Reflection Paper One: Compassion in Buddhism

When I was in third grade, a fellow student started to mock my teacher, Mrs. M—. My family had just moved back to Connecticut, and I was still making friends, finding my way, trying to understand the dynamics of school, the town, of the newness of it all. But I didn’t need to figure out that belittling someone was unkind. I stood up, asked, or rather demanded, the student to stop, told him he hurt Mrs. M—’s feelings. The room grew silent in disbelief and quiet ridicule. I relay this story for two reasons, the first of which is that it demonstrates compassion in a simple form. Compassion is the ability to put ourselves into someone else’s shoes, to have an empathetic understanding of another’s suffering, and the desire to alleviate that suffering. This was my motivation for standing and speaking up. Cruel words hurt, even if tempered through the mouth of a nine year-old child, and even back then I couldn’t tolerate hard-heartedness. Of course, that little stint branded me as a goody two-shoes, a teacher’s pet that had a hard time making new friends and being accepted. The next few years that reputation clung to me like a bad habit I couldn’t kick, which brings me to the second reason why I relay this story: compassion is often seen as a weakness, a liability for success and independence, especially in modern America.

In American culture, compassion isn’t the default mode of operation in this world. One could argue it isn’t even highly regarded, especially in the political or social zeitgeist. We are a nation of “pull yourself up by your bootstraps, son” and one of the self-made man, where a person is the master of their domain and any suffering is caused by one’s own doing. To be compassionate is to be weak; to be able to understand others’ pain and suffering is to mark one as enfeebled and inept. To ask for compassion is even worse, a sign that the person has given up and resigned themselves to being less than a fully functioning member of our society. Look at the way the collective “we” talks about people dealing with drug addiction, the LGBTQIA+ community, unwed mothers, people outside our “tribe,” and many other groups. Rhetoric like “they chose that life,” “it’s their own fault,” or “you get what you deserve” are common among certain circles. Compassion is severely lacking in the American culture for anyone experiencing hardship, whether or not they are the cause of that hardship.

Yet, what the American zeitgeist doesn’t understand, but what Buddhism does, is that suffering is, in fact, a fundamental part of life. It is the First Nobel Truth. Suffering isn’t doled out based on one’s actions (some suffering may be caused by one’s actions, but it is in no way a universal truth and should not discount the need to give compassion). Suffering could perhaps be considered a basic tenet of being human. It is the thread that sews all of us together. It is our shared humanity. It is the one thing you, me, the banker in New York City, and the single mother in Mobile, Alabama, can connect with on a visceral and emotional level. Human suffering binds all humans together. As Rebecca Solnit writes in The Faraway Nearby, “sometimes paying attention to others gives you perspective, and in suffering similar to your own you might find encouragement in knowing that you’re not alone” (128). Could we not say that suffering is the great equalizer? Especially, as Gilbert points out, “that pain is built into the very fabric of being alive” (18)—it is a universal unifier.

Suffering is where compassion rises from; without suffering, would there be a need for compassion? Suffering is part of both elements of the definition of compassion. We start from here, and cultivate empathy toward the suffering being. For some people, it is easy to connect to another’s suffering; for others, it is much easier to understand their own. In either case, using one as the vehicle to understand the other, is a road to empathy. Jinpa touches upon this when he first introduced compassion training for the undergraduates at Stanford: compassion for one’s self was supposed to be a jumping-off point to practice compassion for others, but he found some students “had aversive reactions to self-compassionate meditation phrases” (34). Might this be the cause of our inability to have compassion toward groups that are not like us? Our inability to offer self-kindness, which is the ability to relate “to our shortcomings and difficulties with kindness, understanding, and acceptance rather than negative judgment” (Jinpa 35), may just cause the lack of compassion we find in America today.

The second component of compassion is the genuine desire to alleviate suffering. This may be a harder desire to cultivate in an individual, given the environment we are raised, and currently find ourselves, in. How we see others in our milieu interact with those less fortunate or experiencing suffering will inform how we approach them. Gilbert uses the example of a baby being kidnapped and raised in a violent, drug-centric environment, which leads to a specific set of beliefs and ideas about who we are as individuals. Compassion—kindness, even—may be an unknowable entity, or actively scorned. I was raised in an environment of social workers and teachers; could this be a large reason for my empathetic nature? The fact that kindness and concern for fellow humans were the backbone of my childhood, where volunteering and love were practiced and encouraged, more than likely added to my belief in kindness over cruelty in all interactions. Perhaps being raised in a Buddhist culture is similar to my upbringing, in that we see the interconnectedness of all and the fact that no one person is an island unto themselves; another person’s suffering could be my suffering, and easing their pain eases my own. If this is the case, the motivation to ease suffering is beneficial to both the receiver and the giver. In fact, “even just imagining compassion and kindness is enough to start to activate the soothing/affiliation system” (Gilbert 82–83), which leads to calmness and a feeling of safety.

We could state that we are a product of our environment, but then that would discount that our desire is our destiny, and desire can be changed by our motivations. Humans have such an astonishing capacity to choose what to think about and ruminate on, which I am loath to admit is something I only recently discovered. My emotions, and reactions to those emotions, governed my behaviors for most of my life, and it wasn’t until this past year (and last semester’s class) that I truly understood that we have a choice. I did not create the emotions, and they do not define me. I mention this because, as Gilbert shares, how we think about and interpret the events in our lives is what leads to the emotions we feel and what we ruminate on (61). But if the events of our lives are seen through the lens of a culture that villainizes or demonizes a segment of the population we consider ourselves to be a part of, that will color the way we view ourselves in a similar negative and self-critical light (Gilbert 85), resulting in hatred of ourselves. Buddhist culture seems not to have this idea of self-hatred, as pointed out by Jinpa when he recounted the story of the Dalai Lama’s inability to comprehend that such a thing exists at a conference on Buddhism and psychotherapy in 1989 (33–34). American culture is an ouroboros, where we blame the victim and say they deserve their suffering, which begets more suffering in an endless cycle of self-hatred and dark ruminations.

Buddhism’s concept of compassion, though, shows us all that I am you, and you are me. My suffering is your suffering is my suffering, and the only manner in which to alleviate it is to see us as an interconnected whole, to practice empathy, and share in each other’s stories, without judgment or condemnation, coming together to confront suffering. Our ability to empathize, as an intrinsic trait of being human, is what unites us and connects us to others. If we can sit with our own suffering, the easier it becomes to see how others suffer similarly. And if we can hold another’s suffering, this helps us bear the weight of our own suffering (Jinpa 131). Compassion in Buddhism understands this symbiotic relationship and asks for a bit more from us, which is to work toward ending the suffering of ourselves and others. This desire can be cultivated by inspecting our motivations and emotions when we come up against the suffering of our own and others, being vulnerable, and having the ability to step outside the culture and norms to which we were born into. Jinpa eloquently states that the “goal of compassion training is simply this: to temper our heart and mind in such a way that we instinctively relate to ourselves and others with awareness of our needs and the basic vulnerability that unites us as humans” (209). If we can find a way to more embody this in our current American political climate, where we otherize every group that doesn’t hew to our oft-misguided morals and ethics, we have the capacity to heal each other and ourselves. Compassion is the way forward, but it means we have to end the individual-centricity that is excessively pervasive in American culture, to be able to sit with our own pain and suffering with kindness toward ourselves, and show up for the less fortunate.

At the end of third grade, Mrs. M— told my mother that my life would be hard because of my compassionate soul and the response to that way of being isn’t a kind one, as I experienced the after-effects of that kindness which branded me as weak and sensitive. With some of the leaders in our world right now, I’m afraid that mentality is still prevalent, and those of us with the ability to be compassionate will only be taken advantaged of or ridiculed. And so I wonder what the Bodhisattva warrior looks like in the twenty-first century, and how might I, and others similar to me, embody the motivations and behaviors of such a person. Maybe it starts with the acknowledgment that we are all beautifully broken and leaning into that curiosity with loving-kindness and empathy, both toward ourselves and each other. Our example may light the way.

Works Cited

Gilbert, Paul, and Choden. Mindful Compassion: How the Science of Compassion Can Help You Understand Your Emotions, Live in the Present, and Connect Deeply With Others. 2014.

Jinpa, Thupten. A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives. Avery, 2016.

Solnit, Rebecca. The Faraway Nearby. Penguin, 2014.