Intro to Compassion

Compassion (from Latin: "co-suffering") is a virtue —one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy (for the suffering of others) are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnectedness and humanism —foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.

Compassion for others creates connectedness. When we can begin looking at everyone with more compassion, we then realize that we are all on this planet together. I think many people forget that the world doesn't revolve around them or their schedule. We all rise to the same sun and fall asleep under the same moon.

When we were kids, we were taught that strangers were to be feared, avoided, distrusted. "Don't talk to strangers" translated to "Strangers are bad". People aren't strangers to be avoided or faceless robots. They are single moms, someone's grandpa, a little girls' daddy, your new best friend, a lonely man without a home or a family, maybe an elderly woman who has to go back to work after she thought she had gotten to retire. Everyone is connected in some way. Everyone has a story, too. I really became aware of this in Los Angeles. In the vast array of people, I had to find a way to cope with the mass of traffic and crowds. I had to find a way to see this giant maze as something more personal. Even the simple act of letting someone in front of you at the grocery store who has less in their basket than you do is a first step in the right direction of compassion and understanding. If any of you have driven in a big city, we all know how frustrating it can be when other drivers don't let us in their lane, cut us off, etc merely out of principal. Dallas drivers are notorious for this kind of behavior. We have probably done this before, too. Don't allow yourself to do this. This behavior creates anger and only perpetuates the cycle. Again, we must remember, we are all in this crazy, beautiful, confusing, magnificent, cruel world together. Once we realize that everyone has that right, we won't feel so entitled to being the center of the universe.

Happiness 101

Don't wait for happiness until you have: A better job, more money, lose weight, buy a house, sell your house, a partner, graduate college, pay off debts, etc. It is always a good time to be happy. We can choose to be happy if we are open to change our perspective and heighten our awareness. Don't wait for happiness to be attached to a tangible thing or based on "progress". Happiness and joy are not attached to goals or things. Our lives are fleeting and we are gone in such a short time. Life is for enjoying in the now, not for climbing and searching for happiness in these cookie jars we've created.

Self-Involvement, by Ani Pema Chodron

We might think that knowing ourselves is a very ego-centered thing, but by beginning to look so clearly and so honestly at ourselves-at our emotions, at our thoughts, at who we really are-we begin to dissolve the walls that separate us from others. Somehow all of these walls, these ways of feeling separate from everything else and everyone else, are made up of opinions. They are made up of dogma; they are made of prejudice. These walls come from our fear of knowing parts of ourselves.

There is a Tibetan teaching that is often translated as, Self-cherishing is the root of all suffering. It can be hard for a Western person to hear the term "self-cherishing" without misunderstanding what is being said.


Self-cherishing refers to how we try to protect ourselves by fixating; how we put up walls so that we won't have to feel discomfort or lack of resolution. That notion of self-cherishing refers to the erroneous belief that there could be only comfort and no discomfort, or the belief that there could be only happiness and no sadness, or the belief that there could be just good and no bad.

But what the Buddhist teachings point out is that we could take a much bigger perspective, one that is beyond good and evil. Classifications of good and bad come from lack of maitri. We say that something is good if it makes us feel secure and it's bad if it makes us feel insecure. That way we get into hating people who make us feel insecure and hating all kinds of religions or nationalities that make us feel insecure. And we like those who give us ground under our feet.

When we are so involved with trying to protect ourselves, we are unable to see the pain in another person's face. "Self-cherishing" is ego fixating and grasping: it ties our hearts, our shoulders, our head, our stomach, into knots. We can't open. Everything is in a knot. When we begin to open we can see others and we can be there for them. But to the degree that we haven't worked with our own fear, we are going to shut down when others trigger our fear.

So to know yourself is to forget yourself. This is to say that when we make friends with ourselves we no longer have to be so self-involved. It's a curious twist: making friends with ourselves is a way of not being so self-involved anymore. Then Dogen Zen-ji goes on to say, "To forget yourself is to become enlightened by all things".

When we are not so self-involved, we begin to realize that the world is speaking to us all of the time. Every plant, every tree, every animal, every person, every car, every airplane is speaking to us, teaching us, awakening us. It's a wonderful world, but we often miss it. It's as if we see the previews of coming attractions and never get to the main feature.

When we feel resentful or judgmental, it hurts us and it hurts others. But if we look into it we might see that behind the resentment there is fear and behind the fear there is a tremendous softness. There is a very big heart and a huge mind-a very awake, basic state of being. To experience this we begin to make a journey, the journey of unconditional friendliness toward the self that we already are.

(Happy Birthday to Ani Pema Chodron, July 20th)