The Importance of Compassion

I started to name this post, "Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself."

I just read an article in the March/April 2005 issue of AARP The Magazine. (Yeah, I AM that old). The article is titled "Compassion's Fruit" and is written by Karen Armstrong, a former nun turned religious scholar and the author of The Sprial Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004) and Buddha (Penguin, 2001). It nails a truth in which I believe and wish more egotists around the world would practice. I tried to find a link for you, but www.aarpmagazine.org doesn't offer an online printing of this article. Keep checking the link - maybe they will in the future.

Meanwhile, I'll try to paraphrase without losing Ms. Armstrong's eloquence.

She begins by referencing Carl Jung's notion that instead of teaching people to live together in peace, all too often religious leaders concentrate on "marginal issues" such as evolution, women and gay priests or rabbis, or contraception, which tend to "draw attention to the differences between 'us' and 'them.'" Focusing on these divisions gives rise to religious fundamentalism, which often leads to religious hatred. Yet all faiths have, at their core, an agreement on the "supreme importance of compassion," i.e.: the Golden Rule.

There are references to the teachings of compassion by Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, according to the Torah, and the Koran. She points out that early prophets realized that when people put aside greed and selfishness, they were happier. Spiritual enlightenment couldn't be achieved when our egos stood in the way. By preaching the importance of putting ourselves in the shoes of others, and by truly leaving our 'selves' behind, we would find an "experience of ecstasy that is deeper and more permanent" than the temporary thrills we seek through other venues (e.g.: art, music, sex, drugs, sports).

Compassion, however, may not be selective. It must be extended to everyone, even our enemies. Compassion has nothing to do with feelings. It has everything to do with realizing that others have the same fears and sorrows as we do; that others feel just as we feel, regardless of our differing opinions or beliefs. This does not mean we can't feel anger or rage. But if we allow these feelings to grow, or if we act on these feelings, we only hurt ourselves - it will no doubt delight our enemies that they were the cause of it. Giving in to our feelings of rage stems from an overinflated sense of self-importance.

I really like this quote:
"There are some people, I suspect, who would feel obscurely cheated if, when they finally arrived in heaven, they found everybody else there as well. Heaven would not be heaven unless those who reached it could peer over the celestial parapets and watch other unfortunates roasting below."

and this one:
"Auschwitz, the Gulag, and the regime of Saddam Hussein show the fearful cruelty to which humanity is prone when all sense of the sacred has been lost. . . But none of these atrocities could have taken place if people were properly educated in the golden rule. We all live in one world, and we have to learn to reach out in sympathy to people who have different opinions, at home and abroad. We need the compassionate ethic more desperately than ever before."

I haven't done the article justice, I'm afraid.

But I might add: Compassion comforts us as well as others. Through it, we can find an inner peace and hold the world at bay. So what if a co-worker talks behind our back? harboring anger only give us the headache. Understand that the co-worker may be feeling the same kind of jealousy, envy, insecurity that you would feel if you allowed yourself to be affected. Others can only hurt you if you let them. By turning the other cheek, you are rising above the situation, and you will feel the peace and comfort.

And others are watching you. Every day, someone is noticing how you handle situations and what you say and do. Would you not rather project an image of serenity and compassion? Wouldn't you rather be the level headed one? The class act?

I suspect that more people in this world DO practice compassion than the media would have us think. It is the extremists who ignite the fires and create the noise, fueling their own egos and need for attention, . It is generally the quiet multitude who go about their daily lives, helping those in need, trying to do what is right by their own religious creed, and practicing compassion in hundreds of different languages but in one universal definition.

And that's how I see it.