Compassion side, it is only a wishing to end the unpleasant things of life. Compassion is not wanting happiness in itself, it only wishes to end pain. The word Lovingkindness as we use it, is the wishing for happiness to come also. And when you think about it, we don't actually need happiness if we don't have any Dukkha. Interesting? You really want to end your Dukkha, don't you? It is not so much that you want, want, want more happiness. But rather that you actually want to end your Dukkha. Reflect on it later and see how it works for you.
Compassion actually is the most important part. Compassion is the essence of the practice, we want to end Dukkha. Wishing for peace and happiness comes on top of it, it is a bonus. We do like the bonus, and that is why we put the two together, that is why we want them to be balanced.
Another reason why we want them to be balanced is that if you focus on the Dukkha too much, it gets heavy, you get wiped out. I'm sure some of you have done it, if not all of you. It gets too much. So we don't want to focus on the Dukkha too much. We want to balance it with the fact that there is a way out of Dukkha, and there is a way for more happiness. A little example that is helpful: Imagine, say at lunchtime you are sitting out in front of the building and you are the only adult around. You see a little 10 year old riding their bicycle up the hill and they are zooming on their bike back and forth, having a lot of fun. You are just sitting there watching that little 10 year old kid riding their bike, zoom, zoom, zoom. Then the kid falls off the bike and scrapes their knee. The kid starts crying. It is not a big deal, it is only a scraped knee, and most if not all of you have scraped your knees before, falling off your bike, whatever. But for this kid it is a big deal, because they are only 10 years old and they've just scraped their knee. Now you see the kid crying, do you cry with them? Do you feel that Dukkha with them, do you kind of suffer with them, "this is terrible, scraped knees are just the most terrible..."? No, you don't actually, but if you did, that would mean that you are focusing too much on the compassionate side, the Dukkha side. Normal adults would not do that, they would identify with the Dukkha of the kid but then they would immediately go and help the kid. It is the 10 years old crying. You're 30, 40 years old, and you are not crying, you go and help the kid. What are you doing when you are wishing to help that kid? You are wanting to relieve their Dukkha, but you know what else? If you have a candy bar in your pocket, out it comes, because you want them to have happiness, as well. You want to take away their Dukkha and you want them to have more happiness. You tell them, "It's ok, it's ok, I can help you, I can fix this for you." and so on. So we have the balance there.
Now a lot of people can go off balance the other way. I have mentioned how we can go off balance if we have too much Compassion, a lot of people can also go off balance if they have too much Lovingkindness. If they don't have any Compassion, they are just wishing the other people to be happy, then they sit down in meditation and go, "May I be happy, may you be happy, may we all be happy, may everyone be happy, may we all be happy," and on and on and on it goes. And some people can actually get quite high on the thought of wishing happiness,. Unfortunately, this is how some teachers teach Lovingkindness. Just wishing beings to be happy, happy, happy without the understanding of pain can take people off balance the other way. This is why we want to balance the two, to have a nice solid practice - we feel for the Dukkha of others but we also realize there is a way out. And we are going to help find the way out and have more happiness.