h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

with compassion.

I read this in Daisaku Ikeda's "Soka Education". It gave me a whole new perspective on what compassion *is*, and especially on how to practice it.

*happy dance*

It's not *necessary* to turn into an insipid, unopinionated, beige, sapless 'nice' person in order to be compassionate. Wooooohooooo! I've been working on this compassion thing for almost three years now with varying degrees of success, and I think these words give me the tool to make it a consistent practice. (Well, maybe not on I-95 during rush hour, when the Automotive Harrassment Squad has a single purpose: to get in MY way, but the rest of the time.)

So, here it is:

"In the Buddhist view, wisdom and compassion are intimately linked and mutually reinforcing.

Compassion in Buddhism does not involve the forcible suppression of our natural emotions, our likes and dislikes. Rather, it is to realize that even those whom we dislike have qualities that can contribute to our lives and can afford us opportunities to grow in our own humanity. Further, it is the compassionate desire to find ways of contributing to the wellbeing of others that gives rise to limitless wisdom.

Buddhism teaches that both good and evil are potentialities that exist in all people. Compassion consists in the sustained and courageous effort to seek out the good in all people, whoever they may be, however they may behave. It means striving, through sustained engagement, to cultivate the positive qualities in oneself and in others."

I can do that. I can't *believe* I didn't see it before, it's so damned obvious once it's been pointed out. Heh.

Cheers matey MoG

Funny thing for me is that I've just started exploring Buddhism and then you post appears.

I started off reading an account of someone's journey into Buddhism, a journalist guy. Then I read a simple book about the main beliefs. I'm now into "The Heart of Buddha's Teaching" by Thich Nhat Hanh. He explains things very well.

I've not started to meditate yet. Do you and if so how do you do it. I can't work out whether I'm trying to clear my mind or concentrate on being compassionate or generous or whatever....

Can you point me in the right direction?

'Twas our anniversary on Tues (SoRB and I). Crikey, what a fab year!

How are ya?

Alex.

Meditate...oh for some peace and quiet in order to meditate...

currently looking after son and grandson

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Well, I would bet you've been compassionate all along but that somehow you'd been confusing compassion with turning:

<<...into an insipid, unopinionated, beige, sapless 'nice' person in order to be compassionate.>>



Meanwhile, I think people often confuse genuine compassion and kindness with the type of bland 'niceness' you describe here.

Expressing opinions is vital part of relating with others. And only expressing what we like about a person without any of what we may not like is not only dishonest but I also think it is ultimately insulting to the person one is dealing with.

And while I think it is important to balance 'good' and 'bad' opinions (and also to be clear that it is perhaps certain behaviour we find annoying or upsetting, not the person as a whole) I recognise that this can sometimes be difficult to do. And this is where compassion comes in. To express opinions with the 'whole person' in mind because, yes, all of us have both 'good and bad qualities' that make up who we are.

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True. In fact, we can often learn a lot from someone we feel we dislike (and often more than from people we like), and it is the process of not simply judging or alienating them that leads to growth and wisdom on both sides.

It sounds great, MoG. And I'm happy to hear you've discovered a path towards compassion and wisdom that 'fits'. It certainly makes good sense to me.



az

Happy anniversary! Wow, it's hard to believe a year has flown by! I'm sure the next will be just as wonderful, too, especially as he'll be living closer.

All's well with me, had my first public showing of my painting last weekend and it was a ball. Didn't sell anything, but learned a few things about showing (like there needs to be some light for my paintings to work) and had a brilliant party for all my friends with no expense to me and no cleanup. Besides, it's not *every* 42 year old woman who gets to play debutante again. I've done a couple of new paintings if you want to look. http://www.brittamog.com Am waiting for a tropical storm that's supposed to dump a lot of water on us, but shouldn't be too serious. It's cool outside right now, actually feels *good* to have the doors and windows open. YAY!

On Buddhism: I practice Nichiren Buddhism, which is centered in the Lotus Sutra. It's a little different from some other forms of Buddhism in that there is no intermediary necessary(priests and such) between the individual and the possibility for enlightenment in this lifetime. Also, it's about finding the enlightened aspect of everything in life rather than getting yourself into a place where nothing can affect you. Rather than just passively accepting the idea that life is suffering, it's about changing the way the mind works so obstacles really *are* met as challenges to be overcome and you don't automatically default into suffering. Works for me, as I'm not suited to becoming an abstraction. I like my martinis too much.

I practice focused meditation rather than mind-emptying meditation. Part of it is involving the senses, so I chant (nam myoho renge kyo, burn incense, have beads kinda like a rosary for the touch aspect and set in my mind what I want to accomplish. Can be anything-- I started with Happiness the first year, added compassion the next, then creativity and now am on earning a living through my stuff. I keep all the others going, just add a new, big focus every year as a goal to work towards. I also set my mind on other things, as well--sometimes on having a great day at work, or on developing a better relationship with someone or overcoming a specific obstacle--depends on what's going on in my life at the moment. When I'm chanting I'm deliberately opening my mind so I can see things from another perspective, work with what *is* rather than with how I *wish* things were, and transform the non-productive energy into useful stuff. I usually get solutions, though they're not always easy to practice consistently. Just have to keep on working on it, persistence re-sets ingrained habits of thought and behavior, which is a big part of how I view Karma. Sometimes, when I'm stuck in a hard-to-break pattern I chant for a long time. The answer I need comes, and then, when I keep on chanting I kinda slip into another realm where I lose track of all the organized thoughts and just 'feel' the interconnectedness of everything. That's very cool when it happens, to drop the self-centeredness of being me and just know myself as a part of the Cosmic Hum. I think maybe that's similar to the concept of emptyness, though it's a very full emptyness indeed. That doesn't happen too often, and I haven't figured out how to bring it on deliberately yet, but just knowing that I can is awesome.

Ben sometimes meditates in a more standard manner. She'd probably be a good person to ask, and she wrote an entry on the Loving Kindness Meditation.

If you decide you want to try doing what I do, my best advice is to focus on what's *really* important to you, go for the big stuff rather than for a detail. The details seem to fall into place, anyway, as the big stuff begins to sort itself out. Lots of people focus on things like getting a better job, or buying a house, or finding a partner, or whatever. It seems to work out (this is a practice of Absolute Proof-- doesn't require faith, just doing it. I've yet to meet anyone who starts to practice diligently by chanting twice daily for something and doesn't get a resolution to the problem they were working on. There's something powerful and pretty quick that happens when people start practicing. I don't understand it, really, it just seems to keep on happening.) but then they're still left with a need to chase after something else because they haven't worked on the source. When I started chanting towards happiness everyone told me it was 'not specific enough'. I disagree-- my idea of what happiness *is* has developed hugely since I began, but I think I used my beginner's luck very wisely.

I read Richard Causton's "The Buddha in Daily Life" when I started looking into the practice. It made sense to me.

Let me know how meditation goes for you, and how you decide to approach it. One way or another your life will be enriched.

Here's I've been messing aroung with household things and intermittently bopping back to write another line or two, and my lovelies show up through the back door.

GB! Even with the younguns shaking things up, maybe you can find a quiet place inside yourself to begin a meditation. I think that's maybe what it's supposed to be about, anyway, learning not to be distracted by all the seeming chaos that's around us. But easier when you have a chance to focus, I know.

Az!!You know what really appealed to me about that perspective on compassion? It allows for selfishness, sorta, by giving a very immediate 'what's in it for me'. I'm suspicious of pure altruism, am not sure I think it really exists. I've always thought it was either impossible (as I think that *everyone* has a personal motivation for the things they do, even when they seem to be putting the needs of others ahead of their own that's just their underlying need to be unselfish or to help other people to be happy manifesting itself) or that something in me was broken or missing.

Thanks MoG. A great insight.

I'll try the meditating and maybe I'll have a chat to Ben about it too..

Finding time is hard,especially with the kids around. When do you do it?

Alex.

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Well, I think 'selfishness' is usually seen as a negative thing and it probably isn't the right word to use anyhow.

But unless we are 'healthily selfish' (ie taking care of our lives and our needs first) then what do we end up having to share with others?

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Agree. We are still animals after all, with an inborn survival instinct. But what compassion teaches us is to not survive at the expense of others. But to deny this basic instinct is to deny ourselves.

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I think you'll find that in most cases of people putting the needs of others ahead of their own that these people are actually being quite selfish themselves - they either *need* to do a martyr thing or feel that by being 'unselfish' this makes them somehow 'better' than others, so that in their minds they gain some sort of moral high ground.

Stuff and nonsense.

Nothing in you (as far as I can see) has ever been broken or missing. But I maintain that if you don't look after yourself properly (and this isn't to do with physical comforts, though some may be required) then *what do you have to offer anyone else?*

A half-baked confused and guilt-ridden MoG who ends up trying to do 'right' but perhaps for all the wrong reasons.

See what I mean?

I agree that everyone has a personal motivation for what they do. How could it be otherwise? Meanwhile, I disagree that 'healthy selfishness' is anything negative (no, you didn't say this, just disagreeing with the concept). You know what you need and want in order to feel capable of giving to others. The stronger and more centred and happier you feel in general allows you to give more - makes sense to me. So, what could be wrong with this?


az

Alex, it's *best* to do it in the morning and in the evening each day to kinda set yourself in the frame you want to be in. I'm not always good about consistency with chanting and making deliberate time for it, so sometimes I do it in the car or whenever is convenient. I make sure to at least do a moment of deliberation in the morning, even if I don't sit and chant. I've always seen it as being similar to self-hypnosis, though there does seem to be something bigger than that going on, a way everything else conspires to just present itself so you can accomplish goals more easily than just 'self' alone would be able to accomplish. That's a bit mystical in a way and I resisted the idea at first, but the Proofs just kept on appearing. Though I don't understand it and can't explain it, I'm going with it. I don't 'understand' gravity, either, but it hasn't failed me yet. Anyway, the more I see things in terms of being interconnected, the less woooohoooo it seems, and strikes me more as a function of the way things are. That's why I *love* the idea of String Theory (without the maths)because, based on my very limited understanding/intuition of it, it's basically the same thing presented in scientific terms.

Az, I've had the same ideas about healthy selfishness for years-- Ayn Rand was the first one who put it clearish for me. I'm not totally cynical about 'altruism', do believe that some people put the needs of others first because they recognize that in a more-encompasing way it's not possible to be truly happy-- and enjoy the full benefits of happiness-- unless those around you are happy, too. Otherwise they'll interfere with *your* happiness. (see how enlightened-selfish it is?)

I think all states of being, from the deepest misery to unselfishness have the potential for good or evil, which is really handy. It's just how you use it and how you let it affect your life and others that determines whether it's desirable or not, and that's what builds your karma, one way or another. I *love* karma as a dynamic force that stretches out in all kinds of directions, isn't static, and can be changed. I feel sorry for people who view karma as a kinda curse, or fate. That's almost as depressing and disempowering as the idea of a triple-O god, in my opinion.

Now must zip to the store--forgot to stock up on cat food-- before the storm bands start seriously whapping on through.

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Omigawd, almost fell off my chair laughing when I read that! Didn't quite fall off my chair as I was on my way to have a pee anyhow (yes, more info than you needed) but I laughed all the way to the bathroom and back again!

I was 19 when I first read the Fountainhead and that very sublime idea of 'healthy selfishness' has never left me. Yeah, okay, somewhat two-dimensional characters in the novel, but still - a very good story!

Anyhow, poor old Ayn Rand gets less than positive publicity these days, so I found it refreshing - and funny - that you and I had first discovered the notion of 'healthy selfishness' thanks to her.

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Yes, agree. But those people have also 'taken care' of their needs first, and that recognising 'this and that' is contained within their own needs. Personal needs are never 'standard'. And so the few who manage true altruistic lives *did* first make peace with their own personal needs, which for them does honestly mean - for them - that the happiness of others becomes their first priority.

Anyhoodle, what the heck does 'truly happy' mean? I tend to do a daily emotional rollercoaster ride that often leaves me quite exhausted. Yet I think I am always happy. Whatever that means.


az

For me the Ayn Rand thing happened at about the same age, though it was a little book, “Anthem”, that I read. I already had the idea about selfishness being normal and not especially negative, but I’d never seen it laid out that way by someone else. What a relief it was to learn that, deep in my lil black heart, I wasn’t an aberration or latent sociopath. I used to worry about that. I read “Atlas Shrugged” when I was around 30 and that just developed the basic ideas in Anthem further.

>poor old Ayn Rand gets less than positive publicity these days< That’s for sure! Hell, *I* didn’t agree with *everything* she was promoting, but that doesn’t mean there’s not plenty of useful stuff nestled in amidst the weird views on how women should be, and the paranoia about communism. And the flat characters.

>what the heck does 'truly happy' mean?<

Umm, I’ll let ya know once I’m a full-time, perfected Buddha. Do I get to be a bona-fide know-it-all then? Hehehe Anyway, my ideas on Happiness have been expanding, don’t know when they’ll be done. I started being a suicidal wreck and a victim of *everything* in my life. I chanted for happiness, thinking of it as being a surcease from misery and hopelessness. Got that part pretty quick, which was a Good Thing. I was studying as well as chanting, and came across the idea that what I’d gotten was ‘rapture’ rather than ‘happiness’. The state of Rapture is basically the relief that comes when a lack is fulfilled. It’s transient and it’s generated by, and dependent upon external circumstances. Happiness (v.2) became something I saw as being an inherent state of being, something everyone already owns/is made of but doesn’t necessarily know how to tap into. I had this mental picture of it being a glowing thing in the center with all the other states of mind being different-colored cones of light shooting out of it, and when you’re in them they lend their tint to everything you do. So I started trying to use the lighted part at the heart of all the states (instead of the dense, opaque parts that are farther away from the happiness), was learning to work with the useful in everything to get positive results. I’ve gotten pretty good at doing that lately, though I forget sometimes for a while. Now Happiness (v.3) seems to be more about creating an environment by being an environment in which the shitstorms of life just can’t dim the glowing core, and it’s increasingly obvious that that’s only possible through spreading it around and not trying to hold onto it for myself. So now I’m making a little missionlet of trying to transmit pieces of it to three people daily, nothing grand or especially earth-shaking, but maybe little random acts of kindness, or pointing out the lovely in something to someone who’s feeling bleak, or just appreciating something that’s too easy to take for granted. I guess once I’ve got this part down the next step will reveal itself to me, but for now v.3 is a lot of fun.

Cool visualisation and the random acts of kindness can go a long way.

I'm starting back at work in a couple of weeks and shall take some of this there.

Alex.

Today was just *full* of stuff! Hurricane Katrina has had me on edge ever since she blew through here, hard to explain, but even though nothing major happened here at home it made me 'feel' all strange and jittery in a way I haven't since I got Andrewed 13 years ago. Other hurricanes haven't 'felt' like that, and then the whole worry about my brother, and the news reports on New Orleans has kinda reawakened something. So I've been edgy.

But yesterday and today I split my time between working on a series of paintings and working on the soundtrack for the movie and reading news reports. Last night I got the synthesizer figured out enough to be able to use it, and all of a sudden the melody line for the fetus part of the movie came into my head, and that was very cool! I've never tried composing before, was a little worried whether I'd be able to pull it off. This morning I messed around with my flowers for a while, reorganized the garden. The paintings were cruising right along, doing just what they need to be doing, with minimal mindful effort on my part. And I had some awesome gypsy jazz playing, and Aaron Neville singing Amazing Grace, and I blissed out. Big time, like I haven't since I went on the Great Adventure almost two years ago. Tears rolling out of my face, a sense of being totally blessed and fortunate with my life just as it is. I came out of it for a moment, felt almost guilty for feeling so damn *good*, for spending my time doing something so trivial while people are literally dying like flies in the wreckage of a city I love (and that people all over the world are suffering just as cruelly, all the time), and then it hit me that it's ok. Not ok what's happened, and not ok that people are suffering, but ok that I was right there, in that zone of being light and color and vibration. Maybe it happened because I've had that movie on my mind for a while now, the cycle of birth and death and all the stuff in between. I dunno. But still, even now after hours of reading a bunch of very dishearteneing, fury-making articles, I feel that everything is going to be ok, one way or another. I also think that feeling is kinda *stuck* in me now, that remembering won't be so difficult going forward.

My dad is convinced that we've passed the point of no return because of what we've done to the Earth, and that civilization as we know it will not survive my nephew's natural lifespan. Maybe civilization *as we know it* has had its time, but that doesn't mean it can't evolve into something different, and even better. Ha! I must *still* be having a bliss hangover I'm not worried about it in the deep, squidgy wrinkles of my mind any more. It'll be ok.

My first book was by Richard Bach, better known as Stephen King to most of us.... He talks about life being a neverending fabric of choices and how every choice you've made led you to where you are. I also read this book about people finding out their true path or what have you, but it seemed quite bs to me at the time. It was all so easy, they had no obstacles to overcome, they just went, and so on.
Could never meditate, and chanting strikes me as too awkward. Tai Chi in later life gave me a feeling of centre.
I think it's very hard to find focus when you have kids, they take so much of your attention and are such a distraction you forget all about yourself. On the other hand, i feel I could do with some focus right now, being so tired and carrying a second child, I feel drained, emotionally and physically.
Maybe I should go back to some of my old practices, such as channelling energy through Healing, though I could never quite control it to the level I wanted, so it's a bit scary...