Compassion Grows You

“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”

― Andrew Boyd, Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe

The thing about compassion is that once you embrace it you realize it is no small task. When you practice compassion, you truly can feel and see how much you are part of everything that is, for you feel the stuff of others. You imagine walking in their boots but aiming the camera on yourself, and asking, “And me? What would I do here?” It seems near impossible to stop long enough to even entertain the idea of stopping long enough because these are crazy times, and this is a crazy world. For real, for real. But it is absolutely necessary.

Like being here now, practicing compassion can be done step-by-step, moment-by-moment. You can make a decision to be more compassionate, to give to others what you may not get in return (though it is likely that you will in some way, psychopath notwithstanding). In every moment, you can choose an act of compassion for the situation at hand.

And if you do, you ask?

Compassion is a gentle mercy. It is recognizing that your connection with everything around you is part of your own life. Yes, it is forgiveness (more on that, later). Yes, it is a kind of non-judgement (more on that later, too). Compassion is understanding. It is empathy. It is an ethical practice because it cultivates morality and love. Practice it, you must. You must be conscious, deliberate, and undaunted in your determination to be a compassionate person. You must be compassionate, not only to others, but most of all, you must be compassionate to yourself.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness

In the making, the practice of compassion frees you. You grow and become a bigger being. You dare to see more clearly and thus, gain perspective. You grow stronger because you gain allies from all aspects of life. Eventually, you recognize your greater existence because you acquire personal, experiential knowledge that you are the universe. In a moment where you have the choice, (and that is every conscious moment), you can see where and how you shaped that moment. You can begin to really understand (and not in a head space way), how you are connected to the everything of the all of everything.

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

To practice compassion is a moment by moment endeavor. It is a commitment to clearing the obfuscations that surround most of us because we are in the thick of things — focused mostly on staying upright and surviving — on a daily basis. It is not easy to choose compassion when someone has just cut us off in traffic, or snapped at us for no reason, or rudely closed their heart to us. Not easy at all.

Still. You must be determined to practice compassion. Not against yourself, but for yourself. You give the love and mercy that your heart needs in that moment to yourself. And you don’t withhold compassion from others, because you know the darkness of your own being. Being compassionate is a spiritual act of the highest degree.

“We only have what we give.” ― Isabel Allende

Be a bigger heart, a bigger YOU. Practice compassion and compassionate acts. Choose this, for against the onslaught of 21st century living, it will not be an automatic impulse. You will want to strike back, hurt as you hurt, see the offender as so totally other than yourself. Choose, and then be of brave heart. Every compassionate act we do, every gentle mercy we extend is an act of love to our very selves. In these chaotic times, we need to remember what has always been true. We do not go alone on this journey. We have life companions. All of life here is part of who we are, whether we can see that, or not. And life metes out to us the measure we have received, while law bestows what we have given.

Build a storehouse of loving compassion, especially to those who you think least deserve it. It does not mean that you forgive or bypass horrific things, or indecencies done to you or others, it means you try to see down to the place of your own debauched darkness. You remember that place and you know that but for mercy and compassion, you might still be there. You release whatever due or judgement the offender should have (according to you), and know that the you of this earth do not have the power to punish or grant reprieve. Sure maybe you can get some temporary kind of human satisfaction. But really, that is less temporal than a good deep breath. Only in your own knowingness, in the deepest recesses of your being as soul, can you remember and see, and your compassion in that moment, can be the spark that helps that soul to do so, too.

Point: it matters not — it is not up to you. Yours is to practice compassion so that you may be a more loving person, so that you may reach a deeper part of your being, so that you may develop and cultivate divine wisdom, so that you may expand and have more life — and have it more abundantly.

Give compassion. Practice. Choose. Choose now. Choose in every instant.

Compassion will save you when you see no other way out. Compassion will soothe you when your wounds need a balm. You choose to practice compassion because ultimately, in the bigger picture, you exist way beyond this moment, this single life. You choose because in that bigger picture you realize that your moves affect all moves made. Ultimately, you choose because you realize that YOU are that biggest picture.

Compassion is a choice that will save your life, many times over.

© 2018. Egyirba High. All Rights Reserved.

Feel free to share this post with others, as long as you include the copyright information and keep the whole posting intact. If you like this piece, please share it with others. You can like me on Facebook to see more of my writing and my personal and spiritual journey.

Originally published at berijoy.wordpress.com on April 8, 2018.