Virtue - Compassion

Sadly, language is not an exact science. Over the course of history, the meanings and associations of certain words have been changed or co-opted by one group of people or another, until the associations a word has becomes more powerful than it’s actual meaning.

Compassion is such a word. In the western world the word compassion is becoming sadly linked to an idea of impracticality, of mindless idealism, of trite affirmations of universal love and peace. Showing compassion and caring to our fellow man seems like weakness rather than strength in a society that is increasingly about getting to the top by climbing on the people below. Yet compassion is not impractical. As author and environmentalist Joanna Macy says:

“Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable”

Indeed, it’s not simply that we avoid feeling compassion, we try to avoid the whole idea of compassion. This is understandable. Compassion creates responsibility. President Barack Obama put it like this:

“when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers -- it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.”

Yet what is the purpose of self-exploration if not to be helpful? What use is the enlightened being sitting alone on a mountain-top doing for the rest of the world? Self-exploration is itself a compassionate act. Yet clearly it is only a beginning. As we said earlier, compassion creates responsibility.

If we are teachers, we have a responsibility to our students. Our compassion demands that we strive to make their learning process easier than ours was, that we our honest about our shortcomings, that we do all we can to overcome them. Teaching is often a means of supporting ourselves, yet of it becomes more about the student’s money or adulation than the student themselves, a great disservice is done.

If we are students we have a responsibility to what we are learning. To choose to learn something is to recognize it’s value, and to demand something of your teacher. Furthermore we still become teachers to those who know less about this thing than we do.

Compassion means to feel with, to suffer with. The path of both teacher and student is a difficult one. Each can be tempted to simply take from the other rather than to give. Compassion allows both sides to see more clearly the position of the other and their responsibilities to them. Certainly something we could do with more of.