The meaning of compassion: the sublime expression of love

We live in a world where happiness and sadness are intertwined. The news that the media offer us often refers to wars, social injustices, serious accidents. And almost we prefer to ignore that every day 60,000 people die of hunger on a planet that could well feed all its inhabitants if there really were less selfishness.

We wish things were better, that everyone could enjoy a life full of peace, harmony and joy. but easily that desired balance is broken and adversities make an appearance.

Analyzing the factors that favor such negative situations could lead us to complex developments. But, simplifying, it can be said that generally the reason is a scarce and inconstant presence of “goodwill”. Not in vain is the Gospel exclaimed, when Jesus is born, the well-known phrase: “Glory to God in Heaven and peace on earth to men of good will”.

That will to do good could also be called compassion.that is to say, the capacity that we all have – and often forget – to “feel with”, to approach the suffering of others and seek its solution.

What is compassion?

The word compassion does not usually appear in bright letters nor is it often repeated in the sentences of politicians, but contains a very important message and multiple meanings.

The first reading that is usually made of compassion supposes the instinctive reaction of feel sorry for the misfortune of others. This attitude of commiseration often implies some position of superiority.

All of us, in general, tend to feel sorry for the suffering of those who are in worse conditions than us. However, at the root of feeling sorry for the suffering of others there is a certainty that is difficult to accept: we are all equal in the face of misfortune. Apparently some people are healthier, richer or luckier than others, but no one can pretend to escape sickness, sadness or death. What’s more, we are all essentially poor and helpless, since we can be so at a given moment by losing what we now possess.

We are all potentially victims of misfortune. So that feeling sorry for others we feel sorry for ourselves and, likewise, by helping others we also help ourselves.

Compassion is synonymous with good will, in the sense of ability to act positively beyond natural selfishness. But we know that the will is governed by feeling and intelligence.

In recognition that there is no radical difference between the “I” and the “other”Since there is an existential continuum, there would be the intellective aspect of compassion. But at the same time, behind the compassionate attitude there is always a clear feeling of kindness.

love and compassion

The feeling of love presents different aspects. Initially, usually has a possessive component that makes us feel special interest in our partner, family and friends. That attachment is understandable, we all feel a special bond with certain people.

But love also has the natural tendency, like the rays of the sun, to spread beyond the natural circle of our affections. you could say that love you can move up and become less limited and selfish. That’s why there are people who help others selflesslywithout asking for anything in return. Something that parents usually do with their children spontaneously.

All religions encourage compassion, beginning by considering God – as Islam and especially Sufism do – the Compassionate or Merciful. But they are Christianity and Buddhism those who –one in the West and another in the East– express in a special way the importance of compassion.

The concept of “Christian carity is perhaps more sentimental if we compare it with the buddhist karuna, but it is perfectly comparable. It is about not only be sensitive to the suffering of othersbut to act to alleviate or eradicate it. Although the Buddhist ideal supposes the desire that all beings be definitively freed from suffering, reaching enlightenment or awakening.

In Christianity a distinction is made between Eroslove based on passion, and the agapepure and compassionate love. Buddhism, for its part, views compassion as the consequence of a wisdom based on contemplative meditation. Beyond the chains of the ego, in true freedom, there is no essential difference between one and the others.

As the Tibetan Buddhists say, with naive lucidity: “others are more important than oneself, for the simple reason that the others are many and I am only one”.

If Buddhism is based on the union of wisdom and compassion, in no other land has that ideal been so fervently expressed as Tibet. He Mantra of the Buddha of Compassion (Chenrezig), Om Mani Padme Hum, can be found everywhere: sculpted in stones, in the course of rivers, in flags waving in the wind, in spinning prayer wheels, recited over and over again while passing the 108 beads of the Tibetan rosary. His intention is that all beings can avoid suffering and achieve true happiness.

Compassion for nature?

He Buddhist concept of interdependence of all phenomena also fosters the emergence of a compassionate attitude. If everything is somehow interconnected, causing pain to other beings has negative repercussions in who does it, be it immediately or in a subtle way and at another moment of his existence. On that is based the eastern notion of karma. In the same way, doing good reverts positively.

Unlike Western thought that tends to limit charity or compassion to the human race, both Hinduism and Buddhism extend that respectful attitude to all living beings. Since they too have in common with us the wish to be free and happy.

If we take the example of the chicken, we see that for thousands of years, millions of these animals they have given us their meat and their eggs to feed us Does anyone know of a place where such a sacrifice is honored? I know that now imagining the monument to the “unknown chicken” in the middle of a square sounds somewhat comical. But that itself shows how far we are sometimes from real things and the little appreciation we feel for animals and plants what we feed on

It is not a question here of necessarily advocating vegetarianism, which is an understandable option, but of compassion towards living beings should not be lost sight of. And even towards the apparently inanimate part of the planet, such as the mineral earth’s crust, the air and the waters.

We depend on them to exist and yet acting without consideration for the environment. The consequences of such a mistaken attitude are becoming even more evident in recent years due to the climate changeamong other disturbing phenomena.

Learning and applying compassion

Compassion is on one side inherent in the human being and on the other, it needs to express a certain learning that, like all educational work, should start in childhood. The child can be taught to not always be focused on your personal interests and sometimes paying attention to the discomfort of family members, of one of their friends who may be sick, or even helping an animal.

Such learning demands be continued throughout life and the opportunities to train are not lacking. In this sense, various scientific studies show that compassion and positive emotions that accompany it can be learned from the same shape as a musical instrument.

Cultivate kindness and benevolence through meditation affects areas of the brain (especially the temporo-parietal of the right hemisphere) involved in empathy, that is, in the ability to feel the emotional states of others. What would also be useful to prevent depressiona situation in which the person tends to be self-absorbed.

Other experiments confirm that having a compassionate attitude and helping underprivileged people through volunteer work supports the immune system, reduces stress and increases serenity, while aggressive or cruel people often suffer from a distressing feeling of insecurity and fear.

Compassion is a mental state free of aggressiveness or bad intentions, in which interest in the good of others or at least the common good predominates.

But you don’t necessarily have to reserve the compassionate attitude for major issues, such as caring for the sick, helping the poor or preserving the natural environment. We continually require a minimum willingness to counteract our egotistical tendency.

For example, we tend to feel more important That the others. And not because we have better qualities in any particular aspect, but because each one of us feels like the center of things. For this reason, they are often easily seen. other people’s defects and not so much your own. simply seek see the positive qualities that every person has is already a good exercise in compassion. Simple, but nothing easy as soon as we try.

There is many other occasions that allow us to express in different measure the natural goodness. do we have time to listen to who wants to tell us something what is important to him? do we seek not waste while others suffer hardships? whatwe treat equally rich and poor, handsome or ugly?

A fairer economy, ecology well applied, any social improvement that we can imagine requires a good dose of compassion to be beneficial. It is not, then, an attitude of weak people to be compassionate, but expression of the power of love, of essential unity of all things.

Books to develop compassion

The evolutionary self; M. Csikszentmihalyi, Ed. KairosThe art of compassion; Dalai Lama, Ed. GrijalboCompassion in action; Ram Dass and Mirabal Bush, Ed. Gaia