Bodhisattva Road
“Showing and receiving kindness is one of the most powerful communications, because that communication is coming from a place of true connection, a genuine connection with a fellow human.”
-Thupten Jinpa
There are three ways compassion manifests in our lives. Reflecting on the differences and similarities between these three manifestations can help us in our practice and in our daily life.
They are:
1) Receiving compassion from others
2) Being a source of compassion for others
3) Self-directed compassion
All of these contribute to our happiness and well being in different ways. All three are important to cultivate. I think they’re each equally important but each of us have different forms of compassion we need to work on more.
1) Receiving compassion from others
When we feel real authentic compassion from another person we can feel understood instead of judged and accepted instead of rejected. If you want to show compassion to someone and you’re not sure how, think of how you can make them feel understood and accepted. Most of the time that’s what people need.
Reflect on a time when someone showed real kindness to you. It doesn’t have to be some big grand gesture. Maybe someone offered a hug when you were feeling upset, or bought you lunch when you had no money. Little things like these matter. It messes us up when we start to think they don’t. Our own experience with our suffering and receiving compassion helps us have empathy. Suffering is a universal part of life. And we can see that other people suffer just like we do. That should bring us together and make us love each other, but of course often it does not.
An act of compassion can touch the core of our being and remind us of our shared humanity. Our ability to appreciate compassion from others is the seed of our compassion for others.
I think a lot of the struggles we have with our relationships and communications with other people is we sometimes forget….they’re people, just like we are. Sure, we don’t directly think “This person I disagree with isn’t a person.” But we do act like it.
2) Being a source of compassion for others.
This is where we need to learn how to focus on the suffering and needs of another person.
Reflect on a moment in your life where you extended compassion for someone else. We’ve all done this. Can you remember what it felt like to open your heart and really care for someone else?
If you’re like most of us, you’re biggest memories of extending compassion are the things you’ve done for your loved ones. But, again, we’ve all done little things for others too. We even do things for strangers. Holding the elevator when someone is approaching. Listening when someone is telling you their problems, not solving anything and not waiting for your turn to talk, just listening. These are things we do.
Compassion is natural. It is a fundamental part of human nature. But sometimes we choose to block it. Much of that is simply things we’ve been taught. We tell ourselves the world is an awful place full of awful people and we really believe it. Cynicism is cool these days and positive thinking is not. But what if we stop trying to be cool?
One of my kids called me a “bottle of sunshine.” She meant it in a negative way. “You’re a bottle of sunshine,” I guess meant I’m not cool. But I took it as a good thing. I want to be a bottle of sunshine. Compassion is like sunshine. It’s everywhere. We just have to learn to see it.
The world is a good place and the people in it are mostly good. I believe this in spite of everything.
3) Self-directed compassion
You are not a broken anxious mess. You are human like everyone else. You make mistakes, you struggle, and you hurt people when you don’t want to. Everyone does this. We can extend the same kind of sentiment to ourselves that we do to the people we care about.
Many of us would be way more negative with our self talk than we ever would with the way we talk to the people around us. I may think “I can’t do anything right,” but I would never say to my children or my wife, “You can’t do anything right.” I can’t even imagine doing that. Why is that? I have more compassion for my children and my wife than I do for myself. I can give myself some grace when I have trouble remembering something important or completing a complicated task. You can too.
We can be really hard on ourselves. Often that is from fear. I’m afraid I’m not good enough. I’m afraid I’ll never learn how to really budget my finances because I’m not smart enough. I’m afraid I’ll mess up my kids because I’m not attentive and wise enough. We all have these kinds of thoughts, even the people that really seem to have it all together.
You are good enough. And telling yourself negative stories about yourself helps no one.
So, those are the ways compassion manifests. And it can be easy to have compassion for our loved ones. It can be a little harder to have compassion for ourselves. And often it’s much harder to manifest compassion for strangers.
But take heart. We aren’t trying to build our compassion. That’s not really what this is about. It’s about figuring out where the barriers we’ve put up around ourselves are and taking them down. All of this is helped by learning to take off our armor and to be truly vulnerable and open-hearted.
It’s not easy and you have to be really brave. But you can do it.
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If you’re here in Kansas City, I have a free public event coming up. Details are here:
2/26/22 2pm @Aquarius KC
Talk: Boundless Heart Meditation
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AND if you want to help us build a new Buddhist temple in Kansas City, you can click here:
Rime Center Temple Project
The Rime Buddhist Center wants to be a positive force in the community. A sacred place that is full of learning, reflection and joy. We want to be a spiritual home to a vibrant sangha – your spiritual home. We invite you to participate in a truly unique project – building the first Tibetan Buddhist Temple here in Kansas City. Support us as we open the doors of loving-kindness and achieving peace through compassion.
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