016-Buddhism in daily life - Compassion is a feeling

Have you ever passed a beggar who asked you for money, standing a can in front of him, asking for a teuro with a suffering face?

Surely your feeling was "with" the suffering fellow, probably you opened your heart, connected your mind with that of the other person, at least for a short moment.

The teaching of Buddhism is about liberation from suffering, about the absence of all causes of suffering. We all go through the same path of suffering, the so-called path of suffering, go through many things, birth, old age, illness, and in the end death is waiting.

Therefore, we can "empathize", because the situation is the same for all people, no one lives forever, everyone suffers pain, everyone has their desires, their disappointments, their successes, their "special" moments in life, which make up the respective, individual path of life.

Perhaps you ask yourself briefly what could have brought the beggar to ask you of all people for money here now, what stations have tipped the scales that he and you meet at this very moment, have a fleeting encounter. What has this person experienced, which experiences were formative, possibly you feel a feeling arise in you, the compassion. This is then usually connected with the wish that this person can free himself from his predicament, that he may free himself from the cycle of suffering.

Through the connection to this human being, in just this short second, from this we draw strength, this coupling between living beings is a small enlightenment, a feeling "with" the other creature, with its vulnerability, which shows us our own pain and suffering.

Compassion can be developed if one wants to. The opposite of compassion is schadenfreude and spitefulness, which also stem in part from our limited ability to "help", the feeling of being able to do "nothing", that makes us very unhappy.

Compassion is an emotion, but it should be used wisely, because giving up on ourselves out of compassion is not a smart solution either. Also, we must not lose heart because of the many bad events in this world, not despair at the badness we often experience around us. For Buddha said that we should not judge, not divide into "good" or "bad", but accept fate as it then comes.

When you meditate again, you should direct your compassion to the people you don't like, who make you uncomfortable, in doing so you can strengthen your compassion.

Because again, the journey is the destination!

You can't have passion unless you have compassion

- Elizabeth Taylor - British-American actress - 1932 to 2011

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