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This "Forgiveness" problem
In reading about Buddhist concepts, so far the one concept I am having the toughest time with is "forgiveness". I tend to have great compassion or empathy only for those who have not caused me great injury (i.e., betrayal, thievery, etc..) How enlightened can one be if they can only generate warm feelings toward those s/he deems innocent?
I sometimes stumble upon some TV political show with a commentator I loathe. Loathe. I find him vile, offensive, arrogant, the whole bucket of crap.:rant: I understand I am to feel compassion for this person, as he is supposedly the sum of his experiences. But so far, the best I can do is say: "I feel such compassion for this man, as it must be tough going through life with the IQ of boiled cabbage." (Not to insult cabbage, mind you........)
I am using this commentator as an example. How do you handle feelings of anger, especially for things you can't change? Or, how are you able to create feelings of compassion and forgiveness for those who cause you and others harm?
I sometimes stumble upon some TV political show with a commentator I loathe. Loathe. I find him vile, offensive, arrogant, the whole bucket of crap.:rant: I understand I am to feel compassion for this person, as he is supposedly the sum of his experiences. But so far, the best I can do is say: "I feel such compassion for this man, as it must be tough going through life with the IQ of boiled cabbage." (Not to insult cabbage, mind you........)
I am using this commentator as an example. How do you handle feelings of anger, especially for things you can't change? Or, how are you able to create feelings of compassion and forgiveness for those who cause you and others harm?
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Comments
They serve no constructive purpose...
If he was lying in the street, injured, bleeding and in great pain, would you (as the only witness and by-stander) refuse to help and pass him by?
If the answer is no, then you know this emotion is seeded and nourished by a false premise, and you know you can deal with it.
If the answer is yes, then my friend, you have a problem....
As I studied attachment and its trappings I discovered that most (all?) of the emotion I was feeling was a direct result of attachment.
If it was a politician I disagreed with, I was attached to my beliefs and wants and I felt threatened by what he said or was going to do. I wanted my way! The stronger the attachment to a certain thing, thought, feeling, whatever, the more agitated I would become.
Sometimes when I feel negative emotions coming on, like anger, rage, fear, disgust, frustration it I deal with it like much like thoughts while meditating... I let them flow through me, I don't allow them to attach to me, but let them rise and naturally fall away, hopefully, someday, without notice.
The more I practice this in daily busy life and when meditating, the easier it becomes - Its like a familiar path and I have to think less and less about it every day.
Like today for instance. There was a poster who decided that he would insult me, call me names and do terrible, unkind things like infer I was a racist. The level was such that I felt a twinge of anger, but only for a moment... as I felt it rising, I let it pass through and away. In fact, I did that a couple times while reading today... what he said was not true but there was a part of me that didn't want others to believe the things he was saying. I was attached to wanting to be liked or, not viewed as evil. But I let it go, nearly as fast as it started - What others think of me is not of much importance, but being in control of my emotions and actions, and keeping them from being negative is.
Sometimes I believe it is my own arrogance that thinks that a person's bad behaviour towards me is personal, in fact it is not about me really, their anger is like a machine Gun indiscriminant and aimed in the general direction of the world....I just happened to get in the way. I have learnt a) To duck more and b) Not always to shoot back:winkc:
Nick........
Stop watchingTV, especially political views.
Breathe. There are much better insights on the horizon.
Your complaint, Atzigara, is a common one. My teacher talks of students who come to her and say, "You say to practice compassion, but I don't have any compassion. It's just not in me, you know?" Well, of course it isn't in you. It's not natural for most people. We're taught that Number One (meaning oneself) is the only important number, and everyone else is second rate, at best. So of course it's difficult. So you start where you're at, realizing that at heart you have no compassion. Then you confess that. Confession is a powerful practice. You're no longer hiding out and pretending to be compassionate and holy and "spiritual" (eyes rolling ever skyward), while inside we're just egomaniacs who think everyone else in the world is a jerk and only exist to be manipulated into doing what we want them to do. So that's where we start.
Then we start developing the heart of compassion by examining the "faults of cyclic existence", as we say in the Buddha Biz. We examine samsara to see if we, or anyone, has ever found happiness in samsara. You do a very detailed analysis of samsara, really digging in and seeing if there is anything in samsara that will produce the result we're looking for, lasting happiness. Eventually you'll come to the same conclusion that the Buddha did, that there is no lasting happiness to be found anywhere in samsara. When you actually get that, then you can examine your fellow sentient beings and see that in reality they are just like you. In fact, they are you. There is no separation. Then you can begin to give rise to true compassion, or bodhicitta, compassion born of wisdom. That's a long process, but you have to begin with the first step. So don't beat yourself up that you're not feeling compassion for the bozo on the tube. Rather congratulate yourself that you're willing to take a look at compassion and see what makes it tick!
Palzang
I am practicing a type of rudimentary mindfulness since actively studying Buddhism (alright, that's a total of one week), but I find it helps me to dissect the painful feeling, sort of "disconnecting the bomb" in a way. I can create a little space between my hurting heart and the situation at hand.
Dealing with relatives has always been a bit of a tooth-grinding situation during the Holidays. Lots of issues swept under the rug. I find that practicing some mindfulness has been helpful, like maybe a first step towards forgiveness.
BTW, Hunt4Life, I find that I am able to have compassion when someone accuses me of something horrible, and it's based on their own life experiences with people other than myself. I have worked with abused teenagers from disadvantaged backgrounds who assumed I was an elitist because my situation appeared better than their own. They tried to put me through hell, but I didn't take it too personally. It wasn't about me, but what I represented.
For us to truly have compassion we must realize that we are all friends in birth, sickness, old age, and death.
All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
All tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter.
One who, while himself seeking happiness, does not oppress with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will find happiness hereafter.
- Dhp X.129-32
Jason
Atzigara, compassion isn't necessarily something that you feel, nor is it something that we create. It's the spontaneous activity of your own nature when it sees things as they are and for that practice is necessary.
In Buddhism, compassion is the activity of the enlightened mind, rather than an emotional feeling, or pity of any sort. In fact pity is seen in Buddhism as one of the opposites of true compassion. Compassion is the active manifestation of what we refer to as Prajna, or intuitive knowledge, awakened mind, how we are when we see things clearly. In other words, compassion and wisdom are two different sides of the same thing. With true compassion, there is no sense of one's being compassionate, nor of others towards whom one is compassionate.
When a person is both wise and compassionate, his actions are very skillful and radiate enormous energy. This skillful action is referred to as upaya, “skillful means.” Here “skillful” does not mean devious or diplomatic. Upaya just happens in response to a situation. If a person is totally open, his response to life will be very direct, perhaps even outrageous from a conventional point of view, because “skillful means” does not allow any nonsense. It reveals and deals with situations as they are are: it is extremely skillful and precise energy. If the coverings and masks we wear were suddenly to be torn away by this energy, it would be extremely painful. It would be embarrassing because we would find ourselves with nothing on, naked. At such a moment this kind of openness and directness, the outrageously blunt nature of prajna and compassion, might seem extremely cold and impersonal.
To the conventional way of thinking, compassion simply means being kind and warm. This sort of compassion is described in the scriptures as “grandmother’s love.” You expect the practitioner of this type of compassion to be extremely kind and gentle; he would not harm a flea. If you need another mask, another blanket to warm yourself, he will provide it. But true compassion is ruthless, from ego’s point of view, because it does not consider ego’s drive to maintain itself. It is “crazy wisdom.” It is totally wise, but it is crazy as well, because it does not relate to ego’s literal and simple-minded attempts to secure its own comfort.
The logical voice of ego advises us to be kind to other people, to be good boys and girls and lead innocent little lives. We work at our regular jobs and rent a cozy apartment for ourselves; we would like to continue in this way, but suddenly something happens which tears us out of our secure little nest....p. 210-211 Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
Generally in our lives we take a grasping approach, trying to attach ourselves to different situations in order to achieve security. Perhaps we regard someone as our baby, or, on the other hand, we might like to regard ourselves as helpless infants and leap into someone’s lap. This lap might belong to an individual, an organization, a community, a teacher, any parental figure. So-called “love” relationships usually take one of these two patterns. Either we are being fed by someone or we are feeding others. These are false, distorted kinds of love or compassion. The urge to commitment – that we would like to “belong,” be someone’s child, or that we would like them to be our child – is seemingly powerful....These two patterns apply to any life energy which has the potential to entertain us. This energy might be as simple as a casual friendship or an exciting activity we would like to undertake, and it might be as complicated as a marriage or our choice of career. Either we would like to control the excitement or we would like to become a part of it.
However, there is another kind of love and compassion, a third way. Just be what you are. You do not reduce yourself to the level of an infant nor do you demand that another person leap into you lap. You simply be what you are in the world, in life. If you can be what you are, external situations will become as they are, automatically. then you can communicate directly and accurately, not indulging in any kind of nonsense, any kind of emotional or philosophical or psychological interpretation. This third way is a balanced way of openness and communication which automatically allows tremendous space, room for creative development, space in which to dance and exchange.
Compassion means that we do not play the game of hypocrisy or self-deception. For instance, if we want something from someone and we way, “I love you,” often hoping that we will be able to lure them into our territory, over to our side...The fundamental characteristic of true compassion is pure and fearless openness without territorial limitations. There is no need to be loving and kind to one’s neighbours, no need to speak pleasantly to people and put on a pretty smile. This little game doesn’t apply. In fact it is embarrassing. Real openness exists on a much larger scale, a revolutionarily large and open scale, a universal scale....opening without demand. Simply be what you are, be the master of the situation. If you will just “be,” then life flows around and through you. This will lead you into working and communicating with someone, which of course demands tremendous warmth and openness. If you can afford to be what you are, then you do not need the “insurance policy” of trying to be a good person, a pious person, a compassionate person.
...If a student is to actually practice ruthless compassion, he must have already gone through a tremendous amount of work: meditation, study, cutting through, discovering self-deception and sense of humour, and so one...until a person has studied and meditated a great deal, it would be extremely dangerous for him to try to practice ruthless compassion.
We must give up all our speed and aggression, the whole demanding quality. We must develop some compassion for ourselves, and then the open way just begins.....At this point we should discuss the meaning of compassion, which is the key to and the basic atmosphere of the open way. The best and most correct way of presenting the idea of compassion is in terms of clarity, clarity which contains fundamental warmth. at this stage your meditation practice is the act of trusting in yourself. As your practice becomes more prominent in daily life activities, you begin to trust yourself and have a compassionate attitude. Compassion in this sense is not feeling sorry for someone. It is basic warmth. As much space and clarity as there is, there is that much warmth as well, some delightful feeling of positive things happening in yourself constantly. Whatever you are doing, it is not regarded as mechanical drag in terms of self-conscious meditation, but meditation is a delightful and spontaneous thing to do. It is the continual act of making friends with yourself.
Then having made friends with yourself, you cannot just contain that friendship within you; you must have some outlet, which is your relationship with the world. So compassion becomes a bridge to the world outside. Trust and compassion for oneself bring inspiration to dance with life, to communicate with the energies of the world. Lacking this kind of inspiration and openness, the spiritual path becomes the samsaric path of desire. One remains trapped in the desire to improve oneself, the desire to achieve imagined goals. If we feel that we cannot achieve our goal, we suffer despair and the self-torture of unfulfilled ambition.....Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is environmental generosity, without direction, without “for me” and without “for them.” It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth, and richness.
We could say that compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth; an anti-poverty attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy, positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger scale thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to yourself and the world....It is the attitude that one has been born fundamentally rich rather than that one must become rich.
..Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people, because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy. They recharge your energy, because in the process of relating with them you acknowledge your wealth, your richness. ...The Bodhisattva Path starts with generosity and openness – giving and openness – the surrendering process. Openness is not a matter of giving something to someone else, but it means giving up your demand and the basic criteria of the demand....It is learning to trust in the fact that you do not need to secure your ground, learning to trust in your fundamental richness, that you can afford to be open...If you give up your psychological attitude of “demand”, then basic health begins to evolve...
- From Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism
It is perhaps most important in working with others that we do not develop “idiot compassion,” which means always trying to be kind. Since this superficial kindness lacks courage and intelligence, it does more harm than good. It is as though a doctor, out of apparent kindness, refuses to treat his patient because the treatment might be painful, or as though the mother cannot bear the discomfort of disciplining her child. Unlike idiot compassion, real compassion is not based on a simple-minded avoidance of pain. Real compassion is uncompromising in its allegiance to basic sanity. People who distort the path – that is, people who are working against the development of basic sanity – should be cut through on the spot if need be. That is extremely important. There is no room for idiot compassion. We should try to cut through as much self-deception as possible in order to teach others as well as ourselves.
(from “The Heart of the Buddha”)
Funny thing, Zenmonk. You addressed something I had been dealing with for awhile--I guess I fell for the belief that being "compassionate" or "forgiving" means being nice and sweet in spite of chaos (like Donna Reed at a thrash-metal concert, grinning away and offering cookies to the guy who just shoved her).