Understanding and love

Understanding and love are key components to being peace.   How many times have we been in a situation where we were annoyed by something that happened only to find out another fact that helped us to see the situation with more compassion.

I am reminded of the father on the train with his 5 kids who were being very unruly.  The other passengers on the train were annoyed by his seemingly being oblivious to the children’s antics.   Finally one of the passengers asked the father to please control his kids.  The father looked up and apologized and followed it with, “I am sorry, but we were just at the hospital and my wife died, I guess I just was not aware.”

Imagine how you would have felt.  Imagine the rush of compassion that came over the passenger that made the request.  When we have understanding we have more compassion and can demonstrate love.  You cannot get angry.  So our practice is to look at all living beings with the eyes of compassion.  Seek to understand and you will love.

Others are precious to us

The basis for our ability to show care and compassion for others is found in our capacity to love ourselves.  This love does not come for a debt we owe ourselves.  The ability or capacity we have to love ourselves is based on our desire for happiness and wanting to avoid suffering.  Once we recognize this in ourselves we can extend this to others.

While we are not going to indulge in a self-centered way of thinking, we can develop the attitude of considering others as precious by recognizing the part their kindness plays in our own experience of joy, happiness, success and ultimately peace.

At the same time much of the pain we suffer is the result of us being worried about our own well being at the expense of others.  So when we compare the two things we can see that w are much happier, yes more at peace when we regard the well being of others as precious.  This will include not only those that are immediately in front of us but also those that we may not see but our actions, habits and way of doing things has an affect on them in many parts of the world.

Compassion in good & bad times

Here is an interesting thought.  Just to believe that compassion, patience and gratefulness are good qualities, does not mean that we have developed them.  We must practice them, and the only time we can practice them is when there are difficult situations, or times when it seems to be the hardest to practice them.

In other words, it is not when times are good and everything is going our way that we learn to practice compassion.  It is when the world seems to be against us or at least when one person seems to be against us.   It is a very funny thing that when times are good and we have money and or power, we have many ‘friends’.  But should we lose those things it may be very hard to find these ‘friends’ for support.

The other side of this coin is that when we have things going our way, we can easily begin to feel that we do not need others – that we can manage on our own.  But should our health decline or we lose our employment or some other disaster comes upon us, we quickly remember how much we really do need each other.

To prepare for that time, now is the time to develop compassion.  It is our compassion, patience and gratefulness for others that will make true friends of even our ‘enemies’.  The kind of friends that will be there for us in our declining times.  It is never to late to start practicing compassion.

Avoid anger and hatred

There are a couple of emotions that can have a great deal of negative affect on our ability to develop compassion and to live a happy, peaceful life. These emotions are anger and hatred. In other places I have spoken of the need to never do anything out of fear or anger. The reason is that those two emotions and hatred too, are so powerful and can easily overwhelm our mind and in fact eclipse the rational part of our brain. We can never be sure with those emotions if the results of our action will be positive or negative. We do know that it can cause an immense amount of destructive behavior, that can hurt both us and those around us.

The emotions and practice that can ward off the anger and hatred is patience and reason. We should not mistake those for weakness. In fact these are signs of inner strength. Compassion is by nature peaceful and gentle, it is also very powerful. As we remind ourselves of our commitment to practice compassion, it will give us the strength to be patient, express our views and take steps to correct a situation or make things more fair. In fact despite the appearance of any destructive activity on the part of others, they in the end will only harm themselves.

Our compassionate efforts will prove to be far more effective and not be based on the use of the blind energy of anger and retaliation. Practice compassion.

Universal compassion

Developing genuine compassion is not easy.  For this compassion that we speak of is not just based on who or what our attachments are or an emotional response, but is in recognition of the fact that any life that has the capability to feel pain and suffering can also feel happiness.

This kind of compassion is based on the needs of another, whether they are our loved ones or an enemy.  Ultimately all are ones who would like to have happiness and do not want pain and suffering.  So they are really no different than our self – as we want happiness also and do not want pain and suffering.

That is the connection that we use to grow our empathy and closeness to this other life in fact to all other life forces.  When we begin to think in a universal way like this we can develop a feeling of responsibility for others, and we want to help them to overcome the pain and suffering they are experiencing.  We are identifying with them.

It is difficult.  The reason that it is hard is because of the ‘I’ syndrome or our self centeredness that all of us have that works to limit our compassion.  Given patience and time we can develop this type of universal compassion.

Our mental attitude & peace of mind

If we desire to gain peace of mind, happiness and contentement it is first important to recognize that life is difficult.  We need to realize that we are going to encounter problems and things are going to happen that will get in the way of us meeting our goals.  At that point when that happens we have two choices.  We can give up and become discouraged or we can look at the situation as a whole more realistically.

This realistic perspective reminds us that it is not just us going through difficulties, but in fact everyone will undergo obstacles and life is difficult for others too.  In fact as we look at the situation of others, we may even begin to feel compassion for them, since many of their issues and obstacles we will see are much larger than our own.

With this new perspective our own suffering becomes manageable.  Our own difficulties can now be seen as opportunities to grow and we can if we choose become more determined to overcome the ’small’ obstacles we are encountering.  As we feel this compassion for others we will also develop the desire to help others and this sympathy and compassion will result in our own peace of mind and our inner strength will continue to increase.

When our focus goes off of ‘poor me’ and reaches out to others saying “How can I help you?” then our own peace will grow.

Compassion is not just for those we are attached to.  There is a difference between emotional response and a firm commitment founded on reason and genuine concern for others.  More on this next time.

develop compassion

Developing compassion has been one of the themes that the Dalai Lama has spoken on for a number of years.  I am going to spend some time over the next few months writing about some of his thoughts.  The reason I am doing this is so I can be reminded of the way to develop compassion and see how I can demonstrate it in every part of my life.   I hope that this repeating of his thoughts provokes some thoughts of your own and if you wish to comment on any of them please do.

Compassion and love can most easily be defined as positive thoughts and feelings that allow us and others to have hope, courage, determination and inner strength.  While most of us would claim to be compassionate and have love for certain persons, situations, the question that is asked is, ‘Is it possible to enhance these qualities?’

The Dalai Lama believes that you can.  Compassion is seen as the desire for another person not to have to suffer.  Interestingly having compassion is also important for our own peace.  If we divided the every kind of happiness and suffering into two main categories we could easily say that they fall in to either mental or physical.  For the most of us the physical is secondary to the mental.  What he means by that is that unless we are debilitated by some awful circumstance most often it is our mind that has the greatest influence on us.

We know that if our body is content – without too much suffering – we may be able to ignore it, not think about it too much.  But our mind registers every event, and then influences our outlook, attitude, thoughts and sometimes even how we feel physically.  So if we can learn to develop our mind to be more compassionate towards others we will as a result increase our own peace.  How does that work?  In my next blog I will illustrate how that happens.

Principals of Swadeshi – an economic lesson for today

The teachings of Mahatma Gandhi were powerful enough to play a major role in the nonviolent revolution that overthrew British colonialism in India. They are clearly still of utmost relevance today. Central to Gandhi’s philosophy was the principle of ’swadeshi’, which, in effect, means local self-sufficiency.

According to the principle of swadeshi, whatever is made or produced in the village must be used first and foremost by the members of the village. Trading among villages and between villages and towns should be minimal, like icing on the cake. Goods and services that cannot be generated within the community can be bought from elsewhere.

The driving force behind mass production is a cult of the individual. What motive can there be for the expansion of the economy on a global scale, other than the desire for personal and corporate profit?

In order to protect their economic interests, countries go to war – military war as well as economic war. Gandhi said, “People have to live in villages communities and simple homes rather than desire to live in palaces.” Millions of people will never be able to live at peace with each other if they are constantly fighting for a higher living standard.

We cannot have real peace in the world if we look at each other’s countries as sources for raw materials or as markets for finished industrial goods. The seeds of war are sown with economic greed. If we analyze the causes of war throughout history, we find that the pursuit of economic expansion consistently leads to military adventures. “There is enough for everybody’s need, but not enough for any-body’s greed,” said Gandhi. Swadeshi is thus a prerequisite for peace.

The economists and industrialists of our time fail to see when enough is enough. Even when countries reach a very high material standard of living, they are still caught up with the idea of economic growth. Those who do not know when enough is enough will never have enough, but those who know when enough is enough already have enough.

While this idea may not be possible right now at this time, it is possible for us to start thinking in a more simple way.  What is really important to us and how do our consumption habits affect our local and global community?  How can we contribute to the enhancement of community spirit, relationships, and well-being?  When is enough – enough?  How much do we really need to be at peace and satisfied?  I would suggest that we need a lot less than the marketers and advertising agencies would lead us to believe.

Much of this post is from “The Case Against the Global Economy – and for a turn toward the local”; edited by Jerry Mander and Edward Goldsmith.

Practice compassion

This week I added a brief biography on the Dalai Lama under Peacemakers. If you have started to follow this site you may not know that the reason I am doing this is for me to do more in line with the study of peace myself. When I have read books published by the Dalai Lama or see some of his quotes it is a reminder for me, to be compassionate.

It is interesting how an individual becomes known for a particular theme, and with him it is compassion. Out of his own experience in life with all of the political unrest in his own country, along with the education he has received, he speaks about compassion in a way that reminds us that all of us want to be treated in that manner.

Logic then tell us that if we want to be treated compassionately then the same must be true of everyone that surrounds us. Compassion though can slip through our hands as our days are so busy and there is so much to get done. So I am personally working on slowing myself down so that I can listen deeply to those I am speaking to. In fact my goal is to be sure that I take the time to speak to everyone in my personal world on a regular basis and to do so in a manner that will allow the person I am speaking to, to feel like they have been heard.

Let’s all begin this process with our family first. If we practice here, in the family, I am sure that we will be able to grow the practice to those outside our immediate family easily.

International Peace Day

September 21 has been proclaimed an International Peace Day.  As important as it is to talk about peace and the possibilities, it is more important to practice peace everyday in our own personal lives.  But for the sake of supporting the idea of the whole world thinking about the possibilities of peace, today let’s as a community take a moment today to pause and meditate or contemplate peace in our personal lives, with our family, community and the world.

We may even ask ourselves what is the effect I have on the world?  When I choose to make a purchase, or drive my car, or throw an item away, am I impacting the lives somewhere else on this planet without even realizing it?  We may be, and even if at this moment we are not ready to make that change in our life, being aware of our impact will have an affect.  In time we may find ways to take or use less so that all of us as a world community may have more and possibly survive ourselves.