Nurturing Compassion
The whole world is in need of compassion. The whole world desperately needs compassion unconditionally and without limits…
In Buddhism, we are taught that being unconditionally compassionate requires living from a mind that no longer has any reasons for personal differentiation. When a person has a reason to think personally, emotionally and dualistically about anything in terms of right-wrong, good-bad, special-not special, desirable-not desirable, they separate themselves from all others, from the energy of compassion and the Living Life energy. They are excluded from the wholeness of being in compassion as long as judgmental thinking exists in the mind. This type of thinking is often subtle and at times hard to recognize. As judgemental thinking is practiced it becomes the habitual pattern in the subconscious mind and is present for most people in their minute to minute cognition and behaviour. It comes from conditioned positions taken up by the ego, which attempts to reinforce itself by compensating for perceived deficits, uncertainties or fears. We may not even recognize these consciously.
Fear arises out of a heart that is not free of personal differentiations. Fear arises when the heart holds onto anything that is other than Love. The heart can only contain one master. Either the master of the heart is Love, or it is anything and everything else.
Out of fear comes suffering. “Suffering” exists as stress, dissatisfaction, frustration, worry, emotional pain and the desire to escape these without knowing how. Knowing how to escape suffering is not possible as long as one is distracted by circumstances that are met or not met, and that we think will make us happy. Yet escape is not in the details of life. Rather it exists in relation to the mind set that looks for what is not good, not right, not what we want. All of these function as reasons that prevent the heart from being in Love. Without living in the moment from a loving heart, there can be no real compassion. As long as personal differentiations exist within an individual, compassion and love can not be extended to anyone, much less the whole world.
The essence of this teaching is that everyone wants to escape from what keeps them away from the state of loving. Very Deep is this desire to escape what imprisons us. When we try to escape from something, anything, without knowing what it is we desire to escape to, escape is virtually impossible. When we try to escape from anything, it is like watching the wake behind the boat as a means to go elsewhere. This incessant state of wanting (root word meaning: to lack) something else keeps us from seeing that it is Love our hearts deeply yearn for. Only when we recognize that the answer is not escaping from, it is escaping to, do we begin to gain any measure of control. We try to escape, without knowing it is Love we desire to escape to.
For compassion to be real and not an ideology, it requires that an individual live from a heart and mind of pure equanimity. Non-reactiveness to anything personally no longer occurs because there is only room for Love in the heart. Thus equanimity (even-mindedness, fearlessness, and calmness under all circumstances) becomes the base of doing anything in life. Otherwise, compassion for the world is merely a sentimental idea and just words.
Compassion can only exist in a heart that contains Love, and nothing else. Unconditional Love can not exist in the heart in conjunction with any other state of being. The ultimate compassion and loving kindness needed in the world today requires individuals to unwaveringly commit to being Loving only. This means committing to being Loving in both the ways of thinking and ways of behaving.
When there are no reasons for not being loving and the mind becomes habitually committed to thinking in loving terms only, then Love flows through the heart as easily as breathing. Getting all reasons for not being loving out of both thoughts and mind opens the heart automatically to living from loving kindness, compassion and selfless joy, which together are Love’s action base.
Living from this state, in turn, opens the heart to growing and using the powers of loving compassion and appreciative joy. These are real and powerful Life energies. We often do not recognize this because our hearts are not free of the stranger (everything else).
When you are loving in heart toward all things, all things in a sense become a part of you. You become connected through awareness to all things. This is not a personal sense of awareness, which would only throw you back into separateness and confusion, and is by its nature defined off of a limited number of people, situations, and places. It is the living energy of Life awareness that I am speaking of. Through this Awareness, you are interconnected to life and Life energy. You need only recognize this Awareness to see.
Your real and vast Self abides within the Living energy of the Earth as a whole. Your vast Self is expanded to include the possibilities of all things. The Earth is the Living energy base of all things. In effect, you become one with the Life energy of the Earth and with the Life energy of all things. You resonate with and are in the resonating of that Living energy that exists within all things. With this practised way of seeing and through developing the habit of loving consciousness, our energies blend together with all living things including the Earth itself. This blending harmoniously with all energies becomes a basis for what we can call “knowing awareness.”
Through Loving consciousness that is not personally biased you can overcome the limits of personal self and flow with this Living power. Life itself is intimately connected to the Earth which is the Living expression of all Life and Unlimited Being. Who would knowingly work against themselves if they recognized their Self was in truth in all things?
This is the deepest secret of living from Loving consciousness. By being the energy of all things, you no longer have any reasons for not being in a loving state all of the time. The sense of separateness that once was the root of all fearful thinking, is abolished. One does not divide Itself.
Growing into living unconditionally in Love, is the path to freedom from suffering. It is the essence of enlightenment.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Jalal ad-Din Rumi quotes (Persian Poet and Mystic, 1207-1273)
What a beautiful and enlightened text about True Compassion. Was wondering how to set physical and/or energetic boundaries in a compassionate way. Any suggestion? Thank you dear Yao Hai for your precious sharing. With a Grateful Heart. France
Before we discuss boundaries, be aware as to whether your boundaries are serving ego, or are they serving moment to moment daily functionality and/or contributing to your spiritual growth. If they do not serve safety, well-being, health or other functionalities, or support the removing of internal barriers to living from a more loving point of view, those boundaries need further examining.
There are four parts to setting boundaries:
1. Know what your boundaries are in the first place. Be very clear in yourself as to what your boundaries are.
2. Make those boundaries clear to others as is relevant, and as early as possible.
3. Always speak kindly. Think of ways to say things kindly well before (if possible) any need for expressing what your boundaries are.
4. Do not make your boundaries someone else’s responsibility or burden. Do not take anything for granted.
When your boundaries are being broached: Be adamant and firm without personalizing, verbally attacking or criticizing. Make your vision of what is possible, not possible, and your expectations of how things will proceed, very clear.
It is always better to present one’s boundaries well before there are any possibilities of being broached and reiterate them when any sign of the possibility of being broached arises.