(Part Two) The Urgency of Compassion

Our Common Humanity

If you think about today’s society, even with such progress that developed countries have made in the last several decades, it’s not just emotional issues that remain but social problems like inequality, inequity, and all the biases that we have like racial biases, gender biases, the rich and poor gap, and ideological kinds of bias. This is a reflection of what we are not paying attention to, our shared human reality that these others are human beings just like us. We need to overcome bias and prejudice by seeing our common humanity.

Right now, to maintain this social distancing that we are doing, how would that be possible for us if people in the agricultural industry, the grocery stores and the like, if they quit doing what they do? People working in the electricity industry and all the people who are risking their lives, they’re out there day in and day out for us, helping people that need help. The healthcare workers helping patients that need help.

This is such a poignant moment to make visible our interdependence. When we attune to this interdependence in what we receive from others, in how others are so crucial for what we have, we can’t help but feel this warm feeling towards others, warmheartedness. Compassion is all about emotion. It is a felt sense, a deep-felt concern that desires others to be free.

Compassion and Emotion

You must have heard the expression that our perspectives shape our emotions. Think about a gangster, let’s say. One person sees this gangster from a child’s perspective, he’s a father that is kind and caring and showers the child with gifts, comfort, and love. Another person sees this gangster as a person that hurts. So, the perspectives make a difference, the perspectives drive our emotions. That’s what’s at the heart of the emotional kind of unfolding.

Paul Ekman is an expert on emotions, the scientific study of emotions. He talks about how events don’t trigger emotions in themselves, it’s your appraisal that makes the event trigger you or not. Compassion is an emotional state certainly, but the cognitive processes can help us control those afflictive emotions.

Even though a person is potentially very harmful towards us, to see that, yes, this person is capable of hurting us and others and himself or herself also, seeing that a person is capable but understanding where this person is coming from. When a patient acts violently under the influence of illness, a caring physician is not angry at the patient. Similarly, the enlightened beings see the destructive emotions as the problem, not the people with the destructive emotions. So, think about this for a moment. It’s about our attitude towards that person, not their actions. We can see that this person’s actions are harmful. We need to protect ourselves; we need to protect others; we need to protect this person from his or her own harmful actions if there is a possibility. But at least to protect ourselves from this person’s harmful actions.

Blame the Action, Not the Person

Another beautiful metaphor that Shantideva gives us is fire. Fire. Do we hate fire because it’s hot? We use fire for cooking and keeping us warm and all those things right? You know we don’t necessarily hate it, but do we need to jump into the fire simply to show we don’t hate the fire, that we value fire? No, because we are aware that fire has the capacity to burn us. Here is the same thing. When a person is under siege from certain emotional states, that person is helpless, and they are capable of hurting others and themselves. So, therefore compassion, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, is that you should blame the action, not the person.

This is where embracing our human condition becomes so important. We talk about self-compassion. Self-compassion has to do with accepting our human condition, that we do have vulnerabilities, we do have dispositions. The makeup of our biology is such that the data we do have on it shows that even the brain is so deeply conditioned. If there is a certain threat, it will release all those stress hormones and so forth. This is how nature has endowed us to protect ourselves. This is so deep in us. So, it’s not just that reacting with anger or fear is wrong or unnatural. It is quite natural in the presence of threats and so forth for us to be afraid or frustrated.

The key issue is really what we were talking about earlier in terms of hygiene. If you spill a little water, you can wipe it up or let it dry, it’s no problem. But if you let lots of spilled water sit too long without taking care of it, then it can create an environment for germs and become toxic and problematic. Emotions are like that. Emotions are important in the presence of certain threats and so forth. Of course, our biology is equipped with such capacities to tell us how to respond and react in that way. But like anger, a little frustration leads to a certain action. If that becomes like a big flame, the little spark becomes a big flame, it becomes a forest fire if it keeps just sitting there. This actually destroys our own health and well-being.

Letting Go of Anger Before It Burns You

The Buddha said that holding onto anger is like holding a burning coal in your hand. The stronger and longer you hold it, the more you will be afflicted. It would be better to just let it go.

We have wonderful capacities, but these are limited like everyone else. Even with our certain failures and even when we make mistakes that fall short of our responsibilities, is that because we are bad people? Is it that we are somehow eternally flawed? Or is it just our dispositions shaped by the long evolution of nature, that we’re in certain conditions, that we have certain kinds of limitations? In certain conditions, we react in certain ways. If we can accept that reality and be fine with our vulnerability and imperfection, but at the same time see that we do have the capacity to improve and be better, then we will no longer feel that “I’m special, I’m somehow different from everybody else.” Once we can accept our human condition, then it’s much easier to make visible other’s human condition as well.

If our loved one is in trouble, do we just sit thinking, “Oh, yes, this is my child, they are in pain?” No, it actually puts our whole biology in a different state internally, emotionally. So, compassion will do that. But the question here again is in distressful circumstances not to react with anger or fear. With compassion, you know that if it brings a certain sense of distress, it is natural, this will happen. But the key is whether we just sit with that “I’m helpless, I can’t…” feeling or rather we can see what we can do to help.

Making A Difference In The World’s Suffering

Also, if we come with the perspective that “Yeah, we are not superhumans and no one is able to do away with all the problems. I’m a human, I feel for you, what can I do to help,” seeing and focusing on what I can do instead of what I cannot do. That’s where I think this mindset can help and then what I can do is not like, “How I can eliminate this problem,” but rather, “What can I do to make some difference?”

For example, for doctors in the health care profession that struggle with their patients with terminal illness. You know there’s nothing that you can do really to cure that person from the illness. Does that mean that if you cannot heal or cure this person, does that mean that you can’t do anything, or can you do something to change the experience of this person? How about spending a few moments to talk to this person, just to give them a sense that “I’m here with you” and to show that there is always the possibility that there are things we can do, having this growth mindset.

“How Can I Help?”

We can focus on “what I can do to help” and then take those little steps, however small. In this pandemic for example, in maintaining social distancing, we can see that this is a huge place, but maintaining social distancing is actually a way for me to contribute and help out. It lowers the spread of the virus. So, you really kind of connect what you are doing with that purpose.