from She Who Hears the Cries of the World
by Christina Feldman, Shambhala Sun.
"A few years ago, an elderly monk arrived in India after fleeing from prison in Tibet.
Meeting with the Dalai Lama, he recounted the years he had been imprisoned, the hardship and beatings he had endured, the hunger and loneliness he had lived with, and the torture he had faced.
At one point the Dalai Lama asked him, “Was there ever a time you felt your life was truly in danger?”
The old monk answered, “In truth, the only time I truly felt at risk was when I felt in danger of losing compassion for my jailers.”
Hearing stories like this, we are often left feeling skeptical and bewildered.
We may be tempted to idealize both those who are compassionate and the quality of compassion itself. We imagine these people as saints, possessed of powers inaccessible to us.
Yet stories of great suffering are often stories of ordinary people who have found greatness of heart. To discover an awakened heart within ourselves, it is crucial not to idealize or romanticize compassion. Our compassion simply grows out of our willingness to meet pain rather than to flee from it.
Sometimes, compassion emerges in the darkest moments of life, when all doors of escape are closed and our hearts have turned to stone.
The Dalai Lama once said, “If you want to know what compassion is, look deeply into the eyes of a mother as she cradles her sick and fevered child.” The unconditional acceptance, patience, and forbearance you would find in her eyes are not unknown to any of us. The wish to bring pain to an end, to heal and be present for another person in their anguish are qualities we have all aspired to and embodied.
You know the power of compassion.
You have encountered moments when your walls of defense and resistance crumbled and profound compassion emerged, and your heart has been comforted and altered by the compassion, tenderness, and forgiveness you have received from others. At every turn of life, we all face events and situations of pain and anguish that can at times feel unbearable, yet must be borne. The limits of our tolerance, forgiveness, and patience are constantly being tested. The images of cruelty and hatred delivered through newspapers and television sadden us and appall us in equal measure. As human beings, our capacity to experience pain is our common denominator.
You may not personally find yourself in a perilous situation in which your life is endangered, yet pain and anguish are undeniable aspects of being alive. Every human journey has its stories of tragedy and loss, disappointment and fear.The experiences of frailty and pain in your body, the moments of emotional and psychological turmoil are inescapable.
Colleagues may frustrate you, lovers betray you, children leave you, and you can’t build walls powerful enough to protect you. Life cannot be controlled or predicted. In moments of pain, fear, anger, and the desire for self-protection are provoked to the surface. In those moments, you face a choice—your heart can close, your mind recoil, and your body contract, or you can dive deeply inward to find and nurture the balance, resilience, and courage that allow you to deepen and care.
Compassion is not a quality to be cultivated in isolation, aloof from life.
It is easy to be compassionate from a distance, when your heart is undisturbed.When you are surrounded by those who love and care for you, when you have built a world where pain is repressed or ignored, you can easily immerse yourself in thoughts of love and tolerance. Yet that is a fragile world, built on foundations that will always crumble. Compassion speaks of the willingness to engage with tragedy, loss, and pain. Its domain is not only the world of those you love and care for, but equally the people who threaten you, the countless people you don’t know, the homeless person you meet on the street, and the situations of anger and hatred you recoil from. It is here that you learn about the depths of tolerance and understanding that are possible for each one of us. It is here that you learn about dignity, meaning, and greatness of heart.
As a rabbinic text encourages us,“in the places where there are no human beings, be one.” The great spiritual texts and teachers of the past and present tell us that compassion is the innate, natural condition of our hearts.
The ultimate journey and skill of a human being is to discover how encompassing our hearts can be.
Anger, hatred, and cruelty as well as kindness, forgiveness, and understanding live as possibilities within all our hearts. Our capacity to be a cause of suffering and our capacity to end suffering live side-by-side within us.The challenge and invitation of every human life is to discover the wisdom and compassion to nurture all that contributes to the end of suffering and the well-being of all who live. As much as the story of the human condition is the story of conflict and division, it is equally the story of joy and redemption.
Outside the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, which bears witness to the murder and pain of millions, there runs a path flanked by carob trees.
Beside each tree a small marker bears the name of a person who risked his or her life and safety to protect and rescue Jews. In the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center, thousands of unsung heroes came forth to offer food and support to the rescuers, comfort and aid to the bereaved. As Helen Keller once said, “Although the world is full of suffering; it is also full of overcoming it.”
Compassion is the most precious of all gifts. In times of sorrow and bewilderment, it is what restores us and offers refuge. It is the force of empathy in your own heart that allows you to reach out and touch the broken heart of another. It is rooted in the heartfelt acknowledgement that others, like ourselves, yearn to be free from suffering and harm, and be safe and happy. It is compassion that rescues us from despair and helplessness, that provides a refuge of peace and understanding inwardly and outwardly. Compassion does not claim to be a quick fix for the age-old causes of suffering, nor is it a magic wand that will sweep away sorrow. But it is our commitment to compassion and our willingness to nurture it in every moment that gives meaning to life.
You may doubt the appropriateness of compassion, when you are faced with inexplicable acts of cruelty. At times it feels impossible to find forgiveness and understanding, when you are faced with the pain of loss, betrayal, or injustice. It is true that finding compassion is often not easy, yet the alternative is much harder. Living with anger, resentment, and alienation in your heart is more difficult.
You do not need to be a saint to find the grace and trans-formative power of compassion; you need only be willing to pay attention to pain and its cause and to commit yourself to its end."
♦️
from She Who Hears the Cries of the World
by Christina Feldman, Shambhala Sun.
"Feldman first examines compassion itself, using Buddhist texts and real-life stories to explain precisely what this strange force is, and argues that it is the most precious of all gifts.
Feldman then proceeds to show, in six separate chapters, how compassion can be used in the face of adversity, mapping out meditations and strategies that can overcome the dark thoughts that everyone experiences.
Compassion is for anyone who has ever felt helpless in our own turbulent, uncertain times."
https://www.amazon.com/Compassion-Listening-Cries-Christina-Feldman/dp/1930485115
♦️
"Christina Feldman is of the generation of dharma teachers that began teaching in the west in 1975 after spending some years in Asia studying and practice in both the Mahayana and Therevadan traditions.
She is a co-founder of Gaia House and has served as a guiding teacher of IMS since its early days. She is the founder of the Women’s retreat and the family retreat at IMS. More recently, she is a co-founder of Bodhi-College, which is dedicated to the study and practice of the early teachings of the Buddha.
She teaches Buddhist psychology in several university settings in Europe, and she teaches both traditional retreats and study programs. She has been involved in the evolving exploration of mindfulness in contemporary settings. Her latest book is Boundless Heart: The Buddha’s Path of Kindness, Compassion, Joy, and Equanimity.In May 2019, Guildford Press will be publish her next book, Mindfulness: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Psychology, co-authored with Willem Kukyen.
She lives in England and is a mother and a grandmother."
https://dharmaseed.org/teacher/44/
Christina Feldman
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