Never mind the dog said the Buddha to the frog,
Does a Buddha have frog nature?
The frog just smiled.
All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
Walt Whitman
I'm thinking this morning about what it means to be human. In particular, I'm thinking about the human capacity for compassion and the hard lessons my life has taught me about the subject. One thing I've learned is that people very often have a powerful need to elevate themselves by looking down on others. This, at least in part, explains racism, cultural bias, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and classism or social snobbery, the my-stuff-don't-stink syndrome.
I am occasionally, though perhaps less often than you might think (kudos to all thoughtful and sensitive humans) subjected to harsh judgment when I write or speak candidly of my life, my early years in particular. I've grown used to being judged for being a hippie, a former addict or an ex-convict. Any one of those things can be ammunition for those who would seek out reasons to look down on me. It's a lot of vulnerability to carry around, but, like I say, I've gotten used to it – in much the same way I imagine that people of color and others get used to the bias and discrimination they face day-to-day. I don't mean to suggest our vulnerabilities are equivalent. I have the option of keeping my mouth shut and pushing away from the keyboard. I don't see my vulnerability when I look in the mirror, it doesn't follow me everywhere I go. I also don't mean to suggest that anyone ever completely gets over being vulnerable. Vulnerability is vulnerability. The only proper response to vulnerability in others, in my humble opinion, is compassion. There but for the grace of God, as they say, go I.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Ian MacLaren, Scottish author
There is something wonderful about the fact that we have the capacity to feel compassion and to be compassionate - that we are not, all of us, compelled to view others with scorn and prejudice, that we are not all heartless bastards drunk on our own superiority and seething with hatred for all 'lesser' beings.
Other species also feel compassion, at least for their own, elephants and chimpanzees for example. So while not the exclusive domain of humans, it seems nonetheless part and parcel of being one. I expect that those who never learn to tap into it, who live lives of utter selfishness, cruelty or pure meanness still possess an inner well of compassion, or a potential for same. That's why I refuse to give up on people. I know they are capable of change, and of changing in remarkable and dramatic ways. That's why I don't believe in the death penalty. That's why I don't believe in punishment, or torture, or cruelty. That's why I believe it is pure wisdom to judge not.
There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly behooves any of us, to talk about the rest of us.
Edward Wallis Hoch, the 17th Governor of Kansas
Once upon a time, as a young man, I decided that the proper measure of any philosophy was its objective impact on the world. Or I should say, what its impact would be were it to be enthusiastically and widely employed. By this measure, those philosophies that urge compassion pass with flying colors. What could possibly make this world a better place? Compassion, and all that flows from it:
kindness
mercy
charity
forgiveness
tolerance
empathy
sharing
acceptance
love
peace
altruism
universal brotherhood
I have been, at various times in my life, a homeless street urchin, a heroin-addicted junkie, accused and convicted of a murder I did not commit (though I was up to my neck in the sordid circumstances that led to it). I spent four of the longest months of my life in solitary confinement and six years, four months and eleven days, a virtual eternity I tell you, in a dangerous, archaic Alabama prison, asshole-to-elbow, as they say, with thousands of other suffering souls. Human misery is a subject with which I am intimately acquainted.
Part of the reason I write about these things with as much candor as I can muster is in a modest attempt to humanize those whose lives have gone similarly awry. It can happen to anyone.
When one has been in a position to require kindness or mercy from another as urgently as the thirsty require water, its manifestation, its miraculous emergence from someone's deep well of compassion and shared humanity is wondrous to behold, life-saving in many cases. If there are miracles, I expect it is of these things that they are made – that deep-running human connection that flows through us all
I have been about as low in this life as one can go and, surprisingly perhaps, it has left me, in all humility, with an abundance of empathy and compassion – the exact opposite of what many predicted. My own sorrow and suffering carved the well in which it is contained, much the way Gibran's Prophet describes joy and sorrow.
Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow." And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
But you don't have to live a life like mine to know suffering, sorrow, pain, terror, heartbreak or loneliness. We all experience these things. It is the human condition. Like anyone, I am human, I am weak and I have more than my fair share of faults, shortcomings and limitations. I am as capable of being petty and thoughtless as anyone else, but I try hard not to be. I try to remember that all people are in need of compassion, and all people are a part of me. As a deeply flawed back-sliding buddhist/baptist/reverent agnostic, and for whatever it may be worth, I would urge everyone to practice mindfulness, compassion and non-judgment...all in a humble effort to make this world a slightly better place for us all.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow