What is Compassion?

‘A heart awakened enough to feel the need of others above its

own.’

In our lives, we have had many experiences where we have been

compassionate or received the compassion of others. Compassion isn’t
something we don’t already know about. We are all basically, instinctively,
compassionate beings. We all have the wish to do some good to benefits
others.
What then is compassion? How can we best work with compassion?
How does compassion fit in with our daily lives? and what practices can we
do to augment our compassion and evolve and change our habits and
characteristics to become Bodhisattvas?
Compassion is seeing and knowing the suffering of others clearly as
suffering, and deeply understanding the causes of this suffering, and being
so moved that one steadfastly determines to do what it takes to end
suffering. The more we contemplate suffering, our minds develop a deep
sensitivity to know not only suffering, but also its causes, which naturally
will give rise to a wish to end the causes of suffering. This is not a new
concept. Everyone wishes to end suffering. We all hope that we won’t bump
into sufferings and won’t create the causes of more suffering.
Compassion shouldn’t be seen as some kind of Mahayanist idea, or
something specific to Buddhism. Compassion emerges from loving
kindness, and it is the basic instinct of all living beings. Even a mother bird
looking for food with the desire to relieve her young of hunger is a display
of intrinsic nature of compassion. The mother bird may risk her life,
traveling in dangerous places and flying great distances, not thinking of
herself or her hunger, but only of relieving the hunger of her young.
 Every single sentient being, according to Mahayana Buddhist
philosophy, has this basic goodness, to love, to give and relieve the pain the
pain of others. This basic goodness is called Buddha Nature. It is a heart that
has awakened enough to feel the need of others above itself.

They say that at the moment compassion arises in our minds, we cannot
produce suffering at the same time for ourselves or others. We create
instead only the causes of happiness and relieve the sufferings of others. The
sufferings of people in samsara is such that they have completely
imprisoned themselves in this perpetual wandering cycle, following the
same patterns and mental formations, all based on selfishness, so much so
that they don’t know how to dislodge themselves from it.
They are not aware that it is this very selfishness that is the cause of their
suffering. They have lost touch with their intrinsic nature, to do good for
others, to relieve the suffering of others and relinquish their selfish
thoughts. Practicing and cultivating compassion regularly is like watering a
seed that will dislodge oneself and others from the suffering of samsara. A
well nurtured seed will grow into a healthy tree that can flourish and be a
great support for many beings by providing oxygen, food and a home to
many living beings. But those huge trees weren’t huge in the beginning, and,
just like our compassion, can so easily falter in the early stages without the
right attention and guidance. We must water it, put a little fence around it,
protect it from extreme weather and nurture it so it grows into a healthy
strong tree of great compassion, becoming a source of inspiration and hope
for others.

A preliminary obstacle to the development of compassion can be a lack

of compassion for oneself. Although in the traditional teachings and ancient
texts it is never said we should not develop self-love, there was not much
necessity in ancient times as most people didn’t have the complexity of self-
hate and self-esteem issues. But in modern times, teachers and teachings
have become exposed to a different audience with different needs. The
present climate and culture are one in which people suffer primarily from
lack of self-love and self-respect. These problems where not ordinary in
ancient times. We don’t seem to like ourselves very much. Not only have we
cultivated a culture which alienates each other, but we have become
alienated even from ourselves. In order to remove this hindrance to
developing compassion, many teachers have found it useful for people to
first do practices to develop self-respect, self-love and self-compassion
before engaging in a practice of compassion towards others. If we don’t feel
deserving, we’re probably not going to do anything good for ourselves, let
alone anybody else. We first have to be acceptable to ourselves. We have to
recognise and accept the great potential and pure Buddha Nature in
ourselves and find ourselves worthy of respect, love and compassion and
worthy of giving respect love and compassion. It’s not a bad idea to develop
loving kindness to oneself first. If we don’t know the Buddha Nature within
ourselves and hold that as valuable with great dignity, then we probably
wouldn’t acknowledge the Buddha Nature that others have and hold them
as valuable and worthy of great compassion.
The best person to know our strengths and weaknesses and intrinsic
potentials are ourselves. We need to give ourselves time to evaluate and
assess ourselves. We need to take the time to see how we have been, what
we are doing or not doing, and where we are going. We need to be more
aware of how we are allowing self-hatred to continue, and take action to
guide ourselves in the right direction, and do the practices that will help us
make these changes. That unawareness, is what allows self-hatred to
continue. If we have self-hatred or low self-esteem, how can we possibly
develop the positive thoughts of generating kindness and compassion
towards others. In the wisdom teachings, others are simply reflections of the
ourselves and how we impute them. We will always only see others in the
same light as we see ourselves. Later in this book, practices will be described
that will help to develop self-respect and a healthy self-love.

Compassion must be consistently cultivated. It’s not something you do

once a week during a ritual or Sadhana and then go back to “normal”. In the
teachings of the Buddha’s Eightfold Noble Path, it is said that the most
important attribute to have is ‘right attitude’. When we have this right
attitude, it manifests into right thoughts, right words and right actions.
Having the right attitude determines the intention of any action we
undertake. When we don’t check if we are acting with right attitude, we
simply repeat old habitual patterns and don’t give rise to any innovation,
any intelligence, any ingenuity or any caring in our actions. Is our consistent
attitude based on relieving suffering with love, kindness and compassion, or
is it always and attitude of gaining something for ourselves with selfishness
and grasping?

Compassion Towards Objects of Enmity and Enemies

Don’t keep anyone on a blacklist! The cause of enmity is usually that the
other person did something that we don’t like. When someone causes us to
suffer, instead of resorting to hate or dislike or striking back, we must
approach them and the situation with wisdom and compassion. With
wisdom we can contemplate how much more suffering it must be being the
perpetrator and doing such a thing? Knowing the law of cause and effect we
can be confident that situation arose due to karma and the perpetrator will
have to undergo the result of their action. We don’t need to punish them or
be angry ourselves. The situation was interdependent, and it was something
in us that also contributed to the situation knowingly or unknowingly. We
needed to experience that issue with that person karmically. If we accept
this and we do not retaliate or harbor resentment and anger, we will not
perpetuate and increase the karma that created the negative situation and
instead it will be dissipated. This is using wisdom.
Then we compassionately contemplate that the person who has caused
us some trouble, will have to now suffer the result of their karma they have
inflicted. That is when we discover the cause of suffering –it is not what the
other person did to us but what the other person has done to themselves.
Lacking wisdom and compassion, lost in Samsara, and not knowing the
nature of reality, they create suffering for themselves. Our own personal
involvement is only a catalyst for our development in Dharma. Their
suffering leads to more suffering, but our suffering, because we are Dharma
practitioners, will lead us to the end of suffering. So, we don’t perpetuate the
situation. Seeing the wisdom and compassion of thinking like this opens up
a new perception. A Great Compassion arises to see the suffering that people
create without even knowing. Then we feel deeply hurt, not because it
harms us, not based on enmity, but sadness for the other. Sadness for the
other is a Great beginning for the Great Compassion.
When we start thinking in this way, there may be great despair and
hopelessness at the very beginning. We may feel like giving up because the
suffering is so great and sentient because are so confused and misguided.
We can’t even show the person how things are and tell them what they are
doing to themselves. They are also victims of Samsara and causes and
conditions. They don’t really know what they are doing. We wish we could
do more, and we feel helpless. From anger, to resentment, to sadness, to
helplessness. Then we can begin to be inspired by the wisdom of the
Buddha’s.
By cultivating the Great Compassion, we come to the difficult situation
and become a source of healing and love. We deal with the situation with
kindness and tolerance. When we have that gentle warmth radiating
through our practice of loving-kindness then whatever wrong the person
has done, it becomes the cause of sadness and compassion. We love them
because we understand, and we have become wise. This is how we bring
healing wherever we go. Anger cannot be overcome by resentment. Anger
can only be overcome by love.
Compassion is the great medicine, the great panacea cures and heals all.
It stops all present and future suffering of oneself and others and it
ultimately ends the suffering of all sentient beings. We can restore ourselves
and the person perpetrating to our rightful place as Buddha’s in an instant
by practicing the wisdom of letting go and seeing the nature of reality and in
another instant by forgiveness and sadness and love. We can remove this
person and that person from our blacklist and one day there will be no-one
left that we hate. Everybody will be an object of love and they are welcomed
to stay with love.
We inherit hatred, teach each other how to hate and learn to hate again
and again. By cultivating love, not listening to a bad word against another,
and using skilful means to deal with difficult people we can always remain
with the heart of a Bodhisattva and a source of compassion for sentient
beings. We become mindful of our thoughts and feelings and as soon as
anger and enmity arise, we expel it as quickly as possible. We decide not to
allow it to stay.
This training must be done to progress on the path.