Compassion
Pete LaTona
July 09, 2009
If you are careful to catch your initial response to the word compassion, you most likely will think of a scenario like a photo of a starving child or families picking up the pieces after being hit by a tornado; and you will feel great sorrow for these people. You will want to do something to help them and this you think, it a show of compassion. Thus, so many of us confuse sympathy with compassion.
Compassion is a word readily bandied about, yet we do not understand the concept or the dynamics of its actual practice. Compassion has nothing to do with feeling sorry for someone. Compassion is taking oneself out of your body and inhabiting the body of another, so that you are feeling what they are feeling. Not imagining what it must feel like. Not feeling sorry for their plight. You are experiencing for yourself the exact same feeling they are experiencing. Easily said, but difficult to do. Our ego gets in the way. Our ego does not want to disappear long enough for us to experience what another is feeling. Our ego is selfish by nature.
Confucius stated a golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We have all heard this and agree with it in theory, but few have dug into the depths of what Confucius was requiring us to implement. The golden rule was not something to keep in our back pocket, so we can pull it out when we want to be good. It was a way of life! It was a rule to be followed each and every minute of everyday. In every interaction with another person you must diligently make sure you do not do anything to them, that you would not want them to do to you. If you think this sounds easy, then try it for a day and see how often you cross the line.
A Rabbi in the 2nd century AD, was asked to explain the entire Torah while standing on one leg (explain it as simply as possible). He replied, "Do not do unto others that which you would hate them to do unto you". "All the rest is just commentary." "Go study." In other words, although there are volumes of words in the written Torah, all these volumes are just commentary on the simple golden rule of do not do unto others what you would hate them to do unto you. Does this sound a little bit like Confucius?
I bring up this discussion on compassion because it is a solution to all of our global crises. If we were constantly diligent in not doing something to another person that we would not like; if a business would not do something to another business that they would not like; if a nation would not do something do another nation that they would not like; if man would not do something to nature that they would not like; we would not recognize our world. If we learn true compassion and we learn to experience what another is feeling, then we are going to do whatever we can in our power to help that person feel good because it is too painful to feel their suffering.
Personally, I don´t thing we can buy our way, govern our way, strategize our way or positive think our way out of this global mess. We are on a highway to hell unless we do something to change ourselves. I submit that elevating true compassion beyond where we now elevate power, fame and money, would be a huge first step. Use your imagination and visualize a world where the golden rule governed our behavior. How much different our days would be as I focus on treating others well as they focus on treating me well? Our societies would begin taking care of each other instead of manipulating each other for personal gain. The power of synergy so often spoken about could actually be actualized, for the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We would all become organs in one body acting in unison for the health of the body.
I think we have two choices. One is to do something to change our nature and become compassionate and follow the golden rule. The second is going down the path of even greater and greater sufferings. Make no mistake; there is a bottom far beneath where we are now. It is a bottom we should avoid at all costs and we have it within our power to do so.
Compassion is a word readily bandied about, yet we do not understand the concept or the dynamics of its actual practice. Compassion has nothing to do with feeling sorry for someone. Compassion is taking oneself out of your body and inhabiting the body of another, so that you are feeling what they are feeling. Not imagining what it must feel like. Not feeling sorry for their plight. You are experiencing for yourself the exact same feeling they are experiencing. Easily said, but difficult to do. Our ego gets in the way. Our ego does not want to disappear long enough for us to experience what another is feeling. Our ego is selfish by nature.
Confucius stated a golden rule of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." We have all heard this and agree with it in theory, but few have dug into the depths of what Confucius was requiring us to implement. The golden rule was not something to keep in our back pocket, so we can pull it out when we want to be good. It was a way of life! It was a rule to be followed each and every minute of everyday. In every interaction with another person you must diligently make sure you do not do anything to them, that you would not want them to do to you. If you think this sounds easy, then try it for a day and see how often you cross the line.
A Rabbi in the 2nd century AD, was asked to explain the entire Torah while standing on one leg (explain it as simply as possible). He replied, "Do not do unto others that which you would hate them to do unto you". "All the rest is just commentary." "Go study." In other words, although there are volumes of words in the written Torah, all these volumes are just commentary on the simple golden rule of do not do unto others what you would hate them to do unto you. Does this sound a little bit like Confucius?
I bring up this discussion on compassion because it is a solution to all of our global crises. If we were constantly diligent in not doing something to another person that we would not like; if a business would not do something to another business that they would not like; if a nation would not do something do another nation that they would not like; if man would not do something to nature that they would not like; we would not recognize our world. If we learn true compassion and we learn to experience what another is feeling, then we are going to do whatever we can in our power to help that person feel good because it is too painful to feel their suffering.
Personally, I don´t thing we can buy our way, govern our way, strategize our way or positive think our way out of this global mess. We are on a highway to hell unless we do something to change ourselves. I submit that elevating true compassion beyond where we now elevate power, fame and money, would be a huge first step. Use your imagination and visualize a world where the golden rule governed our behavior. How much different our days would be as I focus on treating others well as they focus on treating me well? Our societies would begin taking care of each other instead of manipulating each other for personal gain. The power of synergy so often spoken about could actually be actualized, for the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. We would all become organs in one body acting in unison for the health of the body.
I think we have two choices. One is to do something to change our nature and become compassionate and follow the golden rule. The second is going down the path of even greater and greater sufferings. Make no mistake; there is a bottom far beneath where we are now. It is a bottom we should avoid at all costs and we have it within our power to do so.
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