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Controversial compassion
vinlyn
Colorado...for now Veteran
On another forum I am on (which is not about Buddhism, although there is a small Buddhism sub-forum) called City-Data, there is a thread about Subway's Jared. Now my feeling about Jared is that he needs a severe punishment for having sex with underage girls and kiddie porn. But, that we should all feel sorry for him...that he (and virtually everyone) deserves some basic degree of compassion, no matter what they have done.
But on C-D forum, they are out for blood to the point I find it disgusting.
Am I being too much of a softie?
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Comments
In my opinion everyone deserves compassion and compassion can take many forms...
I'll work backwards:
Are you too much of a softie? Y/N...in contemporary culture you would appear to be one, yes. As a Buddhist leaning type of guy, no.
Mostly guys and probably some girls have the same 'problem' famous Jared has. If there is to be a solution, it seems to be one of those that will take 'forever' to remedy, and why I feel whatever it is that the Buddha - if he were here today - would prescribe or teach the offender(s) - which is to remain calm and ___.
No.
They're being too much of a hardie...
The problem with society in general is that we have lost sight of what it means to be humane.
We bay for blood.
We use sickening analogies and descriptions of what should happen to people like him...
Many contributors to a thread I participated in, on another thread, regarding Cecil the Lion's killer, were making some pretty outrageous suggestions as to what should happen to him, including meeting a similar fate to poor aforementioned animal...
But would they actually do it?
Would they have the gumption, the guts, the wherewithal to actually carry out such a punishment themselves?
No, of course not, the vast majority wouldn't....
But they have to vent their spleen.
And reasoning with them through the pure written medium of a public forum, when they join forces and egg each other on, is impossible.
They seek revenge, retribution, some form of rough and apparently deserved justice, and they want it meted out in public, visibly.
They want the perpetrator to suffer...
Such is the scale of hatred that has infiltrated the psyche of society, that we want the baddies to die, horribly, painfully, nastily and suffering every form of tortuous torment they inflicted on their victims.
It's the way we are becoming.
And I do my best to steer them away from such vitriol, and occasionally one, maybe two, see it from my PoV.
But it's not widespread. And we need to make it widespread.
How did you instil moral values in the students, Vinlyn.....?
I agree, @Federica - except that it's not just the way we are becoming...lest we forget, we've always been that way....sad to say.
I think part of the problem is celebrity status. His fame came from a feel-good story of someone that overcame a personal problem. Reminds me of a certain bicycle racer.
Society expects these 'heroes' to be examples in every aspect of their personal lives. It's really too much for anyone to live up to.
One may argue that they reaped the fame and money that came with their status, and have a point. I think this just adds to their stress. They don't want to lose their fame and money, but they don't deserve to have every aspect of their lives scrutinized by society.
I feel compassion for them, because I know deep down that I couldn't live with the expectations that are placed on them.
@vinlyn
Buddhist meditation leads one towards seeing that the world's perceived separation of self and other, is simply imaginary.
All that one might consider as potentially good or bad, with honesty, can be found within as easily as without.
Folks out for blood for another's faults, are just caught within the self verses other storyline that ones identity endlessly spouts.
Nobody here is likely to call you a softy, Vinlyn!
Be well.
Can a Buddhist be too softie? Be honest only for yourself and don't care about the "moral" majority.
My stepfather was violent. He beat me and my brother who commited suicide in his early twenties (23). Did that man need a severe punishment? No. He was beaten by his father. Kind of bad karma that lives through generations, but my children have lived safe lives.
Interesting question based on a Facebook conversation I had yesterday.
It didn't originate with me, but I bought for our school a "package" of morning announcements -- sort of the "thought for the day" concept. It would have been difficult to find a person who would have said they were bad. The Golden Rule was a frequent topic, often brought up in terms of being a somewhat universal concept. But there were many other wise topics, as well. Each lasted about a minute, but we did it every day after the more mundane announcements.
The end of each canned mini-essay said, "Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours." Nothing that profound, but still meaningful.
So one day I was in a real grump of a mood, and I was in the hallway between classes, and a student came up and said, "Wow, Mr. Lynch. You seem to be in a bad mood today." And I said, "Well, yes, I am." The girl looked at me with a little smile and said, "Just remember, Mr. Lynch, make it a great day or not. The choice is yours."
But back to yesterday. Every once in a while the student that was perhaps my very favorite over the years catches up with me on Facebook, and we chat for a few minutes. Indian (as in India) ancestry. Wonderful family, and I had little to do with how good this young man turned out. And I mean absolutely top of the line, now in his mid-late 20s. Tremendously successful in a medical-related field, a leader, and from what people tell me, still a very moral young man that absolutely stands out. I asked him how he maintained his rudder, and while I know part of what he said was being kind to old Mr. Lynch, he said, "Sometimes when things aren't going well I think back to your morning announcements, and I say what you always said -- make it a great day or not, the choice is yours."
The way I am trying to look at it is that what happened created terrible suffering. It is a terrible thing for that to have occurred. Jared will be reaping his karmic harvest through the judgment of the courts. My thoughts are focused on the survivors of the events. They are the ones who people should be thinking of. It is their suffering that needs to be alleviated.
Ideally, I think we should try to have compassion for everyone, including Jared. That said, I also think we should have more compassion for the children he and others like him have abused and exploited; and I understand those who have difficulty cultivating compassion for someone like him. I know I certainly do. If it's hard for a long-practicing Buddhist like myself to do so, just imagine how difficult it must be for someone who only sees his crimes (i.e., sex with minors, possession and distribution of child porn, etc.) rather than the abstract need to have compassion for all sentient beings.
Well stated, Jason.
I have my limits, as well. There have been crimes against humanity that I cannot forgive, even though perhaps I should. For example, I like history, and just last evening I was reading about the war between Jamestown colonists and the Powhatan Indians in Virginia back in the 1600s. At one point the colonists captured one the local chief’s wives and her children. The English took them on a ship in the James River, threw the children overboard, and shot out “their Braynes in the water”. Well, that crossed a line for me.
No, revenge has no place in Buddhism
The wise don't seek revenge. But of course, that doesn't mean you don't put the person in jail.
Twenty-two year old Jared was wearing size 62 pants. Who does that to themselves? I've observed that it's usually someone running away from immeasurable pain. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that once upon a time, Jared was the child we should have more compassion for.
Interesting point, @yagr.
Compassion for those held up to scorn and ridicule is not to be found in most places on the internet. People gleefully jump on the outraged mob train over just about anyone's published sins. Once the mob forms, no sin is too small, no punishment is too great and no person is worthy of mercy or the benefit of the doubt.
For this mob to form and explode into internet outrage, you first have to have a face and name. Hundreds of lions are killed each year by rich Western hunters, with only a few conservationists doing much except saying "Terrible, isn't it?" and going on to something else that will better satisfy their need for righteous anger. But give that lion a name and history, and it's suddenly people say they wish this dentist could be hunted and shot the same way.
Child molesters and child pornography viewers get arrested every day in the country, but they don't have names and histories our emotions can latch onto like Jared does. So observe human nature in action. It's the same as someone shouting "Unclean!" and reaching for the rocks to stone him. If guilty he deserves the punishment our laws are eager to dish out. Mobs are never satisfied with "justice". It's all about the sweet satisfaction of stoning the sinner.
In all the situations like this, the biggest road block to change is corruption and duplicity within the legal system itself; after all, do you really think (and I know you don't) that there are no child molesters/pedophiles amongst doctors, lawyers and politicians?
How disgusting? Should the unforgiving be blighted with karmic hell ...
When children are harmed we become most judgemental and unforgiving ... Child abuse is a major problem that is presently too emotive to be tackled effectively. It used to be acceptable to assault children with physical violence. This was acceptable parenting and teaching and in many present environments still is ... Children are sold etc.
Can we stay calm? I feel somone has to. Might as well be those with a calming practice ...
Exactly so.
One of the detrimental effects of sexual abuse is the children grow up to perpetuate the same behavour ... That is the one cycle we may be able to break ... Through compassion, understanding, child protection, therapy etc ...
Do you realize that when such statements are made, the added terror to someone trying to live the best life they can ("One of the detrimental effects of sexual abuse is the children grow up to perpetuate the same behavior ..."? Just more unimaginable discrimination. Every victim of such things (and all other tragic happenings) is their own individual, and handles it in different ways.
And when (as I just heard on a radio news show the other night), 'tourists' are visiting Kenya (and so on) to have sex with children. It's almost impossible to feel any optimism for fixing this kind of thing - unless a big asteroid hits Earth.
From a Buddhist perspective (Bodhisattva's to be more precise) ...Compassion knows no boundaries.... I guess it is something that we are all working towards....
If at any time, you're interested in learning more of the intricacies, check out this book:
It's by Louise Armstrong.
I see the problem stemming from an addictive, compulsive, and selfish behavior. Jared started with food and then later replaced it with something else.
Yes we must try to have compassion for people like Jared. We must help those that have been abused. Most importantly, we must learn to overcome our own defilements or it could lead to such behavior. Such is clinging to self, and leading oneself towards suffering.
My view would be Jared needs to be put away so that he doesn't create suffering for others.
Punishment is too strong a word and seems more like revenge done out of anger and hatred for the perpetrator. I reserve my compassion for those who have truly suffered but can understand why he does what he does.
All of us to a different degree are slaves to our conditioning and ultimately there is no one to blame, really.
"Forgive them for they know not what they do."
For the origin of dukkha is ignorance.
This thread reminds me of Dhammapada 3-4
The people on that other forum are literally cultivating anger and hostility. Not a wise thing to do! Of course what is sad is that they don't even know they are doing that.
Does compassion need to be reserved? Isn't everyone truly suffering, regardless of what they have done or not done, experienced or not experienced?
I agree so much with your post.
Don't wish for anyone to be punished. Just wish for people to stop hurting each other.
The world is full of people hurting each other. If you reserved compassion for only the innocent, it would be a rare and precious thing. Let the Christians reserve their compassion for the people they think will make it to Heaven. As Buddhists, you are called to the standard of Metta, or loving-kindness for all.
A man calls for taking food and medical care away from poor children and we know children suffer because of it, he is still applauded and voted into political office by those who care more for punishing the poor than their suffering.
Worse, it is in our nature to delight in the suffering of others when we see it as a deserved punishment.
I was saddened when I heard he was guilty. I so wanted him to be innocent for some reason.
Call Me By My True Names
That is true but speaking for myself, some don't "deserve" them, especially those who are so deluded that they feel absolutely no guilt or remorse and can justify their actions no matter what. They are those that the Buddha would consider untrainable.
@pegembara what about Angulimala then.
Angulimala was definitely trainable. According to the sutta, just hearing the word " I have stopped" was enough to make him change his ways. In other words he was able to see the error of his ways and was willing to change. Someone who shows absolutely no regret or remorse for hurting others would not be trainable imo. But murderers, rapists and the like are not all untrainable. In fact most are just ordinary people who happened to do bad things. You can read or see videos about prisoners who benefitted from mindfulness meditation.
I don't think it's a permanent position to be untrainable.
Someone that is untrainable today may be trainable tomorrow.
That's a good sutta. But for people that one does not personally associate with, like murderers and rapists, terrorists, child molesters, etc. who feel absolutely no guilt or remorse and can justify their actions no matter what. This will nearly guarantee that they are reborn in a hell realm. When a person absolutely had no guilt or remorse and can justify their bad actions no matter what, that itself, is a cause for compassion. Or at least it should be! The Buddha does not consider them trainable, but still has boundless and limitless compassion for them. Because he knows their action will send them to hell. I don't believe one needs to be trainable in order to be worthy of compassion. The fact that they are untrainable, is a good reason to have compassion for them to begin with. It's sad that they are untrainable. Because being untrainable means you will make greater suffering for yourself and for others. When people are untrainable, that's really the saddest situation of them all, because you can't help them at all.
That is so true.
As I said, I reserve my compassion for those who have suffered. There are those who enjoy doing horrible things and probably sleep better than normal people. If they fall into "hell" later and suffer, then compassion comes into play. Later maybe but right in the present moment no.
How can there be compassion for those who aren't suffering any remorse or guilt but having a good time inflicting pain? The best one can do is to remain equanimous. These people are what they are and do what they do.
Granted these are extreme cases that one is unlikely to meet in real life.
Compassion
-a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.
I am impressed that so many can see beyond judging the 'unforgivable'. In part I feel this is because the notion of 'evil' is often seen differently in Buddhism. Pedophilia, psychopathology, alcoholism, schizophrenia, cushion fetishism, banking is seen as having causation and in itself is not helped by anything but compassion.
Engaging in socially acceptable behavour, for example killing in a warrior culture, needs compassion and understanding.
By looking at these behavours dispassionately, with equanimity and a soft heart we may be able to move towards solutions. Some wounding behavour for example pedophilia may be genetic and no present simple solution exists. That means something may need to be done nonetheless ...
By recognizing that they are suffering right now. They are currently stuck in the low and hellish depths of Samara, right now, and are creating the conditions, right now, go even deeper into it.
If you are saying the Buddha has no compassion for those stuck in samsara, I think that's impossible! Karuṇa is one of the four "divine abodes" and it's not selective about which beings are included as objects of that compassion. It includes all beings who are currently stuck in samsara, regardless of their behavior, regardless of their views, beliefs, mental state or rationalizations, etc.
It's not dependent on how they behave, what they feel, what they think or what they don't think. It's only dependent on the fact that they are stuck in samsara.
Of course "all-pervading" and "all-encompassing" implies non-selectivity. If it didn't, it couldn't be "all pervading" to begin with. There are no beings in samsara that are not suffering. That's why it's called samsara to begin with.
I don't think that is the case at all. Strong and "All-pervading" metta can actually be cultivated. Upekkha is certainly one of the divine abodes, but so is Karuṇa.
How can there be compassion for those who don't feel any remorse? By recognizing the suffering that is inherent for beings stuck in samsara. The idea that these people, who feel no remorse aren't suffering, contradicts the idea that samsara = suffering. But, that's what the Buddha taught. He taught that samsara = suffering.
Every being currently stuck in samsara has already been stricken by misfortune and is continually being re-stricken by it. The fact that they are stuck in continuous rounds of samsara, is itself, the misfortune.
Now I'm not saying you're wrong by saying the best one can do is to remain equanimous. I'm just saying I don't see it that way.
True. There is a big difference between having compassion for someone like that and letting them continue on their way.
@pegembara said:
How can there be compassion for those who aren't suffering any remorse or guilt but having a good time inflicting pain?
@seeker242
By recognizing that they are suffering right now.
Now I'm not saying you're wrong by saying that these people are suffering while committing those acts. There are those who are suffering and direct their pain on others. Those are not the people that I am referring to.
I am pointing to those that truly enjoy causing pain to others.
I'm just saying I don't see it that way.
They may well suffer when they are struck with aging, sickness etc. in which case compassion comes into the picture. But then again they may not even fear sickness and death.
I perceive this as misery. I PERCEIVE. But because I perceive it, does not mean that’s how it is. I think we project a certain misery into their lives so that we can have some sort of ‘karmic’ resolution for them due to our own suffering.
But for the psychopath, this does not happen. Empathy would need to be present to ”feel’ this kind of misery. Until their dying day, the psychopath will be ruinous and disruptive and he will find ways to do this.
My grandmother was also a psychopath and till the day of her death, never suffered from being alone. She too, enjoyed it, and when she was ‘unleashed’ in public or onto the family, as usual, she made everyone miserable. When she was alone, she did things that also shored up her boredom.
Just as they cannot experience happiness, they cannot experience unhappiness either. There may be a faint sense of something missing, as I witnessed in my ex, but then they’re back on their trail of destruction and continue to find ways to prevent boredom and some DO LIKE being alone. Some, like my father, have managed to tweek their lives to where there is no commitment or another individual to get in the way of their daily routine, but just enough contact to disrupt someone else without living with the consequences.
https://theabilitytolove.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/the-psychopaths-worst-fear-is-really-not-fear-at-all/
Ok, but I don't think it's proper to believe that a being stuck in samsara is somehow not suffering, because of their particular mind state. The only way to not suffer is to be enlightened. Psychopaths certainly are not enlightened! Their particular mind state, isn't relevant, unless that mind state is enlightenment, as that is the one and only way to escape suffering. Seeing this way can allow for great compassion of everyone and anyone. "All-encompassing" metta. True entrance into the divine abode of Karuṇa doesn't discriminate. That's why it's called all encompassing.
I don't think we Western folks will ever be able to get past the compassion part of the checklist, because the word means "sympathy" in our language and we simply can't shake that. A person's entire worldview is shaped by their language. I really believe we should keep the "metta" label and understand it's like translating "dukkha" and suffering. It only leads to countless explanations that we aren't using the common definition.
Not even the Buddha had sympathy for the sadists and killers of the world. We're not called to "feel sorry for" the person who robs an old woman of her social security money. That's not Metta. Of course we only sympathize with victims. We've been victimized ourselves and so feel the same pain, unless we're sociopaths. We only feel this emotional bond with people we can identify with. If you're a Confederate flag waving racist, you feel sympathy for other flag waving racists when they're being confronted about their actions. Sympathy causes you to divide the world into victims and persecutors. Sympathy is a problem, not the solution to suffering.
I like to distinguish the difference between compassion and sympathy by imagining a cut on my finger.
I don't put on the salve and bandage because I feel sorry for my finger. I do it because it is a part of me in need of healing.
It's not a problem when it's all encompassing. If it's all encompassing, then by definition, it doesn't make those divisions to begin with.
I disagree.
Because we know that people who rob and steal, are creating conditions for more of their own suffering and the suffering of others. Or at least that is something that we should know! Sympathy does not intrinsically create divisions, being selective with it, is what creates the division.
"All beings" of course has to include murderers and thieves. There is no way it can't.
I do personally associate with many folks who carry such labels, like millstones, around their neck. Many here may remember that my wife did twenty-four years in prison for murder. Her friends became my friends and over the years, as they were released, I continued my friendships with them on this side of the gate.
Like Ajahn Brahm, I have found, "Over the many years that I have taught inside prisons, I got to know some of the crims very well indeed. One thing I discovered was that every crim feels guilty for what they have done. They feel it day and night, deep in their hearts. They only tell this to their close friends. They wear their defiant prisoner face for viewing in public. But when you earn their trust...they open themselves up and reveal their painful guilt."
In my own words, taken from a letter to the parole board sent in support of my wife's parole many years ago, I shared (in part):
That one can justify their unskillful actions does not indicate a lack of remorse or guilt.
The terms 'psychopath', 'sociopath', and even 'untrainable' as it is being used here within this thread, are overused to a point of meaninglessness. I believe that my most important observation on this revolution around the wheel is this: Love heals and transforms everything it touches - whether it is impossible or not.
Yes, I get seriously perturbed when people define and ... 'diagnose' the mental states of others with absolutely no medical training, background, experience or knowledge... they just use the terms to describe people whose behaviour is so alien, so removed, so incomprehensible as to prove totally unfathomable.... and it avoids the use of the word 'evil' which many people object to here, anyway....( the counter-arguments protesting that no-one is ever truly completely evil, abound. Yet these psychological mental condition terms are liberally used throughout....)
I heartily, completely and entirely concur. And I have seen this happen time and time again....
But thus we end up, as I postulate, spending all our time talking about how when we say sympathy or compassion, it's not THAT type of sympathy but a different type. You realize that the Buddha never spoke english, and the translators of a poetic bit of prose in SN 4.13 aren't really translating a Pali word that they know means sympathy, no more than Dukkha actually means suffering. In this case that word scans and is close enough to get the meaning across, as all translation does.
So the emotion we commonly call sympathy can actually be well defined. To sympathize is to feel another person's suffering, but also their anger and frustration. To sympathize with someone who has been beat or unjustly shot by the police is to feel their anger toward the police. If you are biased against the person being shot, you feel sympathy for the cop and feel his anger at being accused. This is sympathy in action as is most commonly used by English speaking people.
If instead we feel sorrow for the entire human race, I postulate that is no longer sympathy. It is metta. We should simply call it that.
Personally, I don't see any difference between the two words. Compassion, sympathy, pity, loving kindness, metta. They are all used interchangeably throughout various scriptures. The pali text society's pali-english dictionary uses sympathy as a synonym or translation of metta. This is the definitions I am using.
I really wasn't going by what people use, but the Buddhist definitions. 
Sorry if I didn't make that clear! 
But I agree that Buddhist definitions of these words do sometimes have rather nuanced definitions, Pali doesn't exactly translate one to one into English.
@seeker242 we seem to be making the same point from two different directions. I can't find any place to disagree. An honor to have this discussion with you.
I read something the Dalai Lama said a while back so went to find it. It resonated with me and I've never been able to see compassion and pity on the same level since.
"The most important factor for mental peace is human compassion, affection, a sense of caring. Usually, the concept of compassion or love is something like closeness or a feeling toward your friend. Sometimes compassion is thought to mean a feeling of pity. That is wrong. Compassion or love in which someone looks down on another is not genuine compassion. Genuine compassion must be acting on the basis of respect and the recognition that others also, just like myself, have the right to be happy or free from suffering. And yet suffering is there. We should therefore develop some kind of genuine concern, a real sense of concern."
http://learning.dalailamafoundation.org/101/ethics9.htm
Wonderful quote @ourself
We can indeed respect, recognise and be concerned and compassionate. Being judgemental is often so natural to our inclination, based on our perception of unskilful, hurtful, destructive, ignorant behavour ...
This is where a degree of equanimity in ourselves can help with forgiving ourselves and others. If we hold to the punishing, let us hurt those who damage us or the defenceless and hurtful inclination we in effect perpetuate further dukkha ...
Many thanks
Aww! Bow.
My main point really was just that the compassion (or whatever you want to call it) that the Buddha and the scriptures ask us to try to cultivate, is literally unconditional.
One of the qualities of one who has perfection of the dana paramita is that "they give dana to all beings so that they may be happy, without Investigating whether they are worthy or not."
Of course dana means alms, money, clothing or food, etc. but it also means compassion, forgiveness and kindness and all that too.
As for the OP, about compassion being controversial, it's really only controversial for people with hate in their heart. No hate, no controversy!
Reminds me of an old story I heard, about how Napoleon once condemned a soldier to death for cowardice on the battlefield. The condemned man's wife showed up at Napoleon's camp and begged for mercy for her husband.
"Madam," Napoleon said, "the man doesn't deserve mercy."
"Sir," she replied, "if he deserved it, then it wouldn't be mercy."