Buddhist wisdom
Jul. 5th, 2006 09:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabrinamariIf you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
~His Holiness The Dalai Lama
My thoughts:
Compassion never hurts, but it's not the same as being continually mild. Sometimes compassion is firm, unpopular action. Mostly, I think compassion means acting in a way that offers respect for self and others, seeks to avoid delivering gratuitous or unnecessary pain and maintains as its highest goal the greatest possible good for all involved.
One's enemies, or those who have hurt you badly, are indeed great teachers. They are excellent teachers on many counts: they never fail to expose and needle your weaknesses so that these are more readily visible when you pay attention. They often expose your shadow self, your own lapses in wisdom and the places in you that urgently need to grow. Often, they provide excellent guidance on what not to do and how not to do it: when I wonder what actions I should take in a particular situation, I often start out by asking myself what {two or three people in particular} would do in this situation. Then, based on my answer to this question, I know exactly what not to do. If I am in doubt about something, I ask, 'Hmmm, could I see {above designated people} doing this?" If the answer is yes, I relegate that action to the "Likely to End in Disaster" pile.
It's not an altogether bad thing to have among your past acquaintances a "Compass that Always Points South" or two.
Sometimes it's a great accomplishment to simply refrain from harming someone. There are people whom I just can't help. I am very glad to simply be able to stay my hand where they are concerned. Refraining from unproductive hostile action is very, very useful and I'm relieved and glad to be able to do it...
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.
~His Holiness The Dalai Lama
My thoughts:
Compassion never hurts, but it's not the same as being continually mild. Sometimes compassion is firm, unpopular action. Mostly, I think compassion means acting in a way that offers respect for self and others, seeks to avoid delivering gratuitous or unnecessary pain and maintains as its highest goal the greatest possible good for all involved.
One's enemies, or those who have hurt you badly, are indeed great teachers. They are excellent teachers on many counts: they never fail to expose and needle your weaknesses so that these are more readily visible when you pay attention. They often expose your shadow self, your own lapses in wisdom and the places in you that urgently need to grow. Often, they provide excellent guidance on what not to do and how not to do it: when I wonder what actions I should take in a particular situation, I often start out by asking myself what {two or three people in particular} would do in this situation. Then, based on my answer to this question, I know exactly what not to do. If I am in doubt about something, I ask, 'Hmmm, could I see {above designated people} doing this?" If the answer is yes, I relegate that action to the "Likely to End in Disaster" pile.
It's not an altogether bad thing to have among your past acquaintances a "Compass that Always Points South" or two.
Sometimes it's a great accomplishment to simply refrain from harming someone. There are people whom I just can't help. I am very glad to simply be able to stay my hand where they are concerned. Refraining from unproductive hostile action is very, very useful and I'm relieved and glad to be able to do it...
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-05 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-05 02:14 pm (UTC)(*)Diplomacy -- the art of saying "Go to Hell" in such a way that the listener looks forward to the trip.
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Date: 2006-07-05 02:59 pm (UTC)I've learned that when one is somehow determined (consciously or otherwise) to be negative, being compassionate can hurt... but only in the sense that it requires one to put the brakes on negative action, look deeply into one's self, and face the fact that one's own direction-to-action wasn't what one might really would have wanted. It hurts to look into the face of own's shadow sometimes, but then, one wouldn't be even attempting it if one wasn't at least trying to be self-compassionate, if not completely compassionate.
I've also learned that compassion also isn't the same as being a doormat. And, like you, I often gauge action by placing role-models in the same space, even if that role model is an element of my self that I'd prefer to be expressing from. I don't always succeed, but sometimes even the exercise is enough.