“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Compassion is an essential part of life.
It’s innate in us; but, we can be conditioned against it. We have been conditioned against it.
How do we know what compassion really is?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.
Compassion allows us to deeply relate to each other.
Opening our hearts to empathy with love can be a difficult, even painful experience. The numbness of apathy seems better than aching at the pains of others, doesn’t it?
I assure you it is not. Compassion can be wonderful for purely selfish reasons. It enriches your experience of life; and, feeling compelled to help others, to relate to others, can help you feel better.
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
An excellent talk on compassion is given on the TED blog by Joan Halifax and I highly recommend it.
How do we go about cultivating compassion?
Love, simply.
Try meditating on, or visualizing, your family.
See them. Hear them.
No matter how you might feel about them, do you love them?
Visualize something terrible, tragic happening to one of them.
How do you feel?
Get inside their pain. Can you feel it? Imagine that pain as vividly as you can.
Don’t you want to help them somehow?
Imagine it happened to you. Imagine they want to help you. Feel it.
Practice this regularly.
When this is easy, move on to good friends.
Then more remote friends, acquaintances, strangers…
Notice how much richer your life becomes; how much deeper your feelings go; how much more peaceful, patient and understanding you grow.
Thanks for stopping by my place.
I cannot imagine my life without compassion. I think I came wired that way–If you have a cut or even tell me about it–I will hurt in my body. Nice post.
Thank you, I’m glad you liked the post. It seems so essential to me, but so neglected in daily conversation and the media that I felt the need to write something – then I stumbled upon the TED video and that sealed the deal. It was a pleasure to stop by your blog, I can’t wait to see your progress!
Wade, I enjoyed your post. The TED video was beautifully informative. As a mom, I embrace the idea of teaching our children how to be compassionate. This is one of those things that while not routinely discussed, remains foundational. Without nurturing the seeds of compassion in others, I wonder if we can ever fully realize it in ourselves? I think about all of the times I hear people complain or judge others and it brings me back to this sense of what I can do to transform that perception from one of anger or pity to one of compassion. Definitely makes me look at myself with much more scrutiny some days!
Thanks for your thought provoking post. Hope you’ll stop by my blog again soon.
Sarah
Hi Wade. Thanks for posing those questions. That is a great way of practicising and developing your capacity for compassion! It’s definitely much easier having compassion for those closest to you. It’s also easier to feel compassion for someone who is on the other side of the world who is experiencing hardship, especially if it’s brought to light through the media. But I think it’s harder to develop compassion for those who you may encounter during the course of your normal day. People you run into in the street; in the shops; at work who you don’t have a relationship with. On another note, I just wanted to share with you something that happened to me today. I was at the gym tonight on the treadmill and was watching all the people coming through the door. At first I looked at them and realised I was judging them and I felt bad. I don’t know why but then I began to wonder about who they were and why they were there. What was their reason for being at the gym. I wondered what they had experienced in their lives – what had brought them to this moment. What challenges they had faced and what challenges they were currently facing and if they were hurting. I was wondering what it would be like standing in their shoes. Now this all happened in a matter of seconds. And then something very strange happened…I experienced this overwhelming feeling of compassion. I gagged a little and had to control my emotions and fight back tears welling up in my eyes. When I pulled myself together I found myself no longer judging and got on with my training. It was the strangest thing. By posing the question to myself of someone elses journey, it caused me to re-evaluate and consider someone their perspective.
That’s a beautiful moment, thank you so much for sharing it! I agree, it takes conscious practice (and asking those sort of questions!) to get ourselves out of ourselves, so to speak. Having an experience like yours is powerful and certainly gives one something to reflect on. Sometimes I wonder how we can reverse our anti-compassion culture to make compassion the norm, rather than the exception – but where to begin?
I think your suggestions are a great start Wade. We have to begin with simple steps that we can apply to our daily lives. However, I’ve just finished reading a book on human consciousness and we first have to have an ‘awareness’ before we can begin practicing compassion. A great book I’d recommend…Power Vs Force by David R.Hawkins, M.D., on human consciousness (chaos theory; non-linear dynamics). Powerful book.
Reblogged this on Versatile Blogger Award and commented:
Compassion makes your life better…
Reblogged on VBA… thanks for this…