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co-dependency
November 2009 
True Compassion - your invitation to discuss :)
Posted on Oct 19th, 2009
by 
Nicole
Nicole
Tree
I invite you to comment here or over in the God pod here: True Compassion - your invitation to discuss :)
What better place than in a board called Radical acts of compassion to discuss what true compassion is?
This discussion began with a distinction between compassion and idiot compassion in the thread where we were discussing Rush Limbaugh.
I would like to begin by thanking Mascha, mary and others who have recently inspired me to look much more deeply at this issue.
There is a fairly good wiki overview here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion:
In the various Hindu traditions, compassion is called DAYA, and, along with charity and self-control, is one of the three central virtues...
Compassion or karuna is at the transcendental and experiential heart of the Buddha's teachings. He was reputedly asked by his secretary, Ananda, "Would it be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is a part of our practice?" To which the Buddha replied, "No. It would not be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is part of our practice. It would be true to say that the cultivation of loving kindess and compassion is all of our practice."...
Compassion for all life, human and non-human, is central to the Jain tradition...
(In the Jewish tradition) Compassion, empathy, altruism, kindness and love are frequently used interchangeably in common usage. When the concept is examined in depth it becomes clear that compassion is more than simply a human emotion. Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition, is particularly clear about this...
The life of Jesus embodies for Christiansthe very essence of compassion. Christ's example challenges Christians to forsake their own desires and to act compassionately towards others, particularly those in need or distress...
The Muslim scriptures urge compassion towards captives as well as to widows, orphans and the poor. Traditionally, Zakat, a toll tax to help the poor and needy, was obligatory upon all Muslims (9:60). One of the practical purposes of fasting orsawm during the month of Ramadan is to help one empathize with the hunger pangs of those less fortunate, to enhance sensitivity to the suffering of others and develop compassion for the poor and destitute.
So, it would appear that compassion is very, very important across religious traditions. Yet compassion is often absent from religious interactions within communities and from the way that many religious people deal with people of different beliefs.
What is compassion really? How do we become more truly compassionate? What are some of the pitfalls into which we can fall while seeking to be compassionate (i.e. co-dependency, enabling negative behaviours and so on)?
I eagerly look forward to exploring this in depth with you all.
Love,
Nicole
Access: PublicTagged with: true compassion, idiot compassion, radical acts of compassion, religion, spirituality, co-dependency
It's perhaps not an easy thing, saying what compassion is. For some people compassion may sound a lot like sweetness and hugs and caring. But I also think compassion can sometimes even wear a harsh face. Perhaps everything is compassion if you look at it from larger and larger views. When you're close up, only certain views reveal compassion. But as you widen, you realize a slap in the face or a holocaust might contain the seeds of compassion. But perhaps not. I don't know. Maybe I just like to think that this is so, having experience first-hand that painful things really were so compassionate.
How do we become more compassionate? Perhaps by being able to be more present with whatever is arising with another person. When we're distracted we're only part there and therefore we can mouth the word “love” but are we really PRESENT for another person? Perhaps compassion is Presence. A fierce presence which somehow speaks up and says what's best, even though on the surface it may look sticky or challenging or dissentive.
Pitfalls? Oh this question could go off in many directions. Is ANYTHING a pitfall if we're present and expressing our heart with another person? I loved the exchange on the God pod with Mascha and Mary, even though it wasn't comfortable for me. It was like opening a box that carried the hard edges of ourselves. There is a compassion that allows it all to be, the Rush Limbaughs AND the idiot compassion and the anger and the reconcilliation and the hurt and the fuss. Our egos don't like it. No, not one little bit. But compassion is something bigger than the ego, something that takes all the parts and truly allows. I only know the edges of a compassion that big.
thank you Nicole for inviting us to play in your sandbox...
I'm with Kathy…it is real easy for us to see the 'good' side of compassion…harder to define the so-called 'dark' or 'bad' side…
compassion is like truth…sometimes it is a Cold Hard Bitch…
I think a better question is what is NOT compassion?
i didn't bring my poop scooper…LOL…but feel free to delete me*
Kathy and starlight, heartfelt thanks for coming to play!
Right, that discussion was not comfortable but so very good, didn't you think? It seemed Mascha thought she had taken it off topic but it was always spot on the most important part of the bigger topic. And mary was chagrined about miscommunicating but she had so many important things to say. I wish I could tell mary adequately how much she brings to our discussions!
oh and such such good news! after wearing my true love down last night, I got him to agree to join the God pod sandbox too. I have been missing his wisdom there.
Now, back to compassion - starlight, you will never ever be deleted - that is something i don't do to people or their comments (except for the worst kind of trolls on the God Pod like the guy with the profile picture of an exposed anus who made the very obnoxious remark as a “hello”)
Kathy, compassion can be more like tough love than cotton candy, oh definitely. but to me, it is often quite simply this: what the New Testament refers to as speaking the truth in love. Truth itself uncompromising can be somewhat devoid of love. Love without truth is no love at all. But truth and love together - devastatingly disarming combination that goes to the heart of the matter.
I really agree with you about the becoming more compassionate through being more present to what is arising within the other, without resisting, without masks, with true empathy. Yes, compassion is much bigger than the ego! Thank God.
Much love to you both. Please help me go deeper here if other insights occur to you.
telling the truth in love…
which is also hard to define when ur dealing with concepts like 'love' and 'truth'…my truth? your truth? the TRUTH? and love…is gentle, kind, and all those things in 1 Cor. 13…that it is and is not…what is gentle and kind to one is hard and cruel to another…
when we can go beyond the conceptual meanings…go beyond the limits…even of heart…for what is not of heart?
compassionately a star violently explodes…killing itself so that earth and all it's inhabitants can be born…
(i am so happy that u have found love of heart…beyond it's conceptual meanings…i love u)…*
exactly - it can't just be my love or my truth - it takes a lot of listening, discernment, maturity and wisdom to hear what Love and Truth dictate in any given situation. Truthful love can feel harsh but never is. The desire is for not the good but the best for the other.
Actually, one of the things it does not say in I Corinthians 13 is gentle :)
1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;[a] but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages[b] and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.[c] All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
gentleness is an atribute of the spirit…and while it is not mentioned specifically in 1Cor. 13, it is mentioned many other places…
this is a problem, in specifying these scriptures and limiting them instead of taking the entirity of what is being said Nic…while you thought I was quoting 1 Cor. incorrectly, why could it have not been that I was adding the idea of gentleness in with 1 Cor. b/c it is elsewhere recorded and implied? We usually look to that chapter for what compassion is, but what about James? To visit the widowed and fatherless in their affliction? and keep himself unspotted from the world?
until we can get past this problem of focusing in on the details, which always seem to limit us (and especially scriptures), and open up our ideas of what compassion is…we will be left to definitions and limitations and do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs…etc…
this is exactly why we have difficulty in 'seeing' the whole…we get distracted by the parts…LOL…nothing is ever what it seems Nic…*
I have a song based on 1Cor. somewhere…I have one on the beatitudes as well…
yes, my dear, of course gentleness is mentioned elsewhere as an attribute of the spirit.
However, it seems to me that both you and I are getting at something similar in different ways when I notice gentleness is not specifically in 1 Corinthians 13, and when you talk about how tough and hard compassion can be.
Also, it is my belief (though I may be wrong about this, so please feel free to correct me) that when it speaks in the Greek New Testament of gentleness or meekness or humility, it is not in the simplistic and weak way that these are often caricatured in our modern society.
I think of Jesus' fierce love, taking the whips and clearing the money-changers from the temple. I think of him saying he had no brothers and sisters, no mothers, except the crowd who followed him. I think of the way he seems to respond so coldly to his mother when she asks him to help with the wine situation at the wedding.
I think of so many instances in my life when people have had to be quite blunt about stuff I was just not getting, and I learned and grew through their caring truth. I think of times I had to do the same, including recent experiences between me and my love.
Does that make more sense, dearest? Have to go now for a while but when I return home will look in again.
Much love.
I was just fixing to say…gentleness IS strength…yes…but there was nothing gentle about Jesus in the marketplace…except maybe it was gentler than using a bull whip or something…LOL…it was not kind either, maybe more kind then shooting them with an oozie lol…so that would mean that compassion includes kindness and gentleness and their opposites as well…right?
but gentleness is implied in kindness…would it not be unkind to not be gentle?
it appears what you are trying to do is make 1Cor. 13 an all inclusive meaning of what compassion is…it is a skeleton outline…and leaving out the specific word gentle…has no relevance that I can see except the one you seem to be giving it in your own mind…
See that is what I do…I try to make sense of things...I justify what I want to believe about things…and the bible allows me to do so…for every solid scripture, there is one that opens it…as does our lives and everything included in them…
I must make sense of my life…and so, if one story is not working, I weave another...that too is compassion…
Hopefully, I will continue to weave the story openended…so that I don't put a label on compassion…then I can act in the moment…dictated by what is needed then…and my left hand will not know what my right hand is doing…
Compassion must be lived in the moment…depending on what is being presented at the time…
2 years ago, it was compassionate for me to not allow my son to come into my house…an example of compassion being a cold hard bitch…at least in our minds…
today…if my son needed a place to stay, I would more than likely welcome him with open arms…depending again on the urgency and circumstance of the moment…
It would be quiet ridiculous for me to go out and try to adopt a child today to show my compassion…although, for someone else and their circumstances it would be the correct thing to do…
Yet, if something happened to my daughter…I would be right there with all compassion…adopting her chidren and loving them as my own…
Compassion has many faces…like 'my' own awareness justifying actions that 'I' cannot explain any other way…until 'I' can…
I spin my own stories founded on an infinite layer of conditioning…justifying as I go along…until I begin to see my own patterns…what is that which is seeing? what is spinning? what is justifying? what is experiencing? what arises before I attach a me, myself, and I to it? maybe that's compassion before it gets packaged into thises and thats…lol*
much love and joy*
Hi Nicole!
What is compassion? What a great question. I feel it is when unconscious energy, passion, has become pure consciousness. Passion means a state of biological fever, a possession of biology, unconscious energies. You are not the master, you are just the slave. Compassion to me means you have transcended biology, you have transcended physiology. You are no more a slave. Now you function not with a fever..your energy has been transformed - your unconscious forces that was deciding for you, your passions, have now become awareness - compassion. YOU are there..(with) the passion. Passion usually - at least in my case - means I am NOT present.. Wild horse have just taken off without me!
But when aware, a totally different energy I call compassion happens. A totally different quality of awareness, of energy. All your passion, the scattered, fragmentary energies that were feeding anger, greed..lust, has been transformed into awareness.
Oh, sweet compassion!
Compassion has one of the most calming effects on my person, so yes I can see your point Attainment it is not a longing force but a pushing one. Once arrived at a stage of compassion there arises a peace, tear filled but a warmth found in no other joining of spirits. One then may allow it to continue to push if so inclinced, further and further into a realms beyond words and thoughts, if not it will be compassionate to you anyway it can.
Thanks
J.M.
I have a question…have not the two of you just put an enlightenment label on compassion and made it unattainable for the everyday human that has to live out in the world? While it is nice to think about and in great moments of peace and bliss it is very comforting and compassionate…but what good does it do the starving children?
I'm just throwing a monkey wrench in your pat answers of compassion I know…but how can pat and absolute answers be correct when every minute definitions change due to changing circumstances? what might be compassionate today will not be compassionate tomorrow…except for this enlightened compassion that really has no relevance in the 'real world' that I can see…it's like the carrot for the rabbit in the horse race…it looks good, your taste buds can taste it…but you can never really know it intimately…for it is an illusion that keeps you running round in circles chasing your tail…or off in lala land on the side of the mountain in one of your higher states of consciousness…
just saying…with love in joy…*
Dear Starlight!
Hi! Certainly I understand enlightenment is a rare flowering…so no,this was not said to mean the ultimate. Transforming passion to a state of compassion - or awareness - is anything but peaceful or blissful. Personally there a lot of self-awareness, painful and disturbing.
EXACTLY - what is compassionate one day is not another - it is one's awareness and authenticity, intelligence and responsibility to the moment that will determine compassion. It is a state of being. I see and agree!
Enlightened compassion is Perfect Awareness! Yes…that is another subject, yes? Another world….the difference between the two cannot be bridge with philosophy.
And you must forgive me, Starlight! I go for the carrot every time! I have been accused my whole life of being an overachiever..and yes, enlightenment is the ultimate carrot, and I personally have bought it hook line and sinker..as they say in the south! And it does not taste good - no. It is bitter. But you can know it intimately…even for a moment is enough to knows it validity. If one moment, why not two? It is simple… lose your mind (smile!)…and feel relief for a moment.
Enlightenment is about the end of illusion, not the chasing of one. I know I am not enlightened…but I do wish with my entire life to see it..and show it…because of love for this art….that it is not an illusion. That it is truly something we ordinary human beings can taste…..can know, with faith and right practice. But this is another subject, yes?
Those who practice imagination certainly go off in lala land…those that practice right knowledge, suffer as much as anyone…maybe more! Because reality is hard and to feel it as authentically as possible is hard work, painful and quite humiliating, to be honest. There's nothing lala about authentic practice.
Yes…I didn't mean to speak of enlightenemnt…I was speaking of compassion as I see from practice..not theory.
Sincerely and with love!
Cheyenne
hi starlight, Cheyenne, dearest:
Indeed, compassion is a fluid not a rigid state. When I said earlier about discernment and wisdom and maturity, this was the context. My dearest one and I were talking about horrible circumstances in which a parent may choose a quick death for a child rather than rape and slavery. May none of us ever have to make such a decision, but many are faced with very tough choices every day.
We are richly blessed to have leisure to sit around and philosophise about these things. Not all are.
Cheyenne, I am very much fond of your take on it as passion transformed by awareness. Yes! That resonates. The passion of experience melded with passion of love and concern melded with a deep awareness of who the other is and what the need of the moment is, whether a tenderness or a firmness or a specific question that goes to the heart of the matter, or…
dear heart, yes, such a blissful peace for me as well is at the centre of compassionate action, the peace of knowing this is right and this is love and this is life. That peace we have shared so often when our hearts expand to fill each other's world.
what good does all this do the starving children? Well, it depends. If compassion leads me to give generously to help them, as it often does; or for those who are led by compassion to go to where these starving children are and work for a better life for them, or in many other ways, depending on the person, I would say compassion makes a huge difference in the world. It changes the world one interaction at a time, as my beloved talks to a taxi driver and listens empathetically to his pain and struggles, or I sit with someone who is going through something very difficult and listen and share, or in the many many ways that others here share their compassionate hearts in the world.
Much love to you all
Cheyenne…
Enlightened compassion is Perfect Awareness! Yes…that is another subject, yes?
not necessarily…again, when you say enlightened compassion or perfect awareness…you are defining and attaching that label to what you think it means…what is perfect but a concept? what is enlightenment but the same?
something to attain…and not something that you already are? who is it that attains? what is attained?
the carrot is illusion…what you experience as your own intimate being is not…
i experience my own true nature when i subtract it all and cease cherishing illusion…even the illusion of attainment or enlightenment…
i don't think it is another subject…what we are is true compassion…take away all your condtioning…all your conceptual ideas about what enlightenment is or is not…and relax into your true nature…dance in your own joy of being!
you are correct about this, and we are probably saying the same thing different ways…the journey is one of untangling and healing…fighting our own conditioned beliefs…going inward honestly and facing ourselves…
i learned through dzogchen that tasting your own bliss is only the beginning…taking it out into the world with you when you go…a life time awakening journey…
we definitely agree on that! much love and joy*
Nic, that is very case and point and right on…we make choices every day based on our culture and our lives…other's do the same…I agree so with your examples on all counts…
We have to pick our compassionate asses up and do whatever is in front of us to do…lol*
Hey There Starlight, just saying that we are going to pretend this is one of those holo rooms on star trek ok, and you can have your weapons over there and I am going to have mine over here, no one can possible really get hurt by what the other one says.. ok. So we stand back weapons out, defeat the carrot we chase, but not a real winning defeat of another because this is all an illusion, I know it is at least, So now you listen to me you selfish child who wants to know all the answers and thinks you have the right to tell people how to get them , why don't you go back to your room of addiction, self loathing and destruction and learn to love the animals there then becoming one out here. You see dear starlight there are two sides at least to every coin three to some and fourth and a fifth for others for the blind to see some ask for the skin be ripped from their eyes.
Now if you would like to a hand up know where it all comes from and love it for only then may you shine as a light in your own dark dark night Tina. I personally though would rather try to find the great depths of being a human being through the acts of people like Nicole, Centria and Attainment only hoping to reach but to the ground beneath their feet.
Any more questions I will anwers as was was done unto me or we can hold hands beneath an unknowing darkened sky, and watch the clouds flee past, blown by kisses, to the light up of the heavens above, each star a dream, each a flicker a hope, each Tina a star of such beauty and grace that we can only admire and long to hold.
Thanks
J.M.
ROTFLMAO…*****
shew…peeing my pants funny…
now, seriously though…Robert, you cannot invite someone into battle and dictate how they will fight or what weapons they can or cannot use…except of course in a civilized southern dual which this is not…you limit the fight by giving it rules…haven't you ever read the bhagavad gita? my very experience, qualifies me to be a warrior…in the field with addicts, which i am every day…Nic is a big girl…she can hold her own…believe you me…and while it is very galant and herioc to want to come to her rescue, she is in no way in any danger of losing anything with me…except maybe some conditioned beliefs…everything i do is b/c of compassion…
and while you choose a more relaxed way of existence and looking at compassion…and that is ok for you…i choose to be a warrior for truth…and i don't need you or anyone else to tell me how to do that…
if you want peace…prepare for war…
if you want compassion…prepare to face hate…
so let's agree that you can approach compassion your way, and I will approach it mine…i am a free spirit that cannot be controlled…and will always question everything…push the envelope…for in compliance, i have found enabling to be complacent and lazy…compassion pushes…which i believe is the entire purpose of this inquiry…yes?
this isn't gaia nice little chit chat to me…this is rolling up our sleeves getting down to solutions so that we can actually stop suffering…as least that is what it is for me, and from what i know of Nic, she feels the same way…
love and joy*
Hello Starlight, Thank you for taking the time and effort to explain.
Thanks
J.M.
loving you both deeply. warm hugs
dang Robert…u 2 easy…did u lay down ur sword? did u wave a white flag? LOL…did i cut something inpaRticular…i'm a very bad gorly…ROTF*
Dear Nicole…I shake all over of the idea of choosing between sudden death for a child or rape and violation. I can say from my personal life, I have great compassion and suffer what I would not, even for my own children. I have thought about something similar before…maybe many times…where I heard of a torture a mother went through where she had to choose to kill one child to save the others or they all die. I cry this very instant at the thought it. This is beyond compassion. This is unspeakable torture..so close to my heart I tremble unbelievable.
And dear dear Starlight! Once one gets into this…this sort of 'reasoning' - “This is truth and that is untruth,” “This is compassion, what is a concept?” you have started discriminating - and to discriminate is the disease of the mind. That is the function of the mind to discriminate. “This is wrong, this is right. this is true, this is false. this world the other world.” Once you start this, there is no end to it - the mind has it grip on you!
To be out of the grip of the mind is to be free, is to know what freedom is. You are right, yes, nirvana is not somewhere else; it is your inner space. Just get out of the clinches of the mind..
Philosophy is a sheer waste of energy! The same energy can become meditation! The same energy can become awakening! Compassion! Philosophy is like dreaming…what if, what about, yes, no, maybe, never, always, sometimes! Mind remains the master.
Go beyond mind and have a direct experience!…and that can happen only after questions have ceased….and practice begins!
Personally, I am not a philosopher, but I had to become one…because I teach practice…and you get one and thousand minds to address and speak to. And one must..there is no other choice! But after all words end, practice begins!..and then true experience!
Warrior Woman! Love and Joy to YOU!!!
Sincerely!!!
Cheyenne
he is getting ready for his Tai Chi class… tomorrow is one of those 12 hour shifts so I am not sure if he will be back on Gaia tonight, my sweet. mwah!
Cheyenne, your depth awes me, namaste.
Thoroughly resonating with your words here:
Once one gets into this…this sort of 'reasoning' - “This is truth and that is untruth,” “This is compassion, what is a concept?” you have started discriminating - and to discriminate is the disease of the mind. That is the function of the mind to discriminate. “This is wrong, this is right. this is true, this is false. this world the other world.” Once you start this, there is no end to it - the mind has it grip on you!
To be out of the grip of the mind is to be free, is to know what freedom is. You are right, yes, nirvana is not somewhere else; it is your inner space. Just get out of the clinches of the mind..
Tonight while he is at Tai Chi I will be at a session of a class on Death and Dying - I expect it will lead back into this discussion for me, will let you all know tomorrow.
This is the second of four sessions but I missed the first as I had to attend choir practice last Tuesday:
“Many of us live our lives either fearing death and/or in denial about the reality that we will die. In many ways this inhibits us from living life fully. In a four-part series we will explore now embracing the reality of death can help us to fully embrace and experience life. It is not so much that we fear dying, but that we fear not existing. The sessions will include a time of teaching, a time of quiet meditation and a time of discussion. ”
http://www.stillpresence.com/
Cheyenne…I have a problem with that kind of thinking…the mind is a wonderful, wonderful thing…Consciousness is why we are aware and have the wonder-filled experiences that we have…I do not want to stop using what grace has given me…within it is the very knowing and creativity that contains all the solutions to this worlds suffering…
I HAVE to LIVE my truth, as you MUST LIVE yours…there is no right or wrong in that…
your truth is to raise your children be a loving Mother and Wife…yes?
my truth is something entirely different b/c of my unique experience…I am surrounded by those that are still suffering so much you would not believe…and I cannot…WILLNOT…turn my back on them (just like you cannot turn your back on your family)…that is my journey…and yes, it requires me to be a warrior, and today I no longer question why…I do what is in front of me to do…and use my experience, strength and hope to help others…to the best of my ability…when i know better, i can do better…
I've had many direct experiences with what i am…how could i not? I am resting in it now…how could i not be? it is what i am… and it is not mind that is transcended to dance in the joy of one's own being…it is illusions of the mind…
much love and joy to you…*
Nicole, I agree with you so much that we have to reflect on what is happening, and discern with clear wisdom…
I would agree that an act of killing one child to save another IS compassion…
Ancient nomadic tribes use to allow the daughters that were born to die…only male children were fed, as food was very scarce…
Had our ancestors not been able to make these decisions, humanity may have not survived at all…but b/c of the cold blooded reptilian aspects of their brain and ours, we all have this within us…and it is a very needed quality…
In the future, we or maybe our descendants might be called on to make similiar decisions for the benefit of humanity…
China is doing it right now…they are limiting the children they are having…
We do it legally through abortion…while many feel this is horrible, this too can be considered compassion…we might not be able to make sense of these things…but this is life here as we know it…
Most the time…we close our eyes…and tell ourselves that someone else will take care of the starving…i have my own problems…someone else will feed and care for the homeless and mentally ill…i have my own life…deep down we might even believe that those that don't have a wonderful life are somehow responsible… it is their Karma…and out the window we toss compassion…but even that is compassion…for we cannot see till we see…
I thank awareness that i am able to discern and discriminate today…there was a time when the only thing i knew to do was hit a crack pipe…
much love and joy…may we all ever-open to compassion*
Oh, wow…u guys are discussing my favorite topic without inviting me? Hmm. How compassionate is that? Kind of cruel, if you ask me, leaving me out.
Lol. Kidding, ppl, ppl, just kidding.
Anyway, I have enjoyed reading all of your take on ‘compassion’.
SO?
Well, duh, you're all right of course and some of you make perfect sense…you know who you are …..
Now that I know this, I should move along, right?
Nope, not so fast, its not as if goat bit me, I want to explore with you too…*Amy stomps feet* ….dammit!
Okay. So here goes…let me attemp my mad spin on the wheel and see what question pops out.
Wow. Two questions!!! (My head is hurting already :)
What is compassion really? How do we become more truly compassionate?
Well, duh, moi truly believes falsely that compassion, true or false, has been hardwired into us by Nature for the survival of others who are vital to our own survival.
However, when it comes to our own survival and that gets threatened, then compassion could prove to be an illusion and yet its not….
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed…every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle…when the sun comes up, you'd better be running.”
So let’s say there is only one lion and only one gazelle on an isolated stretch of land in Africa or Amy Land.
Now, where is the compassion in the above? Can anyone spot it? Hmm… There is none…….and yet there is.
You see, the lion is being compassionate to his own survival, his own tummy and so is the gazelle. Neither will give up, each wants to live. The gazelle will not feel any sympathy for the hungry lion and sacrifice her life to feed him because perhaps she has to stay alive too so she can feed her hungry baby.
What a plight. Someone has to die. Who will give up their live to feed the other? By trying to outrun each other, they are both using their selfish/cruel gene. There is no compassion for each other here but for themselves, their own survival, their own plight. (Psst... I know quite a few humans like this)
However, if the gazelle is a Buddha who has renounced the world, then of course she would let the lion eat her…but is that true compassion? Hellooo…the renounced gazelle has nothing to live for, she has renounced the world…she wants to die anyway…so I don’t believe true compassion could be measured through people who have renounced the world….and yet again, by renouncing this world they are being compassionate.
So many ways to see it :-
You are with nine people on a sinking ship equipped with one lifeboat. Now, before the ship begins to sink, everyone on this boat believed they are truly enlightened and filled with pounds of compassion.
However, everyone on this boat has a reason to stay alive. They all have mouths to feed and if they don’t get on that lifeboat which could carry only five people, their children will starve to death.
What would you do? Give up your seat and drown and let your child die or you, who is ahead of the line jump into that boat? Exactly. Now, where is your enlightened compassion? It just will not stand up to the test of harsh reality unless you have totally renounced this world…and even so, thou still wants to live…to experience this thing called bliss….
Now to answer the second question. “How do we truly become compassionate?”
I think one has to feel their survival is secured even though that could prove to be another illusion. When our survival feels threatened, our cruel or selfish or fearful gene will override our compassionate nature but if our survival feels secured, (we’re well-fed, have most material comforts) only then can we truly be kind and compassionate to others…..(and yet, this could appear the opposite of compassion…I mean, how many people have gone to Africa to feed the hungry just so that they can gain from it as well….the hungry do keep some people well-fed….(in fact, if there are no starving people, some well-fed people will starve) and what about the humanitarians? They surely get a career boost out of helping the hungry, so perhaps only selfishness motivates them to be compassionate?)
And since we’re on the compassion topic, “How to feel compassion for this cruel/compassionate world whether we’re programmed by nature or not?”
Know that we’re not as separate as we think we are. We’re dependent upon everyone and everything around us for survival…even this body is not ours…helloooo it was built by the plant and animal life around us…. . But that’s the trick of the mind, by letting us see that we’re also individuals, this very thing is what aids our survival as well. …………….. And true compassion is putting ourselves in someone’s shoes…yes, even the bad guys and to see that we’re all victims of nature’s programming, emotions, circumstances…etc. etc.
……………………
Hope this makes sense to at least one of you, if not, feel free to lie to me and prove to me how totally compassionate you are……or unleash your cruel side by telling me I don’t make sense at all and ask me to leave, go, crawl back under my rock.
Lmao. Just kidding, ppl, ppl. You guys rock! What a topic. May more come with yet another viewpoint so that we can see the whole picture. I remain sweetly compassionate er…um…as long as my own survival is intact.Amy :)
Holy S***…we shoulda just called you over to begin with…and been done with it…LOL…
I love the lion and gazelle story…
time for star's mouth to be wide open…speechless…pfffffffffttttt…
you pretty much, em, said, em, everything, em, i, em, was, gonna say, em, if em, you hadn't SHOWED UP AND SAVED THE DAY…with your Goddess self…GOL
love and joy*
Lol, Missy, you did say em, everything em, show em…..but no one saw em. gol. So see, we are on the same page. pfffffftttttttttt.
Me too, love the lion and gazelle story…
Ach Mensch, I wrote a reply before stumbling across Goddess2day's fantastic outpouring/dissertation, and now my stuff seems kinda… stuffy. But… but, but, here it comes anyway, just to join in the hunt across the African Plains!
Cheyenne: “…. to discriminate is the disease of the mind.”
This is a half-truth. Quite useful at a certain stage of development but not an encompassing perspective. When a being begins to awaken to the fact that it has been mesmerized by the awesomely realistic-seeming display of the mind, it feels an evolutionary push and pull to break the stranglehold of the mind. At that time, this half-truth can act like a crowbar that pries awareness loose from its own unconscious fabrications.
I would say, to discriminate is the Power of the mind and its very function. Thought processes are what “cuts asunder the seamless coat of existence”, as some famous realizer once said… I think it was Alfred Whitehead. When we're moving within the world of relationships (which is the realm where compassion becomes meaningful), we need this mind with its discriminating powers or else we would become dysfunctional and lose our relative independence as self-responsible individuals. When meditating, we let this discriminating mind dissolve and enter states of varying degrees of relaxation.
To deliberately allow distinction-making to cease is entering samadhi states of different depths…. all the way down to complete cessation (nirvana). But even then, as long as we have a body, the deeper layers of the mind keep tabs on our metabolism and all other psychosomatic functions. That means, this wonderful mind of ours makes automatic judgments that are designed to keep our physical apparatus alive and humming along smoothly, even while awareness takes a rest from thinking. Resting in itself, consciousness experiences itself as infinitely spacious subtle bliss - the bliss of simply being.
omg, Mascha, thanks…. and I love the way you show us the other side of the coin….couldn't have said it better myself……..yes, to discriminate is a tool of the mind too……..mind wants to protect us…..and sometimes it doesn't have enough information to make a correct judgement….so it tells us to avoid certain kind of er…um…dangerous animals……and perhaps study them from a safe distance….before we begin mixing with them………(I mean, we know snakes are harmful but since we don't know which species are, of course, mind will tell us to cut and run. lol.)
Anyway, enough of my blabber. U said it perfectly….still marvelling at this part :-
“That means, this wonderful mind of ours makes automatic judgments that are designed to keep our physical apparatus alive and humming along smoothly, even while awareness takes a rest from thinking.”
Good Day, Mascha!
Yes, a little discrimination is good! It helps you keep your cool. But more than that it is of use. Not to me. - I will say it that way. Not to me. There is a way to live that does not need discrimination. (smile!)
As you say:
“When we're moving within the world of relationships, we need this mind with its discriminating powers or else we would become dysfunctional and lose our relative independence as self-responsible individuals. When meditating, we let this discriminating mind dissolve and enter states of varying degrees of relaxation.”
You see, my goal is ALWAYS MEDITATION…letting this discriminating mind dissolve…and entering varying degrees of dysfunction and losing relative independence as a self-responsible individual. - yes? In other words, I am a girl that DOES NOT control herself!…you lose out on too much fun!
One day you can decide to throw it out! Start experiencing, because it is only through experience that one comes to know the truth.
Truth is not a conclusion arrived at by logical argumentation. Truth is an experience of a silent, still consciousness.
I have a talent at attracting discriminators! - philosophers of everything! And I know it first-hand, that it is a disease. I have suffered it!..I know it can get quite chronic. Once it enters the system, it is very difficult to stop. I honestly do have every sympathy for what you are saying, sincerely. But if the right effort is made you can get rid of it! It is a curable disease!
It promises much, but gives nothing! However sweet…and I know from years of study, it can give you a sweet, sweet experience, but still it is a dream! It gives a very polished ego! You can find argument for anything!
Zorba the Greek!….Living without discrimination! It is only for those with nerves of steel! To live in direct contact with reality..nothing in between. It is dangerous….and lonely.
And dear Goddess, I am a dangerous animal!…and people discriminating against me all the time!
Big smile….and lovingly,
Cheyenne
Compassion…
Amy, Mascha, Cheyenne, starlight!
Amy, what on earth were we thinking trying to have this discussion without you, my sweet? LOLOL! What can I say to you about your stories? The lifeboat story moves me deeply. I wonder, what would I do? Whose life would go on? I don't know, but it makes me think, and I like that.
You are right, it is so important to feel secure to be compassionate. In fear compassion is thinned and if fear is strong enough it vanishes altogether. That's where the love comes in - as it says in 1John 4:18
There is no fear in love: true love has no room for fear, because where fear is, there is pain; and he who is not free from fear is not complete in love.
Mascha, I think Amy and Cheyenne have responded far more eloquently than I could, I just wanted to thank you for joining the discussion and hope that if you have other insights you will continue to share them.
I also wanted to explain why I blogged this as well as opening the discussion in the God Pod. I have noticed that not everyone likes to discuss things on pods but prefers pods and also vice versa so I like people to have options and feel free to get into it where they are comfortable.
Cheyenne, that goal of remain aware, in meditation, more and more is my own as well. I can deeply relate and I thank you for your loving inspiration here and on other blogs. I learn so much from you.
Last but not least, starlight, I just love love love your new poem that you wrote after being involved in this discussion. I hope everyone reading this will read and revel in your poem about Compassion…
Much love and joy and light to all of you! Looking eagerly forward to continuing deeper and deeper into this rich topic.
sometimes love has you shaking in your boots…
indeed, my dear one! hugs
Please also see the other discussions in the God Pod where this all started:
http://groups.gaia.com/is_there_a_god/conversations/view/482873#491263
http://groups.gaia.com/is_there_a_god/conversations/view/490550#491092
Nic, ok, you say, according to the scripture, that there is no fear in love…however, there must be…for fear to be transformed, included, not something other than the all of all there is or isn't…fear has to be love that has not recognized itself…yes?
there is always some fear because no one has been fully completed in love, dear one
Well said my friends and so
The honesty of truth may be a wisdom we may never individually know but collectively share, so as it is said from love does the wolf kill the lamb and the lamb chew the grass below it's feet and the grass the earth below it and from which we all experience life and so that is as compassionate as compassion can get for all and not what we only think we discriminate between.
J.M.
Hola Attainment-Cheyenne,
you said: Yes, a little discrimination is good! It helps you keep your cool. But more than that it is of use. Not to me. - I will say it that way. Not to me.
Right there you've made a discriminating judgment. By stating, “I will say it that way”, you have used discriminating wisdom to chose between a number of alternatives. You could have said something completely different, yet you judged saying it “this way” preferable at the time.
Just to make sure we understand each other's definitions when using loaded words such as “discrimination”, I'll repeat what I wrote before on the Rush Limbaugh thread with added emphasis.
We want to cultivate our discriminating wisdom, which is another term for discernment, which is the same as making value judgments at every turn.
….
A: There is a way to live that does not need discrimination. (smile!)
Yup. As the proverbial vegetable. In a mental hospital where you're taken care of 24/7. And even then, a whole slew of value judgments are still being made by the most addled of mush-minds. Even in a coma apparently does the spirit discern certain distinctions and perceive worlds within which it functions according to its distinguishing capabilities - which is the same as saying, the spirit uses discrimination while navigating in its dream worlds.
A: I am a girl that DOES NOT control herself!
Really? So you exert no control over your bowel movements, no control over your impulses… You act out every urge that arises in you, say everything that pops into your mind without making distinctions as to the appropriateness of time, place and the company present?
Forgive me, but I think that is simply not true.
A: Start experiencing, because it is only through experience that one comes to know the truth.
How do you know that I need to start experiencing what you assume I haven't yet? What distinction-making capabilities have led you to issue such an instruction to a complete stranger on the web? Think about it…. This is rich if you're into self-honesty and truth in advertising.
A: Truth is not a conclusion arrived at by logical argumentation. Truth is an experience of a silent, still consciousness.
To me, truth is so much more than that, though. For millenia, wise wo-men have tried to nail it down so as to encapsulate it in a neat little package, but it still remains unfathomed, ultimately unknowable in my experience because it is what we ARE.
A: I honestly do have every sympathy for what you are saying, sincerely. But if the right effort is made you can get rid of it! It is a curable disease!
You are teaching people that they should try to get rid of discrimination-discernment- a.k.a. their inherent faculties to judge between right and wrong, harmful and beneficial etc. etc. Implied is the claim that you, yourself, have achieved this. You are now free of discrimination, is that correct?
Okay, these kinds of claims are what prompted me to enter the discussions we're having here. I contend that you are disseminating dangerous New Age shinola that needs to be exposed for the fallacies inherent in it. As I've said in the first thread that spawned all others –
Whenever someone equates nonjudgment with compassion-love-spirituality, don't buy into it. We cannot possibly be nonjudgmental! No one should be confused about this. It is not at all desirable to even try to abdicate our ability to judge. Millions of misguided spiritual people tell us we need to switch off those inbuilt bullshit detectors we came equipped with from birth and strive to be judgment-free… like them, ha ha ha! Yeah, right…….
I say our BS detectors need to be honed, sharpened, explicitly empowered to tell us when to draw the sword to cut the crap and when to keep it sheathed but at the ready on our god-given tool belts.
A: And dear Goddess, I am a dangerous animal!…and people discriminating against me all the time!
…conveniently overlooking that you are discriminating for and against others constantly, too. Otherwise, how could you even compose a single sentence for this blog? Unless you were deliberately choosing what to say and what to leave out, there would be nothing on these pages from Cheyenne. Every word of praise you've ever written in response to anybody has been a judgment call, and every word of dissent or refutation of someone else's points is the result of a judgment call as well. Judgments, discernments… you can't escape them in the realms of the relative, and you shouldn't want to in the first place anyhow. Only in absolute absorption (Nirvana) do they get lost… for a little while. But they'll be ba-aack, lol, informing you, guiding you, helping you take the proper shapes as you return to the world of the relative where the One is experiencing itself in many forms and seeks to treat itself with compassion.
Self-honesty, accurate self-assessment… I believe these are prerequisites for true compassion.
Self-honesty, accurate self-assessment… I believe these are prerequisites for true compassion.
Ok…there it is…ms. warrior wielding the truth sword of compassion…
for all those who don't know…get a fucking pencil and take notes…
I have to continue to look within my own being for my path to freedom…my life is my very path of awakening…and everything…even that which brings me pain…is compassion…b/c it continues to open my heart and mind to the truth of what i am…
I had a teacher, much like Mascha…well, I had many (still do)…but one inparticular that called me on my bullshit, till I could begin to see if for myself…and it was so hard for me…I had been sexually and emotionally abused…get the violins out and start playing…LOL…I had lied to myself, and been lied to so much that I could not see the true from the false…so a sword wielding compassionate truth warrior had to cut through my bs…
I learned to drown myself and my probs in alcohol and drugs…but the biggest way I escaped was through fantasy spirituality…b/c, this way is the most cunning…and the hardest egg to crack…
I love all of you…the warrior women with the compassionate swords…and the women that continue to have to cut away their own illusions…there is a little of this wild women in all of us…
love n joy*
Mascha! I was not misleading you!…no I did not discriminate when writing this. I responded. Nor am I discriminating against you or others! No! I enjoy everyone sincerely and deeply! I understand the difficulty in our language. Yes, I teach people not to discriminate but to know. Direct experience.
If I have discovered something, it is a discovery for me. I have direct knowledge. No more discriminating is needed. When you ask a question and I answer you, it is an answer to you, not a discovery. What I say that is my discovery can only be your discrimination. You are telling me you believe in discrimination. I have no need to say you are wrong. That is your discovery!
The answer can be misleading if you start believing in it as if it were your discovery. This is my discovery. Not discrimination. But if you do not believe in the answer as your discovery but you keep remembering that it is somebody else's discovery, “attainment said this and that, etc., etc.” then the answer is not misleading you.
It is an encouragement to go on the great journey! The great masters have been woo-ing us to have trust that we can live directly without 'thinking' about everything! being so worried, needing to decide on this and that…knowing and knowledge are different phenomenons.
Of course, Mascha, in the beginning there is effort, there is study, there is discrimination….but one day you leap out of the nest!…you don't know what will happen. You have left mind behind and you are there living straight from your 'being'. LIke a bird leaving the nest…! Everyday is the first time!..every experience never had before! Innocent, fresh! Life becomes a discovery!
If you hear me..sincerely…it depends on you - not on me. I truly do not wish for you to believe my answers as your answers. Yet, I am not misleading you because I answer you, no! One must understand practice. Must understand the language of practice.
What can I do? I am an ordinary person like you! I am not preaching any oddness..no. I am preaching exactly what practice is about! Coming home to reality! beyond mind! Reality is not to be made a belief to be discriminated.
Discriminating types go on brooding about pros and cons, thinking about everything. Practice is not the place where you are supposed to think too much. It is a place to take a jump into a silent state of non-thinking, because thinking is parrot-like.
You see the game? We are speaking for different reasons! I am speaking in terms of practice…and practice is my life. Man becomes so burdened with ideas that he forgets completely what he is doing!
A little more aware - see what is happening - silent. Do not ask a question! Because there will be questions..and they will get in the way of experience! Right now maybe questions need to be burned out! Then what I am saying to you will make more sense! Ask all questions till they are all gone. Then one comes to a point where all questions disappear and life is no longer a problem. When all problems disappear, life is no longer a problem but a mystery to be lived, to be loved, to be danced, sung! Not discriminated!…
Sincerely! and with love!
Cheyenne
lol. Thanks Nic, you rock! *Amy curtsy for Queen Nic, the sweetest queen of all.
Omygoodness Mascha, I actually blinked when I read the opening of your above post. For a moment, it was like, when did I write that? I so see the world similarly. You rock!
Anyway, is it only me or do u guys see it too, that the sweet play of this perfect universe of dark and light could at times render one incapable of speech.
And one more thing….I found this in Gia's current blog….
thank you all for going so deeply into all this. I will return tomorrow when I have energy. What a long day at work! Whew!
much love
Dear Cheyenne,
it pains me to say this, but you are presuming way too much about where I'm coming from, what my experience and level of realization is, and what I need to be told because I don't know it yet.
I realize that some of us are so identified with their roles as teachers, they see a student in everyone, much like the hammer to whom everything looks like a nail which needs to be knocked down and put in its proper place.
Yes, there is a deeper knowing that arises when the ordinary surface mind is stilled…. this is called jnana, direct knowing, there is no English word for it. Buddhists call it Mind with a capital M so as to distinguish it from small mind thinking. But even in that Big Mind, there still arise judgments of all kinds, only this choiceless awareness is not identified with any of them, yet it still picks and chooses the options that appear to suit the situation best, without effort, seemingly automatically, with spontaneous ease. It is hard to describe this… and I haven't done a good job conveying it here, but you should be humble enough to consider that others here might not necessarily be strangers to functioning in Big Mind states of varying depths, even if they directly contradict the views you are presently wedded to.
With love and in all sincerity,
your friend, though not necessarily a blind admirer ;)
Dear Mascha!
Of course! Thank you so much! Communicating on line has it limits! I sincerely do not wish to be considered a teacher. It is so I have a center. I work daily every day! My private practice is full and I teach at night - and I have five children! I home school two of them!
I can be more silly than the children even…even they are laughing because of my silly nature! Quite easy going! I enjoy life very much!
And I am happy..so happy to be learning from everyone!
Thank you…and I wish you every blessing.
with love!
Cheyenne
Yo, Starlight and Amygoddess. It's very encouraging to see your rockin' and rollin' words and find you on the same page that I'm on. Thank you so much for your courage! Actually, that last sentence applies to everyone who chimes in. It's not always pleasant to expose yourself on the net for everyone to judge - which they will! Count on it 100%, no matter what the goody-two-shoes say. We will be judged, ouch ouch, get used to it!
Hello all , For those discriminate minds it is said the cockroach is always wrong when arging with a chicken, so choose your weapon which one are you, a bug some step on to destroy that can live in radiation, or food comsumed by the fox, and a bird that cannot fly.
For true warriors can only see to fight for peace when they are awake.
Thanks
As for moi a gentlemen uses a hint, a clown a club.
J.M.
Hello all,
In reading through this blog I am reminded, somewhat, of the Jim Rome talk radio program where 'clones' call in with a take. Jim's famous line is, “Have a take and don't suck!” Then, when a great call ends he say's, “Rack em.”
Well, to all of you I say, Rack em!” Lot's of great takes.
With regard to compassion, my take is much like Cheyenne's, Amy writes… “And true compassion is putting ourselves in someone’s shoes…yes, even the bad guys and to see that we’re all victims of nature’s programming, emotions, circumstances…etc. etc.”
The following words are not my own; they are attributed to the Buddha. I use them because I have no words that are more simple and to the point.
“Compassion arises out of a deep understanding of our shared suffering.”
Compassion is not something that can be known or understood through the intellect. It is known through direct experience alone …and while I can say that I have direct experience of compassion and am influenced by it, I cannot say that I know what it is. It is like trying to define Love.
Like Cheyenne, I live my life as a meditation, as a practice. It often doesn't look reasonable or rational to the outside observer but that is of no consequence. It makes sense to my heart and makes the child within me smile.
Personally, I do not know compassion to be “Cold as a bitch or hard” in any way. It is soft and gentle and yet incredibly strong. A Paradox. It is able to say 'no' when 'no' is appropriate but there are no barbs attached. The first person I ever met that consistantly demonstrated compassion was my teacher. I have known him for more than twenty years, and in all that time, I have never seen him be anything but gentle, even in a rebuke, and his point is always well understood.
Be well
Have u ever been raped Bob? Have you ever smoked crack until you thought ur heart was going to jump out of ur chest…but then u wanted it too, cuz ur problem was not with dying it was with living…
ur truth may not have ever been a cold hard bitch…and i never said it was…but mine has been…and i know many who have traveled that way…starving children…neglected and raped and beaten…and Buddhism tells us about Karma so we feel better about ignoring that…and turning our heads and looking the other way…
so while ur truths may have been soft and gentle, there are many whose truths have not been…my life was hard, and so my lessons of compassion have had to be as well…
love and joy*
hmm…good point…both Star and Bob, imho. Perhaps this requires more thoughts from me…but right now, I see that compassion has two sides…………and one side is indeed a cold hard bitch……..
It happened just the other day……my friend's dog was dying of cancer………….and to be compassionate to the sweet little puppy so he doesn't suffer, she had him put to sleep. And now she is the one who is in agony, always wondering whether she did the right thing, whether she was being selfish….lessening her suffering by putting her little dog to sleep….. feeling tons of guilt. Same thing happened to my father-in-law………….he was suffering from Alzheimers (Oh, God, u guys don't really want me to go into this one….)
So compassionate could be soft to the person receiving it and harsh to the person delivering it…………I mean how many times, me as a parent, had to sacrifice hours and hours of sleep so my babies can have a good night's sleep.
If compassionate is soft on one side, it has to be hard on the other side. Right? Right! Now the rest of you be quiet and go to sleep. lol. Just kidding, ppl, ppl.
Well, this is definitely going to be my “hottest” blog so far :) you guys are amazing.
Bob,
I am delighted to have you grace my blog. I want to say how much I resonate with what you are saying:
Compassion is not something that can be known or understood through the intellect. It is known through direct experience alone …and while I can say that I have direct experience of compassion and am influenced by it, I cannot say that I know what it is. It is like trying to define Love.
Like Cheyenne, I live my life as a meditation, as a practice. It often doesn't look reasonable or rational to the outside observer but that is of no consequence. It makes sense to my heart and makes the child within me smile.
Amy, Starlight -
I get the feeling that if we were all in the same room there would be a whole lot more nodding and grokking each other than apparently disagreeing. We have all lived different things which lead us to make different conclusions about the nature of reality.
Amy,
I can understand you may not want to go into your dad's experience. But if you do, my dear, I for one am heart-ready to iisten.
Robert,
I feel helpless with love toward you every time I see you here or think of you or hear you or… Filled with gratitude each day.
You say “true warriors can only see to fight for peace when they are awake.”
I just stumbled upon this poem:
Peace warrior
Yet not to be
but trend ending
towards the
light of peace
fleeing the
darkness of hate
a counter movement
of degree, small
incrementals heading
where there's room
slivers of warmer
feeling in a cold heart
small changes in
the only heart
touchable by me
mine alone, free
to repair, prepare
for what i'd
like to be
knowing i could
would fight kill
need be but
willing to forsake
hate even for
mine enemy.
by Henry Burt Stevens
March 31, 2005
www.authorsden.com
Cheyenne
Your wisdom, your openness, your grace humble me more and more as I am seeing the radiance of who you are. With your very full plate that you come here to share from that fullness makes me very happy, teaches me important things.
Mascha
I realize that some of us are so identified with their roles as teachers, they see a student in everyone, much like the hammer to whom everything looks like a nail which needs to be knocked down and put in its proper place.
I feel guilty in this regard. I am a daughter of two teachers, and not just running a learning centre but always always teaching, probably when I needn't. Thank you for the reminder to me.
Yes, there is a deeper knowing that arises when the ordinary surface mind is stilled…. this is called jnana, direct knowing, there is no English word for it. Buddhists call it Mind with a capital M so as to distinguish it from small mind thinking. But even in that Big Mind, there still arise judgments of all kinds, only this choiceless awareness is not identified with any of them, yet it still picks and chooses the options that appear to suit the situation best, without effort, seemingly automatically, with spontaneous ease. It is hard to describe this… and I haven't done a good job conveying it here, but you should be humble enough to consider that others here might not necessarily be strangers to functioning in Big Mind states of varying depths, even if they directly contradict the views you are presently wedded to.
This is the tremendous potential of our online interactions - we can meet people all over the world from different cultures and become so very very rich in perspectives. How I love you, and appreciate the chances recently to get to know you a bit better. I still have so much to learn about you but am open and willing to explore deeper.
Amy
I am very pleased you referenced Gia's blogs. Gia is such a dear sweet soul, I love her blogs and hope that more and more have the opportunity to enjoy them. It is said that every girl is a princess, so that means every woman is a queen right? Queen Amy, I bow before your wild and free majesty.
The river has moved on, so while I have read and reflected on your earlier remarks, Mascha and starlight, I think that I will simply hold them in my mind for now. If something comes to me later in response, I will. But I look forward to hearing further from you and everyone.
Deep love and gratitude to all of you beautiful people
Compassion…(you nasty woman, you just had to lure me back to this 'horrid' site…:)
Torah - yeah, since Judaism was part of the initial post, I am allowed to bring in Torah :) - Torah commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. (Lev 19:18) Torah could give a rats behind about emotions and feelings, because in Torah love is all about action. How to act and how not to act. How we feel about others is completely irrelevant! Torah Teaches that action leads to thought and understanding - it is by doing that we learn and come to understand what we do. Torah knew thousands of years before AA came up with the slogan “Act as if” that I can change the way I think and feel by changing the way I act.
Compassion is simply love in action or 'ethical behaviour' at all times, regardless of who or what is in front of me. It might be accompanied by a positive feeling towards the subject, but as Nicole pointed out, it is often lacking in religious/spiritual communities - often I think exactly because people have not understood that it has absolutely nothing to do with emotions. One can act compassionately towards anyone, while hating them with a vengeance in one's heart. However if one persists in acting compassionately on a consistent basis towards those one hates, eventually one will cease to hate them, and maybe that is why so many religious people don't act compassionately, because hating gays, or abortionists or democrats or Jews or Muslims are more important (read: according to accepted dogma) than pleasing G-d.
SOB
Compassion is when we recognize that our view of truth may not be the same as another person's view of truth, but we allow it to exist with an open heart.
Now none of you disagree with me! Please be compassionate! The washing machine made me run back upstairs and add this. I was minding my own business compassionately putting clothes into the washer and it whispered the above sentence. LOL!
Centria…
”Compassion is when we recognize that our view of truth may not be the same as another person's view of truth, but we allow it to exist with an open heart.”
Your Washing Machine is a Genius!
yay, I lured Dov back! hehe…
love in action… yes, didn't we have some delightful discussions about that on the God Pod, Dov? Now, I had never quite looked at it that way, that compassionate action could be so dangerous to hatred and intolerance :) but I think you are right! Vive le danger…
Kathy, Kathy, my love, I simply adore what your washing machine made you add here. I am holding this and all views here with my heart wide open.
Note: Mascha wishes me to point out the following:
“This discussion began with a distinction between compassion and idiot compassion in the thread where we were discussing Rush Limbaugh.”
http://groups.gaia.com/is_there_a_god/conversations/view/482873
Big big hugs to you both!
Well, so the compassionate washing machine thing is putting in all the clothes without worring so much about what runs and whether the pink come out a little blue or vise versa and letting all those shades of black and white become illuminated grey.
Do you loan out that machine, and what cycle is that, nothing like a good old fashion cleaning lesson. Upstairs and down
Thanks Centria
J.M.
Kathy, you may find yourself with a plethora of orders for that machine - you may be in full-time business selling wise machines! :)
Robert, nothing I could ever give you for the rest of my life, though I give you my whole heart and life, could ever fill the measure of what I wish to give you.
Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats
for sale: one compassionate washing machine. Washes all colors. Lets the darks hang out with the lights. the shirts dance with the jeans. the socks give their opinions and the bras wa-la-la! the washing machine just spins and lathers and lets the clothes babble on. (“Ha! she wore ME today.” “Don't you think he looked better in me?” “This is the way it is.” “No, this is the way it is.) The washing machine never disagrees. Just keeps spinning. And every once in a while, if you're lucky, it offers some wisdom.
for sale??? What am I thinking about? I'm just hoping I can be more like that washing machine. No, forget that sentence. It's not enlightened. Never mind, I don't care about enlightenment. Yes you do. No, you don't. Just shut up, Kathy. Now THAT wasn't very enlightened was it? It was in the moment, damn it! Now, now…
Excuse me, the clothes are done. Better run downstairs. The Soap Opera in the washing machine might have more to offer. But the washing machine keeps cleaning us all. Jeans and underwear alike. And sometimes dirty shoes.
Compassion is the highest love.
It flows to another like a great ocean.
My love often is quite childish. And I know the sooner I grow out of it, the better. It moves me violently, alluringly - like a blind force.
Yet I have learned - Do not repress the love energy - refine it! Use it for meditation. It can be bumpy and gross -
As it grows and goes on refining, it transforms to an ocean of love for the 'other.' I see the 'other' and the love rushes through the veins wanting them to flower. It rushes so violently in my blood - I feel the energy emanating out of my body, my soul and heart.
It sort of feels “helpless”. I cannot do anything - but the energy of love is given - flowing between me and the other(s), like an invisible ocean - connecting us - and I want for them as if they were my only child. I want for them and the compassion feels like when I was nursing the babies…how energy would rush into my breasts, filling them. Compassion, love, rushes to my heart and flows to the other, who is part of you…to give to them. Unselfishly…it merely 'happens.'
It is the ultimate refinement of love.
Sincerely..and with love!
Che
Kathy, dear, love it! letting darks hang out with lights :):) and those dirty shoes…
Che, childish love, you too? Oh, I lose patience all the time. Just lost it on the phone with the person who is so sweetly trying to help me with my awards ceremony, and apologised and explained that I am not at all angry with her but someone else who is also just trying to do her job, just not in a way I can readily understand.
But when that ocean of love really opens up it can be so powerful.
Yes!
Much love
Big big smile, Nicole!…childish! Wild and crazy..stomping around wanting my way!…and I enjoy that feeling! Just free! Why not?
Mascha asked me…and I did not answer directly…but YES, I say exactly what I feel and do what comes!…Of course, I have lost many classes, many people leave my life and presence because of it, but I am happy! Even blissful! And enjoying life! and there are few that can live the contradiction of being near an authentic person. And even feel the excitement of living this way themselves. One that has come out of the grave! Living spontaneously. Listen and act accordingly…and sometimes I am childish…because I am childish! ..but then one can grow if they know what they are!..one can grow from what is true, instead of a false manner…a false behavior imposed on the childishness.
And the childish energy does become compassion! You grow from your experience. I enjoy practice more than life!.if that can be!
The difficulty is in accepting what I am…a nut case! dropping all 'shoulds'. Relaxing into what I am. Having the courage to sign my own signature! Not copying anyone else's signature!
I smile to you…and thank you also for your kindness in your words!
Oh, that ocean!….I feel it as always there, only I am absent, rushing over a rock..the pain wakes me up!
Thank YOU, Nicole!
with love to you!
Che
Che, have to dash to work and afterwards will surely be too tired so just had to stop and say a heartfelt Namaste to you for this glowingly beautiful post. More and more love!
Che, I resonate with your comments. “It flows to another like a great ocean.” Touches my heart.
Starlight, the two of us have something in common. Much of my path this life has been the path of pain. I was born with a double hernia and had surgery when I was three months old. Up till then, my parents had to keep pushing my guts back in everytime they spilled out and I was in constant pain. I also had terrible speech impediments and was quite confused as a young child. That afforded me the opportunity to be the butt of a lot of jokes. I'm sure you've seen how cruel kids can be. I wrote my first suicide note when I was eleven and lived in a state that alternated between rage/anger and depression for more than twenty five years. And as you might imagine, yes, I did try to kill myself with drugs. I grew up fighting, have been cheated on, beat up, blamed for many things I didn't do and paid the price even though I didn't do it. I've been homeless, been betrayed by people close to me and had my heart ripped out and handed to me. Blah, blah, blah …the story goes on and on. Do I know pain, powerlessness and anquish? Yes. Am I trying to compete with the pain you have endured? No. I'm pointing out an open secret. Everyone endures pain and suffering, some more, some less.
For me, that suffering turned into a great blessing. Ironically, one of the people who hurt me deeply also provided a great lift. What she said to me was, “You know Bob, pain can take you to God as fast as anything else.”
Hearing that, I decided to see if it was true and began diving deep into the pain that was my life. It became a practice for me. That and forgiveness.
In the end, it was the very thing that I'd been railing against (the pain) that set me free. The energy of that pain took me deep …and still does when I experience it.
Thus, from this perspective, from the perspective of one who is experienced in pain, I understand what you mean when you say that compassion can sometimes be a cold hard bitch. However, seen a little differently, it isn't compassion that's cold and hard …it's more likely our attitude when faced with difficult decisions.
For example, when my son was in his late teens he lived with his mom and was doing a great job of getting into teen type trouble with the law, and then, because he didn't follow through with court orders, that trouble escalated to the point where it could have meant quite a bit of time in jail.
The first time this happened, I gave my son the benefit of the doubt, paid his fines and had a conversation with him regarding consequences should he not follow through a second time. Well, he didn't follow through and was arrested again and hauled off to jail.
This time when the call came, first from his mother and then from him, I told them that he'd have to face the consequences of his actions. I wasn't going to bail him out, just like I told him I wouldn't.
Did I want to leave him in jail? No, of course not. I love my son and only want the best for him. Could my actions have appeared cruel and heartless? Sure, they did to his mom. But my actions came out of love and compassion, out of a deep affection and caring for my son. It was an important lesson for my son on many levels. He needed to learn that both his actions and inactions had consequences. He needed to know that I would follow through with what I said. He needed to learn to stand on his own two feet. He needed to learn a painful lesson in order to save himself from even greater pain. So, for these and a few other reasons, I made the difficult decision to allow him to make his own way.
That's why I made the comment that in my experience compassion is soft and gentle and yet incredibly strong. A paradox. That's also why I said that I don't know compassion as a cold hard bitch. My actions may have appeared to some as being cold and hard, but my heart wasn't cold or hard, it was filled with love for my son.
Now, let's say that I hadn't quite healed my own pain when this experience rolled around. Would that have changed the dynamics? Yesssirrreee! If that had been the case, I would have identified with my son's pain and that would have made my decision that much more difficult. It is quite likely, in fact, that I would have had to become cold and hard like a bitch in order to follow through, because I would have been resonating with his pain and feeling it as my own instead of empathizing with his difficulty as a shared experience. But that wasn't the case, I have forgiven the pain of my past, so my heart was able to remain open and soft and and I was able to stand in that strength.
Starlight, the warrior in me honors and respects the warrior in you.
Namaste
. something that becomes quite apparent when 's quite aparreMore than most? I doubt it. In my experience I find that we have all suffered in our own way. And, ultimately, I suffered because I forgot who I was. I lost my way. I felt lost, alone, abandoned, betrayed, unloved and unlovable. Thankfully,
so we are saying in defining compassion that it is only a 'feel good' flow…and anything other than that…is not compassion? that everything we consider to be 'bad' (good luck with agreeing on that), we must put in Kathy's washing machine (u funny goddess), and bleach and wash till it comes out smelling like gain, oooopppps some of you don't like gain??? hmmmmmmmmmmmmm…well let's take a vote on a washing powder…that is compassionate…according to us…
Bull Shit…
I'm curious Star, do you really think that having a 'deep awareness of our shared pain and suffering' feels good? If you think that's what I'm getting at, I've done a poor job in making myself clear.
I'm saying that compassion moves beyond the labels of good and bad and right and wrong. I'm saying that compassion resides beyond the intellect, so much so that the intellect cannot even comprehend it in its entireity. I'm saying that compassion informs the intellect, but it is not of the intellect.
What I'm getting at is that compassion allows me to be completely present to my own pain, and therefore to the pain of all others, without shrinking from the experience. I'm saying that with compassion, I have no need to harden my heart as a defense against against the pain. I am able to remain present to it and embrace it fully.
If you interpret this to mean ..feel good …you're only half hearing the message. I mean that it allows me to feel fully whatever the present moment yields; the good, the bad, the ugly and the beautiful without resistance.
Bod said: I'm saying that compassion moves beyond the labels of good and bad and right and wrong. I'm saying that compassion resides beyond the intellect, so much so that the intellect cannot even comprehend it in its entireity. I'm saying that compassion informs the intellect, but it is not of the intellect.
What I'm getting at is that compassion allows me to be completely present to my own pain, and therefore to the pain of all others, without shrinking from the experience. I'm saying that with compassion, I have no need to harden my heart as a defense against against the pain. I am able to remain present to it and embrace it fully.
in total agreement with you on this…*
Ah, so we're saying the same thing. Just differently. ;)
By the way, you must have tapped into my past when you addressed me as Bod. I had mild dyslexia as a child and used to spell my name - Boddy Bloom.
lol…yeap! I'm Gob…gol*
Hello all, Out In The Yard
Out in the yard on line for all to see sat the clothes off a back.
Wet and strained, twisted and torn, no fiber left untouched.
Naked and waiting, raw and exposed for the layers to return
The warmth,the coating, the barriers, the labels and the seams.
The winds unknown blowing north and south east and west,
Unseen in form from right or left twirlling inward and out.
The material drys, the blood it fades, the tears they mend.
Colors unite, shades entwine one thread to a thread.
The reach is high now their water's in the wind, we stand
So fresh as spring air, cleansed in the soil of our own hand.
Thanks
Just Me, makes us what we are.
Bob, thank you for sharing in such a heart open way! Like starlight, I loved this:
What I'm getting at is that compassion allows me to be completely present to my own pain, and therefore to the pain of all others, without shrinking from the experience. I'm saying that with compassion, I have no need to harden my heart as a defense against against the pain. I am able to remain present to it and embrace it fully.
Dearest Robert, hand in hand with you, feeling the winds blow clean and clear.
Much love
Nicole thank you. When hearts connect fully, there is little difference between pain and joy.
Last night while driving home I noticed that I was feeling the effects of entering into difficult conversations. Within me, I noticed a tight, burning sensation in my chest, which for me is a reminder to open up and allow whatever wants to pass through me without resistance.
Suddenly, out of the blue, the following thought occurred to me.
Maybe I have it backwards. Maybe what I perceive to be pain is really joy and joy is really pain. Hmmm, I wondered, If that's the case, then this world is heaven.
and maybe it is just energy that has a hold on it by a judgment…one that we give it…calling it joy or pain…
i have relaxed into pain and blissed out in joy…
i have been blissed out in joy…and felt a knife of pain stab me in my heart over suffering of a friend or a war or a child…or a tragedy in this life that i have no control over…
i know this moment is what i make it, and i can make it hell or heaven…
that is not to say that suffering is not…it is…but we can open that suffering to joy…
cry with those in pain…rejoice with those in joy…we can feel both at the same time…isn't that what being compassionate is all about?
always, star…
There we go again Star …saying the same thing …just differently!
TA DA! LOVELY!
does that mean no mud wrestling??? LOL*
Hello:
I may have told this story before but please allow me again. It was at work, where I am a nurse, where there is daily untold suffereing as we have learned to call it and trap it. Yet in this place other sides of public definations come along every once and a while, and one of them is pain. Pain in the essence of how we are taught and conditioned to see as, as this experience of torment and suffereing with loss, abuse, neglect, going without some event or experience that we, once again are taught that we have a right or need for. In most cases a “good” life collectively whatever the heck that is, happiness collectively again whatever the heck that is. So for many years individuals are programed to think unless they are experienceing the preformed degrees of happiness than they must not be. I often puzzled over this because happiness is something you carry inside yourself no matter the circumstances or who told you how it was to be, it is a selfless act towards others from within side yourself.
There came to me an example of this one day . . The partner of a couple was dying, not uncommon where I work, weekly event actually. There was with this couple this example of compassion for all of self.. For as the partner was dying the other stayed at the bed side night and day, day and night. Which in itself is not uncommon, but their health was not ideal either. I told them and that the person they were watching over would not want them to exhaust themselves, go for a couple hours I'll watch I said.
” You are right they would not, but no son” they said” I'm going to stay here with them.”
“ But look how you are suffering, your legs are swelling up, you your self are walking worse than your partner.”
They looked at me reached and touched my hand so gently and said” There is no pain in love there is just love my son”.
So some how we have convinced ourselves we suffer from what we do not have or did not think we should be getting, but in this instance as I have come to further understand compassion, as you speak of Bob, it is what we deny ourselves in compassion for ourselves as equal human beings to others, no matter the circumstances, that causes true suffering in ourselves and one another.
Thanks
J.M.
Bob: Maybe I have it backwards. Maybe what I perceive to be pain is really joy and joy is really pain. Hmmm, I wondered, If that's the case, then this world is heaven.
I believe this world is heaven becoming more heaven for some, and hell becoming more hell for others. And heaven becoming hell and hell becoming heaven. It depends, doesn't it?
“The mind is its own place, and in itself. Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” ~John Milton, Paradise Lost
Starlight, as you say: i know this moment is what i make it, and i can make it hell or heaven… that is not to say that suffering is not…it is…but we can open that suffering to joy… cry with those in pain…rejoice with those in joy…we can feel both at the same time…isn't that what being compassionate is all about?
Yes, yes! Oh yes, my dear friend.
Robert: you have touched me so deeply with this story, with this lesson, every time you tell me it. Oh, grant me the boon of telling me a million times, that I never stop hearing you tell your stories all the days of my life, until my life goes into life and we meet again on the Other Side - ” There is no pain in love there is just love my son”.
So some how we have convinced ourselves we suffer from what we do not have or did not think we should be getting, but in this instance as I have come to further understand compassion, as you speak of Bob, it is what we deny ourselves in compassion for ourselves as equal human beings to others, no matter the circumstances, that causes true suffering in ourselves and one another.
Time for some metta, all my relations?
Namo Buddhaya!
May all beings be free from
suffering and the causes of suffering.
May all beings be free from
disease and the causes of disease.
May all beings be free from
hunger and the causes of hunger.
May all beings be free from violence and the causes of violence.
May all beings be free from fear and the causes of fear.
May all beings be free from worry and the causes of worry.
May all beings be free from sadness and the causes of sadness.
May all beings be free from negative thinking
and the causes of negative thinking.
May all beings be free from pride and the causes of pride.
May all beings be free from anger and the causes of anger.
May all beings be free from jealousy and the causes of jealousy.
May all beings be free from ignorance and the causes of ignorance.
May all beings have positive thinking and the causes of positive thinking.
May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness.
May all beings have peace and the causes of peace.
May all beings have joy and the causes of joy.
May all beings have faith and the causes of faith.
May all beings have merit and the causes of merit.
May all beings realize compassion and the causes of compassion.
May all beings realize loving kindness and the causes of loving kindness.
May all beings realize awareness and the causes of awareness.
May all beings realize wisdom and the causes of wisdom.
May all beings realize the nature of mind.
Source: http://www.dzogchenlineage.org/peace_prayer.html
when one “gives up” their entire existence to be a vehicle for the best of all…then all will see the one.
yes, it is as Jesus said, those who seek to save their lives will lose them. Those who lose their lives will gain everything. much love to you~
“Holy CAT scan”, Nic.
I just did, or rather tried to click/clue into the whole smear of people's here, and had to do a heavy on my computer of shutting down and boosting it all up again….it just played a 395 on me…..(the circle of 8, if you really want to get technical about it. (3+9+5='s 17 which ='s 8…. and blah, blah, blah.
I totally love what you said about “fasting.” It does indeed draw into ones holy imagination of 'healing and just.' It is a cleansing of much to be aware of, and holds the key to what gives next. (sort'a speak)
It is an honor to be amongst such oppositions of so called do - gooder's, such as yourself, moi, and all the rest of us wanna bee's to become a better person. Good - Government is what we all vote for when it comes to health standards, and ain't it just a kick in the keaster when a no good F#ck'n Doctor does his duty on us!
My sister was a person that had shock treatments, and now due to the standards of killing the brain wave of her in sightly cosmic gatherings, shall we say, it has been out-lawed, due to the doctor'n know how of……”Hey You FUCKS OUT THERE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BASTARDS DOING!”…..guinea pigs are for 4 legged creature's!”
It has been known that 'shock treatments' are as out-lawed as the hillbilly days (here in Canada)….. with those one tooth smiling mouth jack asses, to a pea brained, pie-eyed no gooder of a nutt'n user of a doctrine - justa ready to do a 'gravy train on any dog in heat….. which still goes on there in the U.S.Of A, I might add!
Yes, so sorry for speaking out loud. I do know that not ALL states have this primitive doctoring in session, but some Do!
Those doctors should of been Shot….oooops, I mean “shock treated” for doing those shock treatments to your loved one, Star. They have no idea of what the mind holds and should not of been given the right to do practice on any living body, for that matter!
Being that our minds are a fabulous thing to behold, and up to a being - of 'self' to control,…..given the rightful path of med's or even a walk through a journey of Buddha, may be all what a body needs.
BOY,…….am I EVER PISSED, about so called Doctors doing “shock treatments”…..don't even get me started, Fu## 'N son's a Bit#hes!!…..otta be Shot……ooops….i mean 'shocked, like the rest of them, and have them see for themselves what a master plan they have destroyed!
So, Nic…….any more lively conversation you wish to share?
Call me:)
thank you so much for coming here to share. we had a great conversation on the phone today, i am very much looking forward to our getting together at the end of November.
Shock treatments are an utter abomination. It is unthinkable that they are still going on today anywhere, especially in so-called civilised countries. I wonder what it will take to eradicate them altogether? Even then, the cumulative damage has been done to so many, which in turn affects the lives of many more.
Much love, my dear Ri!
Holy sensitive computer I am now writing on….lol.
I wanted to read what your travels were all about in your latest blog, Nic, and came across something more that I wanted to share with everyone in This blog, first.
…sure makes sense to me:)
Love and good will be with everyone (((((( ))))))
Bless
http://www.starfirescircle.com/beliefs.html
Thanks for the link hon! Love you so, and thanks for dropping by here.