Climbing the Mountain One Nugget of Gold at a Time

It has been a while I know, and given that tomorrow is my weekly supervisory meeting, I should be working on my thesis. Yet I find myself thinking about compassion. So much for not “breakin the chain”. Actually I joke, because Jerry’s Chain method has, after almost 3 weeks, shown to be worth the effort. And as I have already completed today’s daily work, its all good. However, I did not want to talk about Jerry, big red crosses or any of that stuff. Instead I wanted to discuss the importance of what I like to call a culture of compassion.

This rather simple, yet not unambiguous, phrase will no doubt be misunderstood by some people, as compassion in my opinion does not preclude somethings that would prima facie appear to be the opposite of compassion – for example, aggressive behavior. And if anyone has watched Tibetan monks debate, you will understand my point.

The Tibetan Buddhist monastic tradition defines compassion as the wish that one or many sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Yet, for many the very meaning of compassion is gentleness. If you take the notion of freeing beings from suffering seriously, then at certain times, and only if you have the necessary wisdom, aggression or wrathfulness can be a tool used to help, not harm. Parenting is a good example of this.

I would like to explain the meaning of compassion which is often misunderstood. Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop a genuine concern for his or her problems – His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

When I met His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala earlier this year, he was not gentle. In fact, just like a father he was quite stern and direct. He smiled only once or maybe twice in our half hour meeting. So, if gentleness is the meaning of compassion, then HHDL lacks it. And I reckon there would not be too many people who would claim this. Suffice it to say, I do not agree with the notion that the appearance of kindness or gentleness is evidence of a good heart. Don’t misread this, I am not suggesting that compassionate people are not gentle, that would be silly. Compassion’s key is attentional focus and as the more astute of you may notice, this is something the Tibetan tradition points out without dearth of repetition. I will expand on this notion of “attentional focus” later. For now, let us simply earmark it as an important concept in cultures where the notion of compassion is venerated.

In my understanding of compassion, which may well be incomplete or even incorrect, compassion has three core themes. (1) The understanding that all beings desire happiness. (2) That the right to be so, is implicit in this statement. It is not that difficult to see this played out in much of our conscious life, by how much time we spend manipulating external circumstances trying to find this elusive feeling of happiness. (3) The recognition that our mind has a role to play in this process. For instance, if you believe that happiness will be found in external circumstances, you might just find yourself working 80 hours a week and climbing over others to get that next promotion. Why would someone do this? Because they believe, consciously or not, they will be better off by doing so. Clearly this is a misunderstanding of where, or should I say, how happiness is to be found. Working 80 hours a week is not a problem. Hell, the Dalai Lama works far more than that. The problem here is not the amount of work but rather their willful disregard of others.

As a side point: to generate compassion you must first recognise the above for yourself, by yourself. That is to say, you must see how you desire happiness and you must see how functional states of mind are necessary conditions for happiness. See this post for more on the connection between wisdom and compassion.

With this understanding as a platform, cultures of compassion such as the Tibetan monastic community can have frank, robust and honest discussions, even disagreements without fear of backlash from hurting peoples ego’s. How? Because they do not externalise ego’s pain. If, or I should say, when, the ego is bruised in debate, monks will not blame their debating opponents. Of course there is sometimes tension in debate, after all some of us are still quite ordinary, yet blame is never laid at the feet of another. It is selfishness or egoism which is to blame. And we do just that. This is because the source of our discomfort are these dysfunctional states of mind, not others attitudes. This, in the tradition, is called mind training. An apt description that conveys the internal process.

People who are compassionate are or have at some point gone through the process of training their mind to be compassionate. This starts by shifting your attentional focus from only your happiness to that of others. But notice one thing. There is no mention of changing your appearance, as there is no room for the happy-clappy types in this culture. The Tibetans have a name for these types, they are called a-pur-dop’s, that is, pretenders. And pretenders, in the end, get caught out. Usually when someone attacks them or harms them in someway.

What this allows in terms of community, be it a philosophy department, a family or whatever, is an environment of trust, without the need for fake friendliness or overstated gentleness. A place where each person cares for the welfare of others, without the need to appear so, is a place which fosters the notion that just like me, you want to be happy and you have the right to be so. This is a culture of compassion. Does this entail liking every person you meet? No. Is it possible to have compassion for someone that might be labeled a “trouble maker”? Yes, absolutely! And in fact, it is at this point in your training, that you begin to see for yourself the power of compassion. For real compassion is stable even in the face of those makers of trouble. This is why compassion is important, because we all face problems. People misunderstand our intentions, misread our body language and tension ensues. If your attentional focus is pointing towards yourself, this tension will turn into anger or resentment, and we all know where that leads – the dark side, of course. As your attentional focus begins to shift, so your compassion increases and through this you will tend to see good in people without clinging onto the negative aspects of their personality. This has the knock on effect of feeling close to others, even if you have just met them.

So, when Buddhism talks about compassion, it is talking about ones attentional focus, not simply about self-interested friendliness or overstated gentleness. Because, in the end, self-interested friendliness is simply politics with a smile, gentleness with an agenda and no one likes an a-pur-dop, right.

You may ask: why the photos of books and sunshine? This article has nothing to do with sunshine, books, nuggets of gold, or for that matter, climbing mountains. I will leave it up to you to decide an answer to those questions. At least in my mind there is a direct link between the development of genuine compassion and photos of sunshine (at the metaphorical level) and stacks of books on philosophy. Perhaps I will explain myself at a later point. For now here is a hint…cognitive functional shift.

Until next time…learn to recognise the direction of your attentional focus, and be kind to yourself by being kind to others.

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