COMPASSION 1 2 @Ralph Richmond 2008
MOTHER THERESA SAID:
There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.
We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing.
It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.
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Recently a man was referred to me by his physician. For most of his life he had been a
caring man who focused on helping others. He was certified in Emergency Response and
had helped many people in crisis. His wife was an invalid. He worked 12-hour shifts
and took care of most of the household chores and the parenting of the daughter.
He was seeking help because recently he was often irritable and angry. He was arguing
regularly with his wife and on two recent occasions he had put his fist through a wall.
“I don’t know who I am anymore”, he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Most of my life I have been cool headed and calm, like a diplomat. It’s like Dr. Jekyll
has become Mr. Hyde.
“How do you explain this change to yourself?”
He replied, “I am not sure. I’m just agitated all the time.”
I said, “I have a question. When was the last time you did something kind for yourself or
enjoyable?”
He literally sat there in silence for a few minutes. Then he said, “I don’t know.”
I continued, “And that’s the problem. You want to be compassionate and ‘there’ for
others but you deprive yourself and treat yourself harshly. Unless you can be loving and
kind to yourself, you will not be able to give the gift of compassion. Instead you will be
a giver of discord and conflict.”
Our heart can be moved by anger, irritation, jealousy, insecurity, greed as well as loving
– kindness and compassion. What sort of seeds do we plant in our heart garden?
Criticism? Self-rebuke? If we are not proactive about what we plant in our hearts,
unhelpful feeling habits grow. Our hearts are untrained just like out minds. We need to
practice training our hearts, not simply following them. This man I talked about planted
the seed of self-neglect, which grew weeds of anger and irritability. He neglected his
inner garden.
There are unhelpful and unskillful feelings. Can we be mindful of them but not let them
determine what we do? We need to consider, which ones are helpful to our wellbeing and
which might be harmful.
When we consistently get irritable, we practice irritability. When we consistently get
resentful, we are practicing resentment.
One helpful mindfulness method is to observe our feelings and say, “Hmmm, so that is
irritability. Hmmm, so that is how anger is.”
It is important not to identify the feeling as mine becaue feelings are like thoughts. They
are not necessarily facts. They come from some place and they return. All the thoughts
in our minds are not necessarily thoughts we think. Neither are the feelings. Can we
observe thoughts and feelings and then choose which ones are helpful to us and which
ones are not?
We do not want to repress feelings but we also don’t want them to automatically guide
our lives or our behaviour without our due consideration. We want to remain mindful of
what is happening moment by moment.
Krsa’s compassion awakened when she was moved by the human drama. The
observation that everyone suffers shifted her from ‘my’ suffering to ‘our’ suffering.
Compassion touches us when we let our heart be touched by the suffering of others.
Compassion is another mindfulness practice. The more we practice, the more
compassion enters our heart garden and gets expressed in our lives. Because all beings
suffer, the entire world, day by day, is an opportunity in which we can practice
compassion.
Every time we feel loving – kindness or act in a compassionate manner towards another,
this is the heart-state we strengthen. Our hearts and minds are present in everything we
do, so every action is our practice and shows us the state of our inner heart garden.
The compassion meditation we will practice today is a way to sow helpful seeds of
concern for others into our heart garden.
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1. ‘A Heart Full of Peace’ by Joseph Goldstein
2. ‘A Path With Heart’ by Jack Kornfield