Compassion : A Way of Seeing?

    On my way home from the Buddhist class today, I was thinking about what "compassion" feels or looks like to me. I sometimes find it difficult to relate to compassion, so I have been reflecting on what it means to be compassionate, exactly. The dictionary definition of compassion is the desire to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings. But, in order to truly cultivate compassion, we need to be clear within our hearts that we are suffering, as well as just what we are suffering from. So I think that compassion and wisdom go hand in hand. Without wisdom, there is no real grounds for compassion, since one could argue that we could theoretically end suffering just by having more things, more money and the like. On the other hand, a wisdom lacking in compassion might turn out to be very dry and abstract. It does not have the softness or lightness of being that could accommodate the needs of sentient beings.

    Firstly, I think compassion needs to be gentle. It cannot have hard boundaries around it that are governed by absolute rules, likes or dislikes. This is because a compassionate mentality does not reject a situation as unworkable. It tries to see each difficulty as an opportunity for people to let go of their attachments and connect to a deeper reality. Saying that something is "awful" (to use Albert Ellis's REBT term) or to "castastrophize" about the future, is clearly not compassionate, because it adds misery to difficulties. Making grand statements about how terrible and dark a situation is would be like dropping a large brick on one's foot! It really doesn't help to think in absolutistic ways.

   Secondly, I think compassion needs to be global. It can't just be about the people I happen to "like" or who are similar to me. There has to be some way that all beings fall into the compassionate purview, simply by virtue of how deeply sentient beings' lives are pervaded by suffering. If we visualize even the most abrasive person who causes the most evil and suffering imaginable, we also need to realize the pain that person is in to wreak such havoc, as well as the suffering they continue to create for themselves. There needs to be a broad universality around compassion; it needs to unconditionally envelop all being.

    Thirdly, compassion is unconditional. It does not evaluate one life as somehow more worthy of living than another. Here, I think there needs to be a deep appreciation for life, similar to what Albert Schweiter (another Albert!) refers to as "reverence for life". Do we extend unconditional acceptance to ourselves? I would have to say I don't. This is because I will secretly condemn myself for not doing certain things with a certain kind of intensity, and will even berate myself for not being perfect at something--both of which are attitudes lacking in compassion.

    That all being said, I don't think it is easy for me to cultivate compassion. An anxious person in particular is continually worried about a future that often doesn't happen to come to fruition, yet the anxiety clouds the positive that is in each experience.  Being unconditionally accepting of ourselves and others takes a lot of courage, particularly the courage to break out of patterns of self-criticism---thinking we constantly need to struggle to prove ourselves to the world rather than allow everything to be the way it is, including the painful moments of life, but with an attitude of softness, knowing it's illusion and it's not who we truly are inside. Thus, compassion is a very long and difficult journey which requires a small light of warmth to spark from within and to gradually grow over time.