Ruling Your World: Ancient Strategies for Modern Life by Sakyong Mipham

Author:Sakyong Mipham
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780767920803
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Published: 2006-10-10T00:00:00+00:00

13

Generating Compassion

Radiating from basic goodness like the sun, compassion lifts us above self-involvement and brings us out of the dark age.

COMPASSION IS the unfettered yearning that responds to the world with noble heart, the understanding that others are just like us. The lion looks at the world and sees that everyone—an ant scampering along the ground, a worm crawling under the earth, a bird flying high above, an antelope darting across the plains—is motivated by desire for happiness. Everyone wants to stop suffering. From the moment we wake up until we go to bed—whether we are taking a shower, having breakfast, going to work, or watching a movie—we are all engaged in this pursuit. We spend every day hoping not to suffer. With the discipline of the lion, we actively extend that wish to others as well. This is the source of the lion’s delight.

Wishing for others not to suffer may seem as futile as placing a flower down the barrel of a rifle, but the ancients say that compassion is more powerful than the anger behind the gun. Ultimately we are here because of compassion. Out of the compassion of our parents, we were fed and clothed. Someone didn’t want us to be hungry or cold. The food we eat, the house in which we live, the clothing on our backs—all of it comes from compassion. It is true that there is profit involved, but mixed in with it is compassion.

Compassion is the foil of bewilderment. We all want happiness, and most of us are bewildered about how to get it. We take self-involvement as the way to achieve it. If we’re always conducting ourselves like miserly business owners, thinking only of our own profit, we’re only harming ourselves and others, because we are full of self-interest. Living life in this bewildered way results in pain, stress, disappointment, and regret—the fruits of nonvirtue. The Tibetan word for “self” connotes being full and falling. Being full of self-involvement immediately produces negative emotions, and that’s what keeps us falling into the dark age.

Compassion, by contrast, is the mind’s genuine energy, radiating from basic goodness like the sun. It lifts us above self-involvement and brings us out of the dark age. Just like the sun behind a cloud, it shines through our self-centeredness. We’re rushing for the bus, but seeing another person with heavy bags slows us down. We would like her pain to stop. Compassion cuts through our speed, and we help that other person.

Compassion is based on seeing suffering, relating with it, and letting it go. We think about the whole world and all the beings caught in tremendous suffering, and we rouse the aspiration to develop the power to ease their pain. The experience of pain brings a sense of feeling trapped, of having no way out. Contemplating that aspect of pain engenders compassion, the big heart of the lion. We wish that all beings were liberated into the light of their own wisdom and compassion, so they would no longer suffer.

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