The Nature Of Compassion by Linda-Ann Stewart

Wishing to strike out, to reduce some of their own agony, they wound others. And since that solution is only temporary, but it does briefly blunt some of the anguish, they continue to act out of their pain. They deserve compassion as much as their victims.

Many spiritual people empathize w/the disenfranchised, the offender, so much that they pardon the victimizer, no matter what they've done. But deserving compassion doesn't mean that the abuser's actions should be condoned or excused.

They had the choice of what actions to take. If they choose to aim their anger at another, they must be held accountable for their decision. Trying to protect them from the consequences of their actions doesn't allow them to learn the lesson of the experience.

The Universe has laws of "cause & effect." Set an action in motion & it will return in a similar fashion. It's been called "reaping & sowing." If I have a business partner who defrauds me w/out remorse, I don't have to hate them or respond in kind.

But I do need to end the partnership. That's the consequence of their action. If I remain in the partnership, even though I might object strenuously to their behavior, I'm giving them tacit acceptance of their conduct & attracting more of it into my life.

Protecting someone from the fallout of their actions means that we'd be interfering with their learning experience. They've set up the occurrence & the Universe will ensure that they'll learn the lesson from it one way or another.

We may have compassion for mass murderers, like Ted Bundy & John Gacy, for the turmoil in their souls that compelled them to kill others. But that doesn't mean that we want them wandering the streets & endangering more people. Incarcerating them keeps them from adding to their own karmic burden.

It isn't retribution or revenge to put them away. It's to protect society from the murderers & the murderers from their own impulses that would escalate their eventual experience of the Universal consequences.

Having compassion for a person's pain means that we also may have compassion for the consequences of their actions. But if we get in the way of their taking the results of their behavior, we're actually interfering with the action of the Universe.

We can't protect another from him or herself. They have chosen this lesson. No matter how hard it is or how painful, we have to stand back & let them learn it. If they don't learn their lesson now, then they'll have to repeat it until they do. This hurts them & their future victims, needlessly.

Affirmation
I have compassion for all those who have been wounded in some way. But I let go of my desire to protect anyone from the consequences of their actions. Only in this way will they be able to learn the lesson of the experience. I trust the action of the Universe in allowing something blessed to arise out of any apparent tragedy.

Compassion is a Verb by Sharon Salzberg               

As THICH NHAT HANH, the Vietnamese Zen monk, points out,

"Compassion is a verb."

It's not a thought or a sentimental feeling, but is rather a movement of the heart. As classically defined in Pali, compassion is "the trembling or the quivering of the heart". But how do we get our hearts to do that? How do we "do" compassion?

Compassion is born out of loving kindness. It's born of knowing our oneness, not just thinking about it or wishing it were so. It's born out of the wisdom of seeing things exactly as they are. But compassion also arises from the practice of inclining the mind, of refining our intention.

The Dalai Lama once said, "I don't know why people like me so much. It must be because I try to be compassionate, to have bodhicitta, the aspiration of compassion." He doesn't claim success - he claims a commitment to really trying.

Is there a difference, in quality or quantity, between the compassion any of us might feel & the compassion of the Dalai Lama? Is it that he experiences more compassionate moments in a row? Or is the actual quality of compassion different? 

While this can be seen from many different perspectives, one traditional view would say that a moment of compassion any one of us feels is as pure, as deep, as direct as anyone else's; but what happens is that we may lose touch with it more often. We get distracted, we forget, we get caught up in something else, or we confuse another feeling for the state of compassion.

We might at times think that we're feeling compassion when in fact what we're feeling is fear.

We may be afraid to take an action, to confront a person or a situation, to be forceful or to reach out. Under the guise of believing we're being kind & compassionate, we hold back.

From the Buddhist perspective, this lack of effort to ease our own or another's suffering is seen as lack of courage. Because it's not easy to see lack of courage in oneself, we prefer to think we're being compassionate rather than afraid.

Another state of mind that's often confused w/compassion is guilt.

When we see someone who is suffering while we're fairly happy, or if we're happy in a way that another person isn't, we might inwardly feel that we don't deserve our happiness, or that we should hold back our happiness out of pity for the other.

But guilt, in Buddhist psychology, is defined as a type of self-hatred & a form of anger.

Certainly there are times when we recognize that we've acted unskillfully & we feel concern & remorse. This kind of remorse can be important & healing. This is in contrast to the guilt we feel as a state of contraction, in which we endlessly review what we might've done or said in the past.

In this state of guilt we become center stage; rather than acting to serve others, we act to get rid of the guilt & thus only serve ourselves.

Guilt drains our energy, whereas compassion