Compassion

Feeling compassion for another being, is one of the most powerful, energetically sublime and spiritually evolved emotional states that we as human beings can experience. Compassion is however greatly misunderstood and often ascribed to feelings and emotions to which it does not rightly belong. Almost every day of everyone's life, moments arise that present us with, to one degree or another, the suffering of another person. They might only be feeling a little under the weather, or they might in fact be going through some life-changing, catastrophic event or the death of a near and dear one. Whatever the scale or seriousness of the situation, all of these things illicit from us, emotional states that are triggered by the emotional state of the other. More often than not however, the feelings that we experience are not compassion at all, but sympathy. There is a very big difference between the two.

Feeling sympathetic towards someone is often the immediate gut-response to seeing someone else suffer. Sympathy however is an emotion that at its core, implies a hierarchical structure, where the sympathetic person sees themselves as somehow better or better off than the person to whom the sympathy is directed. It is entirely devoid of of any real understanding of the nature of the other person's suffering and can often leave the sympathetic onlooker perplexed and at a loss as to what they can do to help. Sympathy is bereft of action.

The trouble with sympathy is that it is entirely outward looking and not generated from a heart of true understanding that we are all equal in our sufferings - though each person's suffering may have a distinct quality all its own. Sympathy is generated from the head. It is the result of logical thinking processes, informed by the heart, but ultimately a product of the mind. It recognises pain, sees within it qualities that it has also experienced and reacts in synchronicity with its own fear or concern over the feelings that this particular suffering generates. Compassion on the other hand is the product of the minds logic working in tandem with the feelings that come from the heart. For this to arise however, sympathy must first give way to empathy.

Compassion is a dynamic, powerful and infinitely sublime motive force that by its very nature changes the perceived reality of the recipient and that of the person generating the compassion, and the two become one, even just for a moment.

(Reiki Jin Kei Do: The Way of Compassion & Wisdom, pp 103)

Like it or not, we all experience moments in our lives when we go through deep pain or trauma. Most of us know how highly charged such emotional states can be and how they can often leave us in a state of total emotional paralysis: not knowing what to do, or where to go, or how to resolve the situation or perceive the prospect of any kind of future happiness. We get locked down into our own personal abyss of moment-by-moment suffering and often the only way out, is with the helping hand of another. These sorts of experiences are the catalyst that help us to mature emotionally and enable us to recognise in others the need for assistance when life is challenging for them. We start to develop the quality of empathy.

Empathy is the ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others. To be able to step into their pain and have a true understanding of their suffering; how it feels, where it comes from, what they lack and what they need to become whole again. It is the ability to feel deep inside of their pain and have a profound understanding of it, so much so that our reflective emotional response to it is that it could easily be our own pain that we feel. Empathy much more closely unites the feelings that are derived in the heart through a personal experience of suffering, with the logical understandings of the mind. Empathy however is still of little value in aiding someone who is in need of help. There is no part of an empathetic response that involves action, or any sort of meaningful solution to the other persons problem. Empathy is however a necessary precursor to the development of compassion.

Compassion must not be misunderstood as simply a heightened state of sympathy. This is critical as generally, it does indeed seem to be defined in this way. Compassion is active, sympathy is not. Compassion does not sit there in the heart or mind and simply project feelings of goodness towards the suffering person in a limp-wristed way. At its core, compassion is active and forceful and dynamic and weds the sympathetic mind of understanding, with the empathetic heart of feeling so that right action can be taken. Real compassion involves the recognition that we are duty-bound to do something to ease the suffering of the other person if it is within our means. Compassion however, cannot rightly exist without being informed by wisdom, and wisdom is the product of the mind and the heart working in unison. Whereas compassion is the active force of the heart that draws on the logical and experiential processes of the mind, wisdom is the logic and experiences of the mind drawing on the emotional understandings of the heart. There is a yin-yang relationship at work here - each requires the other to give it meaning and purpose, and indeed existence.

Sometimes we have no choice over whether to take action or not. We may see some terrible tragedy on TV or in the newspapers and feel deep compassion for those involved, but are helpless to do anything about it, other than send our good wishes, prayers, energy etc. If this is the most that we can do, then we should be satisfied that we did this as the effort is not wasted. There are other times where we are indeed able to take specfic action but may choose not too and instead leave the person who is suffering to experience their pain. There are often good reasons for doing so.

All pain, whatever its nature, is ultimately there to teach us something - it has no other purpose. We are required by the life plan that we have chosen to take the pain that meets us on our way through life and experience it to its fullest, and hopefully learn whatever it is that we need to learn from it. Sometimes, the pain can exist simply to push us in another direction because we have got stuck in an old pattern that we have become reluctant to shift. It is at times like these, that the helping hand of another is not always a good thing. It may seem so at the time as the immediate problem is alleviated, but actually, such misplaced help can often lead to a more painful experience further down the road as the lesson has not been learnt. The recognition of whether to aid someone or not is only possible with the help of wisdom. Wisdom however is not discriminatory, and recognises pain and suffering and the need for equable poise, regardless of who the suffering person is or their particular ciricumstances.

Of course, it is quite easy to offer assistance and love to someone that we hold dear or who has perhaps in the past helped us out of a difficult period of our lives. But the true spirit of compassion requires of us that we show kindness and offer our help towards all people, even those that we are indifferent to or might in fact not like very much because of some past hurt that they have inflicted upon us. To offer an unconditional expression of compassion in this way is one of the hardest challenges to face us in life. To realize true freedom and a full expression of the heart however, it is a path that we must take. It is the path of the Bodhisattva. To take this path, firstly we need a correctly orientated view of our own state of suffering and a much more equanimous view of the world around us.

It is easy to see suffering and injustice in the world and want to do something to change this state of affairs. However, the real problem; the place where the fixing needs to happen first, is inside of ourselves. It is our perception of the world and the way that we relate to the problems of the world and the suffering of others that should be the initial focus of our compassion and our efforts to bring healing and harmony. Once we work on ourselves and realize that we too have problems and are in need of compassion, that we too are not always in the right and can make mistakes, and that we need to forgive our ourselves and see ourselves as the rightful recipients of love and understanding, then we can truly begin to empathize with the suffering of others. In this spirit of true understanding, we can then offer active compassion in a way that will not only relieve the person's suffering but also promote a sense of wellbeing and happiness. We bring the wisdom of the mind, forged in the furnace of reflective experience, to bear on the heart-felt desire to do something to ease anothers pain.

Ultimately, we simply have to let go of the emotions that we feel and just be compassion. Compassion, whilst triggered by our own emotional states, needs to take on the quality of equinimity if it is to offer real solutions to the problems that exist in the world, whether on an individual or global level. We need to be able to step back from an emotion-driven response and allow wisdom to permeate our desire to take action and express our compassion. Once we can do this, as a result of our deep engagement with a self-focus on love and understanding, then what we have to offer to others, is not hampered by or coloured by our emotional state and thus there is a greater chance that it has the quality of right action.

Compassion in its fullest sense is indeed about taking action. It is about doing something of value in the world to alleviate the suffering of other beings. But it is a doing that arises out of a correct perception of the nature of reality, our place within it and that of the recipient(s) of our compassionate action. This perception is not arrived at easily and overnight; it is a (re-) learned response to the world that has at its core a commitment and a drive to develop ourselves spiritually and emotionally.

The development of compassion is not simply a bolt-on to the process of our pyschological and emotional maturing. It is one of the fundamental reasons we incarnated here in the first place. The process of allowing the conditions for the arising of unconditional love and compassion for all beings is one that is filled ultimately, with joy. Although we may face many challenges and many dilemmas as our awareness and sense of purpose increase, ultimately compassion and the process of developing compassion, is the key that will release us from the prison of our own mental and emotional dysfunctions.

Many blessings and much metta,

Steve