Compassion

When my meditation master asked this question today it struck me as a good question to post in the forum.

Given that unconditional compassion for others is one of the virtues of life, putting aside jealousy, anger, resentment, hate, and other negative factors:

Is it possible to feel true compassion for people such as Bill Gates, George Bush, Mariah Carey, and Osama Bin Laden?

 

"Anyone who has made us suffer is undoubtedly suffering too...A part of his diificulties and sorrows may have been bought about by his parents' lack of skill when he was still young. But his parents themselves may have been victims of their parents; the suffering has been transmitted from generation to generation and been reborn in him. If we see that, we will no longer blame him for making us suffer, because we know that he is also the victim. To look deeply is to understand. Once we understand the reasons he has acted badly , our bitterness towards him will vanish, and we will long for him to suffer less..." - Thich Nhat Hanh , 'Peace is Every Step'

So lets take the example of Osama Bin Laden or any terrorist extremist. Think really hard about the reasons why he has been driven to murder other innocent human beings...He is obviously full of anger and hatred, a 'hell-realm', and is obviosuly suffering greatly.
Think about what could have caused this anger and hatred. Perhaps his family were killed in Allied bombings. Perhaps he had a miserable childhood and blames and vents this on the west...There are obviously very strong causes at work.

And take Bush...Perhaps he really does think he is doing the right thing for humanity and doesn't realise his folly through self-delusion.

Bill Gates...Do you really feel someone who has as much material wealth as him is really satisfied and happy?

It's sometimes extremely hard not to feel angry at people who seem to be causing much suffering but I think if you are mindful enough and meditate on compassion and emptiness you'll start being much more forgiving...Understanding really is the key to compassion. We have all done nasty things in our life times, we have made other people suffer, we ourselves have suffered, so we are all the same.

I can give a personal examples;

Once I got mugged by a group of young people. I didn't fight back.
Initially I felt angry at them , but then I calmed down relatively quickly and thought about them and why they would do something like that...Perhaps they felt jealous towards other people who have money and materials and felt that they needed this to be happier. They thought by stealing my money it would make them happier...Then I thought that they obviously must be very unhappy people to be driven to do that to someone...This immediently lifted all my negativity surrounding the event and I actually really felt for them as I wondered what it must be like to be driven to do something like that to someone.

So yes, of course it's possible to feel compassion towards people who appear to make us suffer...Infact i'd personally go as far as saying that these people are essential to spiritual development.

 

Excellent question, Tipo, and excellent response Peterness.

*two thumbs up*

 

Compassion is the ineffability and openness of ones nature. To not feel compassion for all is to squelch down ones potential. Thus the border control of ignorance wins the day against the freedom of life itself.

 

^^yeah that too.



As I said, meditation on emptiness has been the most advantageous method in generating compassion for me at least...Once the illusion of self dissolves so does all negativity. Then there is only compassion.

 

Excellent responses, I can only one thing. If our Karma had ripened differently it could have been anyone of us playing out the role of the people you described and if you accept the idea of reincarnation and the inifinite past behind us, we have each done things just as bad and worse than any of them as well.

 

Is it not selfish to feel compassion because we feel that it might be ourselves being them in another incarnation?

In the same vein, is it not selfish to seek enlightenment for ourselves?

 

no because you aren't seeking enlightenment for yourself (there is no permanent self) you're doing it for all sentient beings (since we're all interdependent).

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy.

"Is it not selfish to feel compassion because we feel that it might be ourselves being them in another incarnation?"

I don't understand the thinking behind this statement...How could that possibly be interpreted as selfishness? By putting yourself in the other persons shoes isn't selfish.

 

If it is possible that we could be re-incarnated as someone such as Bill Gates or Saddam Hussein, is it a selfish barrier to genuine compassion to think "it might be me, reborn who I am attempting to feel compassion for".

 

Person like Osama Bin Laden, in his eyes he thinks by doing what he is doing, he will make the world a better place and reduce suffering.

 

Why would it be??

 

compassion towards everyone, always, is the best. mr. rogers said something once, about how sad it is that most of us believe there are people we just can't relate to. nobody chooses the life they live. no individual consciousness of "self". they are how they are for certain reasons, and one reason is so that you can see what you might be.

 

Maybe it is my misunderstanding of the possibilities of re-incarnation. As I turned the original question over in meditation, I was thinking that it is not an unheard of theory that re-incarnation is not bound by time - that we could be re-incarnated in the past or in the future or in the present.

It proved a real stumbling block when posing the question of compassion, because I kept being distracted by the thought that maybe I want to feel compassion for people because either it might be my spirit re-incarnated as them, or I was wanting to feel compassion because I wanted the possibility of compassion for myself no matter what I did.

 

The question on the nature of time is certainly an interesting one, but really don't spend too much time meditating on the metaphysical.

But I think the problem you have here is you aren't properly understanding emptiness.
You are talking too much about the concepts of 'me' and 'them' and you talking about a 'spirit'.
There is no independent and permanent 'spirit' or 'soul'. So there isn't really a self to be reincarnated.
'We' are made up of bits and pieces of each other and of the elements of the universe and these are in constant flux. Every cell in our body is being replaced every few years by new ones regenerated. Our mind has the same impermanent nature. No matter how hard you look and peel away the layers you will find nothing that really resembles a true independent permanent self.
When we die our physical bodies and matter cease and eventually the atoms are 'recycled' into the world...This means our consciousness and therefore our karma has no more potential in that body. So somewhere a new consciousness has been 'born' through the contact of sperm with egg and with that contact all the potential of peoples karmic actions has been 'reborn' and re-potentialised through a new physical body and aggregates.

There is no spirit or independent self or soul here. It's just past tendancies (karmic energy) repotentialising...This is how I understand it at least.

I really do think that this is your problem. You need to try to understand emptiness more. I think it'll be easily overcome if you meditate on emptiness. The Dalai Lama has decent books that explain this well.

 

From the nothingness within, there is the perception of union of all life. There arises a state of limitless compassion, as it felt right here and now! A state of supreme beauty and bliss, endless love. It is beyond who deserves and who does not, because it is unconditional. That is why it is without limit and so totally fulfiling wherever it is manifest.

Peace and love
Jnanic