"Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with.Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing -- resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings." ~Joanna Macy
The above quote was on Lama Surya Das's Face book page. It's very relevant to me because I have noticed something painful in the course of being chronically ill. People turn away from my life because it causes them to feel depressed. Seeing my illness causes them suffering.
When I was caring for my terminally ill infant daughter (1993-1995), it was a rude awakening for me to see that people would rather not know her, because they considered it too painful to watch her life. Caring for my daughter Laryssa, loving her, meant accepting her exactly as she was without wishing her to be something else. Even some of the doctors in her life had problems with her condition, because they viewed her as a "non-viable life form" (their term). Anything but a human being. Everyday folk would say things like "Tsk tsk, what a waste." Seeing this, I vowed to consciously stay with suffering in others when the opportunity arose.
I once asked my precious lama, Lama Gyatso "Why do they call this process enlightenment? It should be called endarkenment, because you can see everyone is suffering. You can't even walk on grass without killing a bug."
"Stay with this", he replied.
Even my beautiful compassionate Lama has died. He acquired hepatitis as a child in a refugee camp in India after escaping from Tibet. (He was a young boy and he witnessed most of his family being slaughtered.) I know he didn't turn away from witnessing suffering. I know he lived what he taught.
I pray I am brave enough to live what he taught.
I appreciate this blog very much. I suffer from a chronic disease as well. Type 1 Diabetes. I've had it for about 15 years now. My son who is 6 suffers from this unfortunate condition as well. This disease has essentially made me what I am, and is probably the reason I took a more contemplative path. I believe that even though it is difficult to live with such conditions, that many are able to learn compassion through them. For me being compassionate didn't come easy until there was a shaking up of my psyche through many difficult trials. I consider compassion a very tangible sign of progress on ones spiritual or "mystical" path, whatever it may be. My body has essentially revolted against me, however my mind has not. Whatever our karmic debts may be, they are being worked out at every moment, even when it doesn't seem that they are.
ReplyDeleteIt took me an incredibly long time to realize how valuable compassion is, and how when we experience it we are essentially transcending certain shortcomings of the human condition that indeed anchor us to very mundane inner states of being. I believe that suffering has a way of "unhooking" the individual from the human condition and loosening them from these karmic debts. Plotinus, who I write of often on my own blog suffered from Leprosy and never lost the divine center in himself, he was always a joyful emulator of divine truth even through his pain and suffering. The human condition always ends in the ground, and each of us much endure as we watch this seeming "tragedy" unfold. Whatever the case, life is not a bad thing, it is very valuble, even if you are suffering. This world tragedy does not go on forever, there is a reconciliation to all of it.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your heartfelt and deeply honest response. You've made me cry... in a good way. The journey is shared, though sometimes it seems solitary. Your son has a spiritually rich and compassionate father. What a gift for him, as he is also a gift in your life. Thank you for reminding me of the reconciliation.