Compassion, Suffering, and Courage

"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.