The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honourable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
*Love for your mother, father and siblings is natural and organic. We can have love for our partner if we have one and love for past partners. To have unconditional or true love is to love other beings whether or not they love you or even like you.~dharma teaching.
True love is the answer to all problems, pain and suffering. If you have true love and compassion for your fellow man then you shall inflict no harm. Love is an earnest and anxious desire for and an active and beneficent interest in the well-being of the one loved. Yet, at times, you will feel a rage of anger, frustration and wish your fellow man ill not because you hate her but because modern views of compassion has taught us this.
Common definitions of compassion read like the following: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. There is a strong desire to 'get your point across' to the one loved to help them release their pain and problems. These definitions create the idea that compassion requires us to join another in their misery and can lead to you becoming angry and sometimes wishing them ill for making you feel so terrible. Does this really help anyone? We may need a definition of compassion that is more powerful. For true compassion we will have to expand our understanding so we don’t mistakenly create more sorrow from suffering.
Think of the modern definition of compassion is not true. Say to yourself: What if compassion does not allow us to feel the suffering or pain of another? What if compassion is simply the active expression of acceptance for the world and people just as they are?
In Buddhist practices sadness, sorrow, and pity are referred to as the near enemies of compassion. Being compassionate involves understanding the suffering of another without feeling sorrow or pity. When there are these emotions, compassion has turned into personal unhappiness and only adds to suffering. Feeling the emotional pain of another doesn’t relieve their suffering. In actuality it adds to the collective field of unconsciousness creating suffering.
An example of Buddhist logic:
If you see a peron suffering and unhappy then you would feel sad for her. Now there are two unhappy people. If two people saw the two unhappy people and took the same approach then there would be four people suffering over frustration and sadness. Four more people could feel saddened and frustrated by our plight and then there would be eight more unhappy.If we keep going in this direction the whole world would end up feeling sorrow and pity because one person was unhappy. As you see, now we have several unhappy people and most will agree that unhappiness is harmful and a form of suffering.
"Just as compassion is a natural effect of true love for just being, so ahimsa or ‘non-harming’ is a natural effect of compassion. If we feel true compassion and tenderness for the feelings of others, we will automatically take care not to do any action that might cause any harm or suffering. Therefore the most important quality that we should strive to cultivate is the true love to subside and rest in our natural state of self-conscious being." [from the Happiness of Being: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana]
A Zen teaching:
Empathy Practice. The first step in cultivating compassion is to develop empathy for your fellow human beings. Many of us believe that we have empathy, and on some level nearly all of us do. But many times we are centered on ourselves (I’m no exception) and we let our sense of empathy get rusty. Try this practice: Imagine that a loved one is suffering. Something terrible has happened to him or her. Now try to imagine the pain they are going through. Imagine the suffering in as much detail as possible. After doing this practice for a couple of weeks, you should try moving on to imagining the suffering of others you know, not just those who are close to you.
A Buddhist teaching:
Compassion can take active forms - helping others who are having difficulties of whatever kind (mental, emotional, physical) - but can also be seen as a broad approach inherent in all that one does. Knowing that all beings are suffering in some way, compassion can become a permanent part of one's mindset. If something practical can't be done, then there is the inner feeling of concern for all beings and a desire for their suffering to be alleviated.
A Jainism teaching:
The teaching of ahimsa (non-violence) refers not only to wars and visible physicalacts of violence but to violence in the hearts and minds of human beings, their lack of concern and compassion for their fellow humans and for any other living being. Ancient Jain texts explain that violence (Himsa) is not defined by actual harm, for this may be unintentional. It is the intention to harm, the absence of compassion that makes action violent. Without violent thought there could be no violent actions.In a positive sense ahimsa means caring for and sharing with all living beings, tending, protecting and serving them. It entrails universal friendliness (maitri), universal forgiveness (kshama)and universalfearlessness (abhaya).
Compassion knows no limits; there are no exceptions. Compassion is continuing learning process. There is never a point when one can say "I'm compassionate enough" or "I'm done being compassionate with you". That way of thinking is not compassion. True compassion is infinite, it knows no boundaries.
Once we learn true empathy we can develop true compassion. Once we learn true compassion we can develop true love for our fellow man as strong as we love those close to us.
Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men. - Confucius
References:
http://zenhabits.net/
http://happinessofbeing.blogspot.com/
http://trueanduseful.eponym.com/blog
http://www.pathwaytohappiness.com/index.htm
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