Managing Moments on Life's Journey

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
The Dalai Lama

Compassion makes us happy.  The first person who benefits when you feel and act on great compassion for others is you! 

Alan Wallace a Tibetan Buddhist tells the following story; “Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries and someone roughly bump into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, ‘You idiot!  What is wrong with you?  Are you blind?’  But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you is actually blind.  He, too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: ‘Are you hurt?  Can I help you up?’  When we realise that our source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.”

Ignorance, both of an immediate situation but also and of reality itself, such as understanding impermanence, no self and our interconnectedness, creates behaviour which is not ‘informed’ by compassion.    

It is said that we have to have compassion for ourselves in order to have compassion for others, but sometimes I think it is the other way around.  Compassion for others connects us with self compassion. Perhaps, along with compassion for those we dislike, it is compassion for ourselves that is the most difficult for us.

We are hardwired to have compassion for our own family or tribe.  It makes sense as it helps us survive.   “I look out for you and you will look out for me”.  Not so with those outside the tribe; however the good news is that we are increasingly getting to see the world as one tribe of humanity.  Check out the free talks on major world changes and what it takes to make these changes here.

Why is it hard to have compassion for ourselves?  We compare our inside (our internal emotional experience) with everybody else’s outside?   We think we are the only ones who have felt and done things that were not ideal, perhaps even thoughtless and cruel.  And we think no one else is like that?

The ”good” news is that we are all selfish and have wicked thoughts and act completely self centred most of the time. Is it our guilt or shame that holds us hostage? What would happen if we owned the disowned, if we really accepted ourselves with love? Keeping the disowned in the basement takes energy.  The disowned is that part of us that we hold at bay from ourselves either because of the pain it may cause to acknowledge or that it does not fit into our self image or it is shameful or embarrassing or simply that we haven’t truly allowed it in and gotten to know it. The result is that the “flow” state is harder to experience, a bit like kinks in a hose?

It helps to know that we are all just little ‘tots’ trying to make sense of this life, trying to do good, trying to be happy and trying to work it all out. We are all in the same boat and experience an undercurrent of feeling inadequate or “not good enough” much of the time.

Self compassion is giving ourselves what others may not have been able to give us. It is an act of healing.

Try this:  Put your arms around yourself, your hand on your heart, close your eyes and say: “I am sorry and I love you”. Just notice the sensations, the feelings and thoughts that emerge.

You may continue:
• I love your laughter and tears
• I love your embarrassment
• I love your not good enough
• I love your guilt and shame
• I love your self centeredness
• I love your searching
• I love your kindness
• I love your smile
• I love your anxiety
• I love your ignorance
• I love your fear of not being good enough
• I love your fear of being excluded
• I love your vulnerability
• I love your wonder and curiosity
• I love your humanity
• I love your wanting to ease the pain of another
• I love your endless compassion
• I love you

See if you can say this in your mind to another and eventually to someone whom you don’t like.

A Zen koan is; “Does a dog have Buddha nature?” And the answer is that it doesn’t. It is Buddha nature. And so are we. It isn’t just a part of us that is Buddha nature and the rest is this nasty ego. Our fear or ego is our survival mechanism and even though at times it appears to be not very nice, it is still Buddha nature because it cannot not be. Our ego self is fear and fear keeps us alive.

This does not mean that we do whatever we want, that all acts are equally good. However it does mean that we look upon our inadequacy with kindness which brings it out of the basement and hence easier to manage and deal with.

Indian saint Shantideva:
"Whatever joy there is in this world
All comes from desiring others to be happy,
And whatever suffering there is in this world,
All comes from desiring myself to be happy.

There are many good reasons to cultivate compassion! Compassion has been called the Golden Rule as it is the central theme in every religion. If you are interested in more check out the Charter of Compassion and The Universality of the Golden Rule in the World Religions on the free resources page of our website.