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Compassionate Character Development
This is my third post in a series, where each Monday I will post about a point of reflection or insight that I will use to reflect and meditate on during the week. In order to make it a bit more focused and interesting, I will attempt to do this with topics beginning with letters from A to Z. I have often found that having a specific topic to reflect and/or meditate on during the week really lends itself to interesting insights and growth, because you not only have several days to reflect and meditate on the topic, but you have several days to put any lessons and insights that you discover to work in your every day life. For those that follow me on Twitter (@JasonLivingNow) I will try to write updates as the weekly topics come up during meditations, moments of reflection, or just during every day life. To view the current and previous entries in this series, please visit the: Reflections and Insights A Through Z section.
Used with permission from: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
C= Compassion: Compassion is best defined as empathetic action, where one takes steps to understand the cause of another’s suffering, and then undertake action to ease the suffering, and hopefully prevent whatever problem or issue caused the suffering from occurring again in the future. Every religion, from Jesus’ Beatitudes and teachings on charity, to Islam’s Zakāt pillar of faith, to Buddhism’s Eightfold Path, teaches that developing a compassionate character is essential for anyone wishing to live a happy and fulfilled life. The reason that every religion promotes compassion, is because it is an essential ingredient for not only your own happiness, but the happiness of others.
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” -H.H. The 14th Dalai Lama
Compassion naturally develops internal and external happiness, because compassion allows you to reflect your positive values and wisdom out into the world at large in order to make the world a better place. On an internal level, compassionately helping others naturally makes us feel good and raises our level of awareness. On an external level, compassion should be used to help alleviate the suffering of all sentient beings, which naturally makes those around us and the world at large happier. Also, as those around you become happier through your compassionate acts, they will naturally reflect your acts of kindness back to you, in the same way that ripples in a pond eventually return to their source.
Discovering True Happiness – It Takes Work
My son wearing Uncle Shelby’s glasses. (c) 2011 Shelby Hurst Photography
“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” ~Aristotle
I originally wrote much of this in a reply to an earlier comment from Sharon, but after thinking about this some more, I thought that it would make a good post!
Everyone wants to be happy. Everyone wants to feel fulfilled, loved, and self confident. However, based on the large number of self-help books/ talk-shows, as well as escalating rates of depression and other mental ailments, people seem to be seeking happiness, but many aren’t finding it. This begs the question, is it possible to be truly happy? Is it possible to truly live a happy and fulfilled life?
I not only believe that it is possible to be truly happy, but I truly believe that our purpose in life is to be happy, and truly enjoy life; however, happiness takes work.
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”- H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama
Discovering Wisdom Through Practice
Guthrie SR Atrium - Photo by Matthew D. Anthony (c) 2012
“We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we must come at last to regard the world.” – Marcel Proust
During this past weekend I had the supreme pleasure of enjoying a four day Scottish Rite Reunion in Guthrie, Oklahoma. For those that aren’t familiar with the Scottish Rite, it is a Masonic organization that confers the 4th through the 33rd degrees of the Masonic system. The degrees of the Scottish Rite basically provide a collegiate level course on comparative religion, philosophical and moral thought, ethics, and most importantly (for me at least) inner development.
I am supremely fortunate to be a member of the Guthrie Valley, which not only boasts one of the world’s most beautiful buildings (in my opinion, and in the opinion of many who have been fortunate to visit it), but it is composed of members who truly care about not only their own spiritual path, but facilitating the spiritual paths of others. During the Reunions there are group meditation and education courses, as well as ample opportunities to spend one-on-one time with individual seekers, teachers, and facilitators from almost every spiritual tradition ranging from mainstream Christianity, Gnostic Christianity, Buddhism, Islam-Sufism, Neo-Paganism, etc., so it is truly a spiritual melting pot that provides a smorgasbord for the spiritual seeker. It also provides people from all spiritual backgrounds, and levels of interest or development with a platform to advance and learn from one another, which unfortunately is a very rare opportunity.
The above quote by Marcel Proust has been stuck in my head for the last month or so, and during this last weekend it really hit home; because, one of the central teachings of the Rite is that its members should actively go out in the world and practice what they have learned in order to take up the struggle against tyranny, oppression, ignorance, and human suffering of all kinds.
Too often people are merely content with “receiving” wisdom, which is passive, and merely becomes an intellectual exercise, or people are constantly searching for just the right place of worship, teacher, or practice, so they easily fall into a rut, which prevents any real progress. While I firmly believe that every spiritual tradition provides the keys (knowledge) to living a happy and fulfilled life in this realm, and in the next, we must make an effort to discover true wisdom, which can only be had by journeying down the path towards it. The journey towards wisdom not only requires learning (knowledge), but it requires real effort, and actually putting your knowledge into practice. Read more…
Suffering is Caused by Ignorance
As many of my readers already know, I was blessed to be able to attend the Kalachakra Initiation, in Washington D.C., this past July. During one of the preliminary teachings that preceded the Kalachakra Initiation, H.H. The Dalai Lama, mentioned something that struck me at a very deep level, and has continued to resonate with me, “suffering is caused by ignorance”. While the concept of suffering is central to Buddhist thought (because the teachings are aimed at ending suffering), most of the teachings I had previously heard or read, stated that suffering was simply caused by various forms of attachment, so this teaching on suffering was new to me.
For my non-Buddhist readers, I should probably explain the concept of suffering in Buddhist philosophy. When most of us think of “suffering” we think of some sort of physical or emotional anguish. While this is truly a form of suffering, the Buddhist concept of suffering can be much more subtle. In Buddhist philosophy “suffering” includes regrets, desires, worries, depression, anger, and any other form of unhappiness (no matter how subtle), that is preventing you from living a happy and fulfilled life, and ultimately reaching a state of enlightenment. According to the Buddha, all forms of suffering are caused by attachment, because you can probably trace all of your suffering to some form of attachment to various emotions/mental patterns, desires/regrets, life experiences, the material world, or life in general. Therefore, the traditional teaching that attachment (in whatever form) is the root cause of suffering is true; however, the statement that suffering is caused by ignorance, took those teachings deeper for me and put them into a new context. Read more…
The Importance of Love, Compassion, and Kindness
During the first day of teachings that preceded the Kalachakra, H.H. The Dalai Lama, gave what amounted to a comparative religion lecture. One of the keys to his lecture was the fact that the attributes of love, compassion, and kindness are central tenants of every world religion. Every world religion teaches these attributes because they will not only have a positive influence on yourself and those around you in this life, but they will also benefit you in whatever awaits each of the death of our physical body.
Unfortunately, too often in our technological world, these attributes are lost, because most interaction occurs without any real face-to-face interaction with one another. This makes it is easy to become disconnected with the fact that the person on the other end of the phone line, or on the other side of the internet connection is a person, just like you. These disconnected interactions allows us to feel okay about treating someone poorly, or even in an outright hateful manner. Read more…
Practicing Charity
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama
As evidenced by the above quote from H.H. the Dalai Lama one of the most important things that you can do to both improve your life and the life of others is to practice charity. Charity is important because it forces you to give something up (time, money, etc.) for the benefit of someone else, which helps you to not only become a better person, but also helps the life of someone else. The importance of practicing charity is an important aspect of many of the world’s religions, for example:
The ministry of Jesus Christ was focused on helping others not only improve themselves spiritually, but also their lives in general. The message of Jesus Christ is full of lessons involving loving one another and helping your fellow man. It is important to note that Jesus was concerned with action, not merely talking about doing good deeds, but actually DOING good deeds. Read more…
You Really Can’t Take it With You
“Nothing can be taken with us but the seeds of our life’s work and our spiritual knowledge” – H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama
One of the main ways to “rank” a society is to look at how much its citizens spend. Therefore, the more citizens spend on new clothes, homes, cars, electronic gadgets, etc. the stronger the economy and society are viewed to be. Therefore, in order to appear to be successful, or as somehow superior, you must always be a part of the newest trend, which cuases you to constantly accumulate more and more. This has led to a disposable consumer culture where you are encouraged to solely focus on the material world, and always desire the newest and greatest, or something bigger and more expensive. While this sort of mentality may be good for advertising and consumer product companies, it does not lead to a stable and happy society, or to stable and happy individuals.
The main problem with a disposable consumer culture on a societal level is that it can cause whole societies to have narcissistic qualities. Basically, as long as “we” (our country, society, or group) get what we want, then we don’t care who or what gets harmed in the process. For example, society “says” that the environment needs protecting, yet very few individuals are willing to cut back or make the necessary sacrifices to make a meaningful difference. Also, society “says” that human rights are important, yet governments around the world turn a blind eye to countries that exploit human rights, as long as it is economically or politically expedient to do so. Just to give one example of this hypocrisy, the U.S. has maintained a trade embargo against the nation of Cuba since 1960, and will continue to do so until the Cuban government moves towards “democratization and greater respect for human rights”; however, the U.S. has maintained constant relations with China, even though China is also a Communist country, whose government has proven time and time again to have far less respect for human rights than the Cuban government. Read more…
Doing Away With Bigotry in Order to Be Open Minded and Loving
“It is good for children to learn to love their country, their religion, their culture, and so on. But the danger comes when this develops into narrow-minded nationalism, ethnocentricity, and religious bigotry”.
-H.H. The 14th Dalai Lama
As a parent it sometimes overwhelming to realize just how much you help shape your child. The things that you teach your child, whether positive or negative, will stay with them for the rest of their lives. As reflected in the above quote from the Dalai Lama, it is important to teach children how to be a loving and open minded person, whether it is your own child, grandchild, family member, or even children who you have the opportunity to interact with. It is also important for you to sift through the mental garbage that you may have accumulated during your journey through life, so that you can be a more loving and open minded person.
Everyday, the world becomes more and more unified, yet bigotry in its myriad of forms remains. Thankfully, for the most part, bigotry has become a social faux pas, so bigotry goes largely unvocalized; however, bigotry can still remain in our thoughts. When you look at another person and you have a negative thought about them, whether it is because of their race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, or even social class, that is bigotry. Bigotry acts as a blockage that prevents you from truly getting to know another person, because you have already formed an opinion of that person without ever attempting to truly understand them. Read more…
