"Compassion
means letting go of your self-identity, letting go of proving that
identity all the time. Compassion means you work in the way the wind
works, the sun works, or the air works. Take, for example, how the air
assumes the shape of the room. The air does not say, “I will give you
this breathing space provided you breathe the way I want.” Everyone
enjoys the benefit of being able to breathe in the air. It is the same
way with the sun: the sun does not stop shining when there are clouds in
the sky."
~ Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche ~
Shambhala Sun, July 2000
Full interview:
"As human beings, we all try our best to bring about a world based on
kindness and compassion. What seems to go wrong, however, is that what I
want, what I personally would like, becomes more important than the
benefit of the whole community.
Whether we look at
religion, philosophy, science, development or politics, wherever there
has been human society it has manifested wisdom and compassion. But
because of our tendency to be involved with our own selfishness, our own
likes and dislikes, we develop walls and isolate ourselves from others.
We do not allow the openness that can be felt between human beings to
express itself because of two fundamental things: hope and fear. All of
us want some happiness and no one wants to suffer, so every action we
take is motivated by the thought of how can I be happy, how can I avoid
pain. In a world already divided in so many ways, we create a world of
our own. A very selfish attitude develops.
All philosophies and
religions in the world aim to break through this wall of self-isolation,
so that we can work with one another with real care and compassion.
From a Buddhist point of view, we examine ourselves carefully—not as a
way of blaming ourselves for having created this division, but as a way
of working with the root cause of the problem.
The problem is not
with the world, or with other people, but with ourselves. Wisdom is
innate in us; it is not something that can be bought, heard or received
from outside. But our involvement with the external environment and the
distraction of our own emotions causes a kind of layering or veiling
that prevents us from observing ourselves carefully. We do not give
ourselves enough time and space to use our innate wisdom to observe
ourselves before we act.
However, through meditation, to use an
Eastern term, or examination or analysis, to use more Western terms,
there exists the possibility for wisdom to arise within every human
being. Meditation is the process of looking inward, of refraining from
our dualistic tendency to pay more attention to external issues than to
the internal issues we don’t want to work on.
A society based
upon peace, harmony, wisdom and compassion is not going to come about
unless each person begins with themselves. Through our ignorance, our
failure to use our innate wisdom, we make many excuses for not starting
with ourselves.
The biggest excuse we use is that we require the
other person to change before we do. So if I get up in the morning and
things don’t happen the way that I want, everything gets blamed on my
external world. On days when everything goes right, people look good to
us and appear kinder.
If we reflect on it, we realize that our
perception of the external world has much to do with our internal
attitude. Our mind makes excuses based on external circumstances that
reflect what we feel inside. When we see a person and he does something
we like, then he is a good person. But if this same person does
something we don’t like, then he is a bad person.
So
transforming the external environment must begin with transforming the
inner self, because only when the self is tamed and a fair amount of
awareness exists within us will we have the strength to relate properly
with others.
The human heart is basically very good, very
generous, and very compassionate. But it may not always work together
with wisdom. The result is that we have many people ready to go out and
change the world for the better, but who still view philosophy,
religion, and politics according to what they like, according to what
they want.
Even in matters of spirituality—where we struggle to
attain some selflessness and to let go of attachment, ignorance and
selfishness—even there we assert that what we think is wisdom is
correct. We assert that what we think is compassion is the correct
compassion. Even at the very peak of meditation, we may still have these
same opinions, but we use the excuse that it’s for the benefit of all
sentient beings. The endless struggle with the self creates this same
problem over and over again.
Realizing the innate wisdom in every
human being must begin with training the self. To break through
ignorance requires breaking through ignorance in all of its forms.
Ignorance is not something that comes from others. Ignorance is
something that comes from the projection of the self. In Buddhist
philosophy, we speak a lot about illusion, which refers to how human
ignorance, or the human mind, creates a lot of external phenomena, and
how once that illusion is created, we see it as very solid and
permanent.
In meditation, we break through that illusion of
external phenomena by analyzing its dream-like nature. The first step is
to understand how we create our own illusion—to see how this human mind
works to create and solidify the world. If then we can let go of our
attachment to that illusion, we will be free from pain, free from our
own expectations, and free from our own hope and fear.
Until that
level of awareness is achieved, however, every moment of your life,
everything you use or consume, comes about from dependence on others.
You sit on chairs which were made by other people. You wear clothes
which were made by other people. You eat food cooked by other people,
which in turn was grown by other people. As much as you would like to
believe that you are your own person and have achieved things through
your own efforts, the truth is that you are linked with all other
beings.
This awareness of our interdependence leads directly to a
sense of responsibility, and letting go of our self-grasping. Until we
have achieved true selflessness, completely free from ignorance, we can
begin in a smaller way by giving back to others what we have received in
order to benefit others the best way we can.
Whether we call it
compassion, love, caring or a Buddhist term such as bodhicitta, it means
the same thing: that in your actions, speech and thought you put others
before yourself.
Some of us practice meditation to achieve this
understanding; others are able to understand this without formal
meditation. But no matter how good compassion sounds when you talk about
it, it really comes down to practicing it. And no one understands you
as well as you do. You need the wisdom to look inward to see what kind
of a person you are.
Compassion means letting go of your
self-identity, letting go of proving that identity all the time.
Compassion means you work in the way the wind works, the sun works, or
the air works. Take, for example, how the air assumes the shape of the
room. The air does not say, “I will give you this breathing space
provided you breathe the way I want.” Everyone enjoys the benefit of
being able to breathe in the air. It is the same way with the sun: the
sun does not stop shining when there are clouds in the sky."
~ Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche ~
Shambhala Sun, July 2000
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