Awakening Dignity by Phakchok Rinpoche & Sophie Wu

Author:Phakchok Rinpoche & Sophie Wu [Rinpoche, Phakchok & Wu, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2022-12-20T00:00:00+00:00

Compassion and Love in Action

Recently, a student shared with me how illness softened his heart to others’ suffering. Many years ago, he got sick with what seemed to be an unusual cold, but rather than getting better, he got worse. Eventually a specialist diagnosed him as having what is called chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, an illness that can be as debilitating as it is mysterious. In the early months of the illness, he had to quit working. He decided to volunteer his time for an organization called Meals on Wheels, delivering food to the disabled and homebound.

At the end of his first day of delivering food, the student found himself filled with an inexpressible and unexpected joy. Feelings of warmth and tenderness, along with a profound sense of interconnectedness, rose in his heart. He felt happy that he had made a difference, no matter how small, in the lives of these individuals. This experience helped put his own illness into perspective. Seeing the suffering of others softened his heart, and compassion started to awaken. He felt so much more gratification from giving to those in need than he had ever felt from material possessions, mindless entertainment, or the praise of others.

A few years later, he gained full recovery from his illness. In time, he regarded his illness as a gift for the way it had shifted his life perspective. And he credited the softening of his heart through volunteer work as an important contributing factor to his recovery. Helping others in need had helped him face his own life in a new light. He learned that by benefiting others, he simultaneously benefited himself. Although he didn’t think of it in these terms at the time, he was learning to selflessly wish others to be happy and free from suffering, and this brought a tremendous sense of fulfillment.

This student later became a professor at a university. One semester he randomly asked his students, “How many of you have ever done volunteer work?” He was pleasantly surprised when everyone raised a hand. He then asked, “How many of you found something unusually fulfilling in that work, something that no other experience could match?” To his astonishment, every person again raised a hand. His experience had not been unique. The desire to help others reflects something important in the human condition. He has repeated this experiment at different times with different groups of students, always with the same result. Within the hearts of these young students, and in all of us, there is sympathetic concern for the well-being of others. This good heartedness is a springboard for cultivating limitless compassion and loving-kindness. We can soften our hearts a little bit at a time, embrace people with love a little bit at a time, and strengthen our ability to be kind and helpful a little bit at a time. Step by step, we expand our capacity to cultivate a state of mind that can bring about the causes of compassion and loving-kindness in other people’s lives.

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