A "Compassionate" Thought Experiment

 
    Whenever you are in a  crowded commute, try to imagine the following: every being  on the bus or subway is  someone that you will  eventually encounter or have  encountered before. If you have not encountered that person recently, it is simply because the causes and conditions haven't yet  ripened  for it to happen.  And there is an infinite stretch of time available to encounter all the beings, so there is no need to worry about meeting everyone in a single lifetime.
    Now the second part of this exercise is to contemplate: what would it be like if we had something that these beings don't have, and they have something we don't have? It would be as though each of one us were puzzle pieces in a totality, and we were entrusted to somehow  figure out how the pieces interlock with each other. But the interesting thing is that the more I reach out to other beings to find out what is missing and how my piece complements theirs', the more I  question: who is this "I" anyway? If what I have to give  is always a part in the whole, where does my piece begin and where does it end? Is it not the case that we are always influenced by  the way others interact with us?
     To put in in a slightly different way  that is more understandable: at any given moment, what "I" have experienced is never completely whole, because there is always some potential new experience to encounter. I have certain distinct functions based on my previous experiences: skills, habits, and ways of thinking that have been influenced by my education, interests, work life, and so on. But at the same time, none of this collection of experiences and education is ever 'completed'.  It is always being applied to the present moment where there are endless possibilities, combinations and new experiences with others. Furthermore, one can never say that they are ever completely independent, since they are always intermingling with new experiences. The 'self' we conceive to be our identity is never closed off, but it is influenced by what happens around it.
     Now, in a concrete situation, how might this viewpoint influence the way I interact with people or view them? One thing is that it curbs the tendency to view other people with a self-reference. Typically, I see people in terms of likes, dislikes and indifference. I crave to be with those I like (to the point of wanting to think about them a lot), while I try to avoid those who I dislike (to satisfy my desire to be happy) and I disregard those who are neither harmful nor particularly beneficial. This view is selfish, because it only sees people in terms of the self and its comforts. The previous experiment suggests that we can curb this view when we start to see a bigger picture of our encounters with other beings. While we do have gifts to develop, these gifts are always unfolding in the context  of a totality. No being is excluded from that totality, since each part interacts with every other part (directly or indirectly).
    The second point is that it converts desires and dislikes into something quite different. I am not sure how to describe it. I was at the subway this morning and I asked myself: how does my experience of people around me  change when I realize that all of this is a totality, and there are no completely separate identities? It doesn't necessarily cause me to feel loving toward everyone, but it converts my experience to one of endless becoming and possibility. What I am seeing 'now' is not the full picture and nor can it ever be complete. It is endlessly moving toward something else that is unknowable but is all-encompassing. In a sense, when I like or dislike, I am already limiting those possibilities, as though I have attached a fixed meaning to something that can never truly be fixed.
     What I have described is just a kind of thought experiment, and it is likely to change over time. But perhaps it is a starting point to viewing people in different ways.