Compassion in Adversity

Buddhists talk about compassion a lot and aspire to manifest it in our lives.  We do so because we know it’s right, we know it will help us and others, and because we know it’s hard and we need help.  At face value it’s hardest when our own lives are difficult, but I am going to challenge that belief, and will assert that it is precisely when times are tough that it is most important we work on compassion, and it is also then when the practice can do us—and the world—the most good.

Let’s begin by refreshing ourselves on what compassion means.

According to the online dictionary I use, the word “compassion” means, “a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.”  It comes from the Latin “com” meaning “with” and “passio,” the past participle of “pati” which means suffering or submission (unrelated to the English “pity” whose root is “pietat” meaning piety, affection or duty).  This understanding of “passio” is the root meaning of the passion of Christ, a word which represents His suffering. 

With this understanding of the word compassion, it has a very Buddhist resonance, since our practice has at its very heart an understanding of the existence and nature of suffering, and an intentional practice for its relinquishment.  To relinquish suffering, whether one’s own suffering or that of others, one must first really understand it, one must really be with it.  Etymologically this is precisely what compassion means.

Compassion is not limited to Buddhism teachings and practices, though.  It is a universal virtue.  Compassion exists across all the major world religions and philosophies.  In the Christian Bible, Christ says, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy," and he tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan to exhort his followers to ideal of compassionate conduct, which is to extend love to all, even one's enemies.  In Islam the believer recites several times during each of the five daily prayers, “Bismillah Rahmanir Rahim,” which crudely translates as “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” reflecting that compassion and mercy are foremost among God’s attributes.  And in Hinduism it is one of the three central virtues along with charity and self-control.

I take all of this as very reassuring, for it confirms that the central premise of Buddhism, namely the existence of suffering and the possibility of its cessation, is valid.

We talk a lot about compassion, but we also talk a lot about the advantages of sequestering one’s self from lay life if one is to advance one’s practice.  While there may be benefit in such removal from the world to help one in practice, that is a very different thing from living in a monastic setting and living a truly compassionate life, and I’d like to talk about this possibility for a bit.

There is a tendency to idealize that which is external, especially when it is something we actually know nothing about.  I know nothing of the monastic life, having never lived one, but when I think of this I imagine a secluded, quiet and peaceful environment conducive to meditation practice.  I fully expect there to be lots of hard work—gardening, cleaning and building—and for there to be challenging studies, but equally I expect all of the work to be directed, and for the environment to be fundamentally capable of meeting my human needs of food, clothing and shelter such that I am without real worries.  And I also expect it to be an environment conducive to quieting of the passions, meaning sexual desire, gluttony, and the like.

This is an idealized environment, and I am confident that life in a monastery is not really like that.  I am confident that a monk will find that despite the environment, human passions—and remember this comes from a Latin root meaning sufferings—will arise.  But if the imagined environment actually did exist, I do not believe it would permit compassion, for it would be an environment without passion.  How can one share or be with suffering if there is no suffering?  I suggest that to live in such an environment is, in Buddhist cosmological terms, to live in the realm of heaven.  Such an environment does not facilitate waking up, since it is precisely the coexistence of suffering and intelligence in the human realm that makes this middle realm the optimal existence.

So I suggest that the very idea of compassion requires us to leave such ideals behind and throw ourselves into a world in which we fully accept that we will suffer greatly.  To experience real compassion requires us to experience real suffering, for how else can we understand and be with suffering, whether directly with our own suffering, or empathetically and in understanding with the suffering of another.  By this logic the greatest opportunity for compassion is when we are in the greatest adversity.

So how do we do this?

Buddhist practices across centuries and nations have developed enormous diversity and offers us many ways to cultivate compassion.  For most of my time as a Buddhist my practice was sitting in shiken taza, sitting in silent awareness and staring at a wall without direct attention on compassion, but like many of this sangha I found that when times got really tough for me, this practice did not work.  Dogen famously stated, “to study the way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self,” and while I fundamentally agree with this, it is important to use the right tools in that study.  When the internal anxiety levels are high, it takes a remarkable person to forget the self when simply sitting in awareness.  Have you ever responded to the news that a lover or spouse is breaking up with you, that you have been fired from your job, that you have to someone who is really angry with you and in your face, by sitting down in shiken taza?  For me, even after more than a decade of practice, in when the core of my self-existence is challenged with this intensity, I find this a very hard practice—I might honestly say an impossible practice.

Here at Red Clay Sangha we have recently explored other Buddhist teachings and practices around compassion: we have talked about them a little on Sundays, and a lot more in our Tuesday evening reading group.  The other practices we’ve explored are mainly the aspiration to live life for the purpose of saving all beings, manifested by adoption of the Bodhisattva vow, in Tibetan Buddhism, and the metta practices of the Insight Meditation Group.  Using language Wade brought back to us from his Korean training, Zen has taught us to concentrate our minds, and these other practices give us something to do with our them.

And for me they work.

I want to talk a little about why and how they work to allow us to explore whether this is a good thing, and either way to give a sharper edge to our practices.  I want us to look at these and see how they align with the idea of practicing compassion in adversity.

The Bodhisattva Vow and metta practice intentionally focus our energy on happiness, whether by vow or mantra.  With the Bodhisattva Vow we jump directly to the release of suffering and the happiness of all beings, whereas with metta practice we are encouraged to begin by cultivating happiness and peace within ourselves before extending that wish to others; this is consistent with Thich Nhat Hanh’s teaching that if one cannot feel compassion for one’s own suffering, one is certainly unable to truly feel compassion for the other.

I have been playing with these practices for some time now, and I have found in the focus on happiness a kind of breakthrough in understanding.  The Dalai Lama has said, "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion."  I have come to the provisional conclusion—and remember in Buddhism all teachings are provisional, expedient means, and not to be held on to or rejected—that it is all about happiness.

This happiness, though, is not what we might at first think.  It is not the pleasure of a nice bowl of ice-cream, or a hug from your kids.  It is not the release from suffering of estranged kids coming over for dinner.  It is not even of a glass of water in the desert.  It is the experience Socrates was directing us towards when he encouraged us to examine our lives, eudaimonia in Greek, the word for “happiness,” or more accurately, “the flourishing life” or “the good life.”  Socrates did not mean an emotional state or pleasure, but rather a fulfilled life, one that is lived in accord to our deepest values and aspirations not just for ourselves but for our families and community.

The happiness I am talking about is a happiness not dependent upon circumstances.

A lovely little book I lightly read, “The Untethered Soul,” was what most recently alerted me to this way of thinking, a way of thinking that has been reaffirmed in many places since.  The author, Michael Singer, makes the assertion that we actually only have one decision to make in our lives:  “Do you want to be happy from this point forward for the rest of your life, regardless of what happens?” he asks, and continues,  “You just have to give an unconditional answer.  If you decide that you’re going to be happy from now on for the rest of your life, you will not only be happy, you will become enlightened.  Unconditional happiness is the highest technique there is.  You don’t have to learn Sanskrit or read any scriptures.  You don’t have to renounce the world.  You just have to really mean it when you say that you choose to be happy.  And you have to mean it regardless of what happens.”

Noah Levine in “The Heart of the Revolution” expounds the same philosophy, and asserts strongly that our happiness is not related to pleasure or lack of pain.  “Pleasure is fleeting.  Period.  If we make pleasure the source of our happiness, we are happy only a fraction of the time.”

Think about it.  We experience pleasure in smoking a cigarette, in the act of sexual intercourse, in eating a nice meal, but such pleasure must end.  And regardless of how hard we try to avoid it, we will experience the pain of stubbing our toe, of the death of a loved one, of our own sickness and old age.  There is nothing we can do to change this.  If we can cultivate strength of understanding and of will that prevent the vicissitudes of pleasure and pain governing our happiness, why would we not make the decision to be happy regardless of conditions.  And would this decision not give all of our practices a sharper edge?

This, then, is what I mean when I assert that exercising compassion is not harder when our lives are hard, and that it is precisely at that time when working harder on compassion can be of most benefit to self and other.  It is at this time that we are most able to empathize with suffering, for it is at this time that we best understand it, and can therefore truly relate to others’ suffering.  And it is at this time when we can truly work on the happiness that is independent of conditions.

True happiness is the precondition for—is the realization of—Dogen’s “forgetting of the self.  True happiness is the precondition for and the realization of a state of true compassion for self and other without separation.  True happiness is possible regardless of conditions, regardless of whether one is in pleasure or pain, whether one is in adversity or not.  And I believe all of the practices of Buddhism and the other great world religions are simply tools and techniques to cultivate this experience of unconditional happiness, for it is only when one is truly happy that one can manifest as joy, equanimity and compassion in the world and truly be able to help self and other.