Something I have learnt from Zen is the value of compassion. It is easy to slip into indifference, to think all things are empty therefore nothing matters. But when you combine emptiness with compassion for other beings it lifts it up, and makes it powerful. I don’t know how to describe it.
Today I was meditating, and as usual there was much noise outside my window. There are baby seagulls who have fallen off the roof. I have put down straw and provided shelter for them and been feeding them. Why? Because I feel empathy for them. It makes me feel happy to help others.
Instead of feeling stressed by the noises, I felt compassion for all the beings that were making them. The baby seagulls, the cars, the noisy delivery van, the dogs barking. I felt empathy for them all and this uplifted my meditation and connected me to everything. Not a separate self. There was a oneness that is hard to put into words, but it feels sublime.
Compassion is perhaps the wrong word, but I don’t know what else to use. It comes from Latin and means: ‘to suffer with’. But that is not what we do in Buddhism. We do not ‘suffer with.’ We feel empathy for other beings without suffering ourselves. This might sound cold. But actually, it is the most kind thing we can do for others. To show warmth, kindness and empathy, but without getting depressed ourselves. What good will that do? There’s enough sorrow already in the world, why add to it?
Imagine a doctor treating you and they become so overwhelmed with pity they get depressed and burst into tears and struggle to do their job, this will just make you feel even worse, not better. We appreciate their kindness and warmth, but we want the doctor to keep it together and not join us in our suffering.
I really appreciate the teachings on compassion I have learnt from the Zen group I am part of. I also appreciate their relational practice too. I don’t always want to be around people, sometimes I prefer solitude, but it is nice as well to feel I am walking the path together with others.
I won’t chant the Bodhisattva vow because I don’t like making vows. But I respect others for doing so, it touches me.
I am starting to see that the Bodhisattva vow is more about the wish to free all beings from suffering. I think most people who chant it know it is impossible to fulfil. It is about remembering compassion. It opens the heart when we remember others. We are surrounded by and dependent on other beings, and they, just like us feel pain and suffer.
Through understanding suffering ourselves, we feel empathy for other beings and wish for them to be free as well.
At least that is how I am starting to understand the Bodhisattva vow.
We are all different, but it is the things we have in common that connect us. I find the things we have in common are much more interesting than our differences.
If you would like to support me you can: