Misunderstandings about Compassion
"Compassion is a powerful tool in our work to protect the environment. We need compassion because it connects us personally to the issue, and sustains us over the long haul. Some people misunderstand this point, and say they don't want to feel compassion. They assume compassion will add to their own suffering, because they think it involves personally feeling the pain they see around them. This may happen especially when people contemplate the widespread destruction of our wildlife and the environment as a whole. 'This is too much,' they may say. 'I have enough problems of my own. I can't take on any more.'
"This reflects a misunderstanding of the nature of compassion. Compassion is what we feel when we focus on the person or animal who is suffering, not what we feel when we focus only on the suffering. What is the object of your compassion? It is the being who is suffering. If you take an animal or person as the object of your compassion, you will not be overwhelmed by their suffering. If your attention is not directed primarily at the suffering, you can focus on them, and on what you can do for them.
"Imagine if something you value and treasure were to fall into a fire. You would not focus on the heat and the flames that were consuming it. Keenly feeling the object's value and wanting to protect it, you would focus on the object, and immediately use whatever you found at hand to try to save it from the fire. You would not agonize over how hot the fire was, or how sad the situation was, or sit there contemplating whether you really had the right tool. Nor would you focus on yourself. Your concern to safeguard the object would prevent you from indulging in any self-interested thoughts. You would just take in the information that you needed in order to resolve the situation, and act.
"The point is to care so keenly for others that you give rise to courage and determination to relieve them of their suffering. That is compassion.
"Another misunderstanding is that compassion is something you now lack, so you need to go out and get it from somewhere. When we are talking about compassion, we are not talking about something that is foreign to us, needing to be imported. Rather, compassion is inherent in every person, as an integral part of us throughout the day, every day.
"The fact that you have affection for your family members or pets is due to the compassion and love that already lie within you. Even your wish to tend the garden outside your window is an expression of love and caring. Compassion is not something new that you need to acquire and plant. It is a question only of nurturing the seeds you already have.
Transferring Care to Others
"Confusion can arise due to certain similarities between compassion and attachment. Both involve a kind of caring, although in other ways they are radically different. Attachment is aimed at our own interests, and involves caring about ourselves. Compassion is aimed at others' interests, and has to do with caring for others.
"This similarity is something we can make use of in our spiritual lives. Here is a simple example: Let's say you have three pieces of fruit. If you eat them all yourself and do not share any with others, that is attachment or desire. It involves caring only for oneself. However, if you eat one and give the remaining two to others to enjoy, it can become compassion. Attachment or desire will have been transformed into caring for others. In this way, compassion is a sort of transfer of yourself to others.
"It is true that we all have a certain measure of desire, or attachment, but we also have the ability to transform this into compassion. However, as an extreme form of attachment, the greed we were discussing earlier poses a serious obstacle to our cultivation of compassion. I hope it is clear by now how important it is for us to break the spell of greed that we have fallen under — and guard against its recurrence once the spell is broken.
"To that end, we can actively heighten our awareness of our fundamental dependence on others and on the environment. As we recognize more and more clearly how deeply interdependent we all are on one another, our sense of closeness to others and to the earth can likewise deepen. A profound awareness of interdependence weakens our sense of separation and difference, and can ultimately eliminate it. This provides a powerful support for our efforts to transform attachment's caring about self into compassion's caring for the world."
