COMPASSION

  
Compassion is a practice of inclining the mind and of intention. Rather than laying a veneer of idealism on top of reality, we want to see quite nakedly all the different things that we feel and want and do for what they actually are. The mistake that most of us make at one time or another is to try to superimpose something else upon what we are feeling: “I mustn’t feel fear, I must only feel compassion. Because, after all, that is my resolve—to feel compassion.” So we might feel considerable fear or guilt, yet we are trying to deny it and assert, “I’m not fearful because I am practicing lovingkindness and that’s all I am allowed to feel.” The stability at the heart of compassion comes from wisdom or clear seeing. We don’t have to struggle to be someone we are not, hating ourselves for our fears or our guilt.

One of the things that most nourishes true compassion is clarity— when we know what we are thinking and know what we are feeling. This clarity differentiates compassion from shallow martyrdom, when we are only thinking of others and we are never caring about ourselves. This clarity differentiates compassion from what might be thought of as a conventional kind of self-preoccupation, when we care only about ourselves and not about others. The Buddha said at one point that if we truly loved ourselves we would never harm another, because if we harm another it is in some way diminishing who we are; it is taking away from rather than adding to our lives.

It is tempting to undertake a meditation practice or path of development with the same kind of clinging motivation with which we might have undertaken anything else. Perhaps we feel empty inside, we feel bereft in some ways, we feel we are not good enough, and so we undertake spiritual practice to try to ameliorate all of that. But evolving a spiritual practice is not about having and getting. It is about being more and more compassionate toward ourselves and toward others. It is not about assuming a new self-image or manufactured persona. It is about being compassionate naturally, out of what we see, out of what we understand. Compassion is like a mirror into which we can always look. It is like a stream that steadily carries us. It is like a cleansing fire that continually transforms us.

-- Sharon Salzberg