Love and Compassion
“Love and compassion benefit ourselves and others. With them, we feel in touch with and connect to all living beings. Feelings of alienation and despair vanish and are replaced with optimism,” -Thubten Chodron
“With our love we can save the world,” -George Harrison
If we can learn to live in a more loving and compassionate way, we can make the world a better place for ourselves and others. Sometimes in Buddhism we talk about high minded things like saving all beings. I like to think of that as saving all beings from myself. That’s where I have the most power. How can I minimize the harm I cause in this world?
We can contribute to the well being and harmony in the world by causing less harm. If we can learn to cause less harm, we’re going to like ourselves more and others will like us more. We will have better relationships. And, additionally, if we’re spending our time and energy cultivating love and compassion, then we have less time and energy to do the things that may cause us harm.
And so we are encouraged to cultivate a boundless heart. This is to direct positive feelings toward everyone. Metta and Tonglen are practices designed to help us do this. It’s easy to feel compassion if one of your loved ones has a bad experience. It’s a little harder if it’s a stranger, and still harder if it’s someone we don’t like.
Compassion isn’t the same as Pity. Pity is rooted in a sense of superiority. You have to look down on someone to pity them. You can be with them and have compassion for them. The word compassion has connotations of suffering together. It may seem sort of silly if someone says, “I feel your pain.” but that is an expression of compassion. In the same way, self-confidence is differentiated from narcissism. Self confidence is the idea that I can achieve my goals. Narcissism is the idea that I can achieve my goals and you can’t achieve yours. It’s rooted in being above another person. Being above a person is not loving.
We also need to remember that self love and self compassion are needed. This is an area where we could get confused. Giving in to temptation and putting our desires ahead of others are not the same as self love and self compassion. Self obsession doesn’t serve us and giving in to all our desires often leads to consequences we would prefer to not face.
Attachment is about me.
Obsession is about them.
Love is about us.
That’s the difference. And the difference is where the magic is.
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Upcoming Events:
Talk: Love and Compassion June 25, 2023. 10:30am-noon at St Marks Hope and Peace. 3800 Troost Ave. Kansas City, Missouri. During the Rime Center Sunday Service
Meditation Group June 28, 2023. 7pm-7:30. Rime Buddhist Center. 2939 Wayne Ave. Kansas City, Missouri
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Hey,
I’m not going to start begging for money, but I do put a lot of work into this. If you feel inspired to set up a monthly paid subscription I would appreciate it. I’m going to give half of all subscription fees to the Rime Center Temple fund. You an learn about that here: Rime Temple Fund
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