Compassion is a very large idea. But in order to make it a practical idea, we can see how it can become right-sized. If we conjure images of Mother Teresa, Gandhi or the Dalai Lama we are likely conjuring something inherently out-sized, that we can never attain. These outsized images are not only unrealisitc, they often serve to make us feel small. We have enough in our lives that make us feel defeated. It is important that we learn to stick up for ourselves. If we are making ourselves weak, we are hurting ourselves and helping no one. Thinking it’s up to us to bring peace on earth sounds good, but in reality, it is quite egotistical.
And yet, the world needs our help.
So, how can we make this large picture practical for us? We can begin by loooking at ourselves, as we are. How can compassion make my life a better place? What can I do today to make my life easier and more productive so that I may better serve? This is not selfish, it’s practical. However, trying to make my life better than someone else’s, or a better place for only me and mine, is selfish because it’s narrow minded and myopic. Compassion is developing the tools to care for ourselves so that we can care for other beings. But, we are one of those beings. In fact, until we learn to effectively care for ourselves we will be unable to care for others.
Remember the old trope of the oxygen mask? On board a distressed plane we are instructed to place our own oxygen mask on first before we help our children. This is not selfish, it is practical. From a spiritual point of view, when our life is in distress, it is not selfish to care for yourself. However, it is important to care in helpful and appropriate ways. On a plane in distress we don’t finish our drink first before we help anyone else. Unfortunately, in life, when we are in distress we often similarly grasp for remedies that do not help anyone. We are falling and grabbing at suitcases that only add more weight. There is a difference between helping ourselves to relief and isolation, and helping ourselves so that we can connect to others. This is very important.
Caring for our “inner child” is important in developing the self compassion that lies as the foundation for compassion. Yet is every time our inner child is frightened, we retreat to the bath we are only supporting the bubble bath companies. Our inner-child needs leadership and good parenting. Compassion is developing trust in our executive functioning so we can help ourselves appropriately. Laying in the bath can be a helpful act of self care. But doing this every time we are triggered means we need to care for ourselves in ways that build our resilience. Restoring ourselves is important, but refusing to move on to action only builds insecurity. For compassion to be practical it has to be a living part of our life. Living compassion serves to build our life. It is practical and grounded in humble acceptance. Yet, its possibilities are vast. If we avoid defensive self-centeredness, we can raise our gaze and see that we have a world bigger than we ever thought possible.
If we are grasping to an idea or a concept that is self-aggrandizing, we are adding pressures that are self-defeating. But with humble acceptance of who we are right now we can develop the faith in ourselves to move mountains. Developing a healthy self-regard is not egotism. It is securing the base from which we are able to be of real value to our world. There is nothing, in my experience, more rewarding than genuinely helping someone. And there is nothing, in my experience, more debilitating than grasping for someone’s approval. Faith in ourselves is the proverbial faith of the mustard seed. We are only the size we are. And that is all we need to be to move mountains of doubt.
Self-aggrandizement is natural. But it is limiting because we are clinging to something that is not real. We are building concepts of what we think we should be, rather than discovering who we are. If we imagine ourselves as more than we are, we will always be disappointed. THe same is true of believing we are less-than. The false humility of flogging ourselves for imperfections we perceive is just thinly disguised egotism. “Masochistic narcissism” is when we beat ourselves up over the pain we feel, or that we think others are feeling. We are not helping them by pulling our hair out. We are making ourselves feel important, by making our pain important. “Look at me, my compassion is such that I am crying for the world” is very dramatic. But it is not helping anyone.
Yet, if we accept that we are a work-in-progress then we can learn to gain confidence in ourselves. Self-aggrandizement, like the arrogance it engenders, covers leads to a lack of belief in ourselves. We know inside that we are not the ideal, and so believe we are less than the ideal. But that truth is if we can accept ourselves and vow to discover what we become, we are committing to a path of supporting ourselves. As we develop self-awareness, we naturally gain regard for ourselves. And though this regard for ourselves we begin to see others more clearly. Freed of the veils of defensive self interest we begin to see that we are not as estranged from our world as we had imagined.
By protecting our heart, we are seeing ourselves and learning to see others as family.
Our friend and co-teacher Sarah reminded me today that we are not material beings in a spiritual world, but spiritual beings in a material world. Similarly, we are not selfish beings trying to find compassion. We are compassion itself, working to heal a selfish world. The next time we think we can’t do it, it may be good to know realize that we already are.
With meditation practice we are training to notice subtler and more ordinary moments that stop the mind. And perhaps more importantly, we learn to accept these authentic moments, as they are, without commentary for longer periods of time. This serves to infiltrate the wall of separation that we fabricate to keep ourselves isolated from life. You might say, we are turning the lights on to our life. If our mind is supple enough, we can see all life as alive and interactive. In time, we see ourselves as a part of everything rather than struggling to overcome anything. In popular culture, this is known as being one with everything. In Meditation traditions this is known as non-dual experience. Nondual experiences are instances of clear perception when we are directly connected to the moment as opposed to dualistic experiences when we are separated out and looking in.
In meditation theory, the sun is used as a depiction of awareness. The sun shines on everything equally regardless of whether it is blocked by the moon, the clouds or the turning earth. Awareness is alive and awake in the universe whether or not we are conscious of it. It is the work of the meditator to uncover the veils of self-imposed obscuration that block access to awareness. We notice thoughts that are actually quite small in the scheme, and bring our attention back to the space afforded by the breath. As we do this, we are stepping back from the thought and revealing a larger context. Our blockage might appear less significant, even humorous. Over time, these obscurations become less solid and less imbued with “meaning”. They become right-sized. Sometimes they disappear altogether. Although the significant obscurations require less force, but more patience. Some will likely return. When that happens we are faced with the same task. Notice them as thinking, and return to the breath. This reconnects us to space, which is perspective. It sucks that we often have to be fooled again and again but that is the work of creating access to awareness. That sunlight will, in time, permeate our experience, but there is a lot of slogging to get there.
I tend to live life from one project to the next, believing that -despite all prior experience- this time I will get it right. This diet, this financial plan, this meditation, this love. Especially this love. True Love. That’s the one that gets me. Each love I fall into becomes my center of being. I have always failed to see that my relationship to loving has all the hallmarks of classic addiction. In his masterwork, The Art of Loving, psychologist Erich Fromm defined “true love” as two people who were both ready for the same thing at the same time. He specifically nudged the reader away from the idea that we were part of something special. But, despite the slight-of-hand of hormonal urges, true love is not destiny. True love, like life itself, is a random occurrence that happened to succeed. Life is opportunistic. Einstein famously said, “God doesn’t play dice with the universe”. It seems, even a thinker as profoundly creative as Albert still searched for the occasional guarantee. If the universe doesn’t play dice it may be because dice only has 36 outcomes. The perplexing game of Go that has kept humans intrigued for 4,000 years, has less than 11,000 possible outcomes. If the universe is playing with us, It is using a much more vast and complex system than any game our brains can presently conjure. And, yet, within that ocean of possibility, we find that apple trees always breed apple trees. This interesting paradox is central to our existential being. Life is random and there are repetitive patterns throughout.
When emotions run high, the fear mind takes over and latches onto simple answers. And naturally, we believe we are right. This feeling of righteousness wants retribution and dismisses the inclusion of societal and familial issues as pandering snowflakery. The Buddha spoke of Karma as the law of cause and effect. He also spoke of the interdependence of every event to all else. Despite conditioned tendencies toward black and white binaries, the Buddha saw that the causes of any event are myriad and nuanced. This would seem frustrating to the raging defensive mind latching onto rightandwrong. But a reactive mind is generally devoid of nuance or compassion. Compassion doesn’t mean kindness to those who’ve caused harm. It means understanding those who cause harm.
One of the ways we rob ourselves, and reduce our life is by demanding ownership of our experience. And ownership implies controlling the process and the outcome of what we own. But our life is not property. Life is a self-existing dynamic with our past and our world, unfolding naturally as a flower grows and unfolds. Ideally. But, as it is our life, we want what we want to occur in ways we want them to occur. And we want this in our time-frame. Like standing over a flower and yelling at it to grow faster. Or, maybe we are shaming, intimidating or manipulating the flower. Or maybe, more generously, we try coaching the flower to be its best self.
Acknowledging how we are actually feeling is an important step in our fresh start. “I’m still feeling guilty”, “I’m still angry”. Felt senses often remain, like a veil over our next moment. Wiping the sleep from our eyes, we sometimes wake in the morning with echoes of our night’s dreaming like a cloak around us. Sometimes we don’t remember the details of the dream, but the feeling remains. Maybe this points to something peculiar in our daily life. The story is often ephemeral, while the feelings are more tangible. This experience is the opposite of our conventional approach where we believe thoughts and ignore our feelings. We attach to our version of events while diminishing or ignoring how we feel. But our version of events relies on thoughts. And thoughts are notoriously unreliable.
