“If you want others to be happy, practise compassion.
If you want to be happy, practise compassion.”
— Dalai Lama, high lama in the Yellow Hat School
of Tibetan Buddhism
One morning a frail old man woke up to discover that his beloved wife had died during the night.
Unable to care for himself, he went to live with her only daughter, her husband and son. Over time, the old man’s eyesight began to fade and his hearing grew poorer.
His hands trembled so badly that peas rolled from his fork onto the floor and soup slopped from his spoon.
His daughter and son-in-law became so irritated at the constant mess that they set up a small table for the old man in a corner of the kitchen.
Each day, he sat there alone at mealtimes and would watch the other family members as they ate. They seldom spoke to him except to scold him for spilling his milk or dropping a spoon or a fork onto the floor.
One evening, the little boy was sitting on the floor playing with building blocks.
“What are you building?” asked his mother.
“I’m building a little table for you and Daddy,” he replied.
“Really?” his mother said. “And why would you be doing that?”
“So you can eat by yourselves in the corner someday when you get old.”
This story isn’t original to me but simply my rendering.
I remember hearing it years ago and pondering its meaning and implication. To me, it’s a story about compassion or lack thereof.
Confucius, the revered Chinese philosopher, called compassion one of the three universally recognized moral qualities of men. The other two qualities are wisdom and courage.
Compassion is stepping into other people’s shoes and genuinely wanting to understand and help them. It is the unselfish shifting of perspective away from our own self-interests.
To be truly compassionate requires heartfelt caring and not just the desire to alleviate distress but also the courage to do so. Without action (however small), our compassion is nothing more than a noble idea that doesn’t alleviate anything or assist anyone in a tangible or meaningful way.
To me, the more self-aware we become, the more committed to growing our self-esteem and learning to love and accept ourself, the greater our capacity for compassion.
Willingness to listen and share, a readiness to give comfort and counsel, and an inclination to provide empathy and action are all manifestations of compassion.
For the compassionate person, care and love towards others has its origins in care and love for oneself. We can better help others when we’ve learned to help ourselves. We can feel for others when we feel for ourselves. One’s own self-love and self-evolution can blossom quite naturally into concern for the welfare of others.
When expressing compassion, it is important to remember that there is a healthy and appropriate way to do it. Compassion must also come with boundaries.
There are people who would take advantage of our willingness to help, who would attempt to push us beyond compassion into co-dependency. There are those who might attempt to use us a crutch rather than a source of support and encouragement.
Healthy compassion isn’t about allowing others to become weak and dependent on our strength. It’s about providing a resting place — a safe harbour — where others can heal and regain strength. It’s about providing support and a place to lean when others find it difficult to stand on their own. And perhaps most important of all, it’s about acknowledging how we would wish to be treated if the situations were reversed.
Being compassionate is not the same as being nice.
Many of us are nice in a misguided attempt to satisfy an overwhelming need to be accepted, wanted or valued.
Being overly nice is self-serving and invariably leaves us feeling drained, taken advantage of and ultimately, unappreciated.
True compassion is expressed in our ability to connect with others, our willingness to stand with them, and our desire to lessen their pain and suffering without losing ourselves in the process.
Consider your motivation when offering a helping hand or a sympathetic ear.
“How far you go in life,” declared American botanist George Washington Carver, “depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong because someday you will have been all of these.”
The expression of compassion is a healing act for both those who participate and those who receive it. I’d like to suggest that the family found compassion for the old man and invited him back to the table. And occasionally when something fell to the floor, no one seemed to notice.
Compassion and daily acts of kindness make life a rich experience. Consider those who have shown compassion to you and plan ways to demonstrate compassion in your daily life.
Murray Fuhrer is a self-esteem expert and facilitator. His new book is entitled Extreme Esteem: The Four Factors. For more information on self-esteem, check the Extreme Esteem website at www.extremeesteem.ca.