Kelly's Story: Seeking Compassion 

We are all seekers.  Whether we call ourselves religious or spiritual, whether we are practicing or pondering, we search in earnest for truths that will serve as a guide for our lives. And we search for these truths in all sorts of interesting places. In our circle of family and friends, we experience what it means to be known.  We are held and embraced, loved and challenged by these intimate bonds. In our faith communities, we encounter spiritual practices, we pray and meditate, we sample sacred readings, we worship. These faith communities feed our spiritual longings.

But there is a longing that is bigger than our communities of family, friends, and faith.  It is the longing to be connected to the whole human family. At the very core of each of the world's major religions is a respect for life that bears the name compassion. Understandings of compassion are as ancient as the faith traditions that we inhabit, and we need not look far to find a sacred text, writing or teaching that speaks the ethics of how we are to live in the world--compassionately.

From where I stand, there is a shortage of compassion in our world today. Of course, to acknowledge this problem is one thing; to do something about it, is quite another. People of faith ought to be concerned with how the latter is accomplished. Compassion, when practiced, is more than kindness and care. It expands the boundaries of our mind and heart to encompass the whole human family, not just those who happen to be part of our neighborhood or genetic pool.

When this work is done in earnest, lives can be transformed.  When we act out against injustices in our communities and across the world--we become peacemakers.  When we embrace people without regard for race, creed or religion--we promote unity.  We are no longer strangers to everyone outside our closest social circles, and we feel like we belong in this world. When we abandon ourselves and embrace the core of our faith traditions, then, and only then, can we begin to discover a central guiding truth: That life is about more than you and I, it is about the whole human race. To live guided by this truth means to live guided by compassion. Well worth the search, if you ask me.

Kelly Stone, 30, is the chaplain at Lakeland College in Plymouth, Wisconsin. She is committed to life that is full of passion, faith, creativity, and learning.  She is a feminist, scholar, wife, mother, minister, and friend. She enjoys good cuisine, particularly when it is shared with good company.

Alex's Story: Compassion Arises

Spring has arrived (finally!) in Wisconsin and my musings on compassion have taken a metaphorical turn toward soil, seeds, and flowers.  Within this metaphor, compassion grows organically under the right conditions: as long as I am feeding the soil around it and keeping away the weeds, it will blossom. It can't be forced or manipulated directly. As a counselor-in-training, I have an abiding interest in finding ways to cultivate compassion so that I can manifest the "unconditional positive regard" that the famous counselor Carl Rogers espoused as an essential component of good therapy.

I will introduce a fictitious "Phyllis" to illustrate the process of cultivation as I might experience it during a counseling session. Phyllis is suffering deeply and is attempting to protect herself with an outer shell of hostility. She misinterprets my forced attempts at compassion as pity. She bristles at this, and is becoming aggressive and uncooperative. I consider what I am doing to contribute to this misunderstanding. During the silences, I try to become aware of what's happening in my mind and body. On close inspection I find some weeds: underlying feelings of aversion to her overbearing manner, and some barely-conscious prejudice. I consciously pull these weeds out and stay alert to their reappearance as I continue to listen.

While listening and responding, I reach for the nutrients that I know will prepare the ground for a positive relationship or "therapeutic alliance:" kindness and empathy to name but two. With a new client it takes some work; this digging, weeding, and feeding but it usually pays off. Slowly, surely, out of the tended soil blooms compassion. Effort seems to decrease and the interaction starts to flow more naturally. Even when Phyllis's hostility flares up again, the compassion between us is a cradle for it and it dissipates quickly. The environment is more respectful and equal. We connect for a moment in time.

It often feels difficult to manifest compassion when working with challenging behaviors, but the effort it takes to weed out negative qualities (aversion, judgment) and cultivate the positive (kindness, empathy) has proven worthwhile. The rewards are manifold in the therapeutic relationship as they are in personal relationship: authenticity, ease, joy.   Opportunities to reap the harvest abound. We don't even have to endure the interminable wait for the Wisconsin snow to melt; the growing season for compassion is always right here, right now.

Alex Liosatos, 51, is a resident of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, though she hails originally from Wales, UK. She is a counselor-in-training with a background in hairdressing and bartending. In her spare time she loves to read, write, and do yoga; when it's not snowing she loves to do those things on the beach. 

Do you remember the first time you walked to the end of the high dive and peered down at the sparkling pool water? Patiently enduring the chlorinated drips from the swimsuit above you, you climbed the aluminum ladder full of resolution. You were going to dive. You'd already dropped off, you'd cannonballed, and today you were going to dive. You had the poolside dive perfected. No one did it better. Besides, your best friend dove off the high board just yesterday.

What did you do? Did you dive? Well, I didn't. In fact, I still haven't.  I don't even climb up there anymore; cannonballing lost its allure sometime around age 35. But if I could have dived, you bet your last dollar I would have. The kid who laughed scornfully at me that summer for never making the dive? Haven't seen him for decades. But if I did, and he could no longer do that dive, would I laugh at him? Nah.  Sometimes middle age bravery is nothing more audacious than daring to go out in public in a bathing suit, compassion nothing more complex than declining to deride.

We are all doing the very best we can, at every moment.  That might sound ridiculous, given all the inadequate evidence of intelligence in politics and the downright nastiness of public discourse, yet I believe it's true. If I can't dive, it's not that I don't have the skill; it's that my fears are bigger than either my confidence or my need to show-off.

When I was in seventh grade, I wanted to be moved into a lower level math class, where all the cutest boys were slouching in uncomfortable plastic chairs in desks that no longer fit them. I handed in tests with deliberately penciled wrong answers. Was I doing the best I could? Yes, I was. The limitations of my life understanding were leading me to conclude that a cute boyfriend was more valuable than a good grade or mathematical prowess.  Did my teacher, Mrs. Arlene Granberg, RIP, scold me, hold me up for public derision, did she even fail me? No. She was, you see, better and wiser than I was. She called me to her desk and said, "Susie. I know what you're doing. I know how smart you are." And she handed back my test full of wrong answers with a "B" on it. She met my ignorance with compassion. As a result, my limitations were set a little higher.

But how, now, in this time of aggravated divisions and angry argument, how can we possibly behave with compassion toward those whom we see as wrong, uneducated, mean, even evil? There is so much venom around; you certainly know what I'm talking about here. How  can we behave compassionately toward those with whom we disagree down to the very marrow of our bones and the morrows of our children's children's children, and why would we even want to?

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." Plato wrote. This is important. Those we would like to see as enemies, the other, or simply as the "wrong," are doing their best. Not everyone is capable of doing the same "best." Some people barely make it up one rung on that ladder to the high dive, and I'm thinking particularly of certain talk show hosts right now. Every individual is a representative of not only a moment in the evolution of our species but the evolution of a person.  If you really think you are smarter, that you know better, then it is your responsibility to teach, not to scold, to enlarge the horizons of what is possible for others. Not everyone has been blessed to have kindness shape their values or good schooling form the basis of their knowledge. Many people have been schooled only in fear, treated only with disdain. Only those who know better can be better.

Susan Hering lives and works in Madison, Wisconsin, working in the Economics Department of the great University of Wisconsin, playing with paints, poems, and plays at her home on the eastside. She is never without a camera or a notebook. Each moment only comes once. Susan believes in being there and paying attention. She thanks you for reading this.

Luna, Robin Wiener Labe, 2000, oil on birch panel

Writes Robin, "This painting is of a puppy who suffered from distemper and died within two weeks of our adopting her from the shelter."   

 

 

Robin Wiener Labe, 47, is an artist living in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where she and her husband homeschool their daughter and share their lives with two rescued dogs and a turtle.

Untitled, Michael Hoover, 2010, digital image

Says Michael, "I've always found things on the ground ever since I was a kid: trinkets, money, lost photographs. This little candy heart caught my eye while I was walking the dog one morning."  

Michael Hoover, 58, is a photographer in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, where he keeps his eye open for sidewalk treasures.

Guest Editor's Note: In a world where there is so much to be divided about, I went searching for some answers to the questions: What does compassion mean to you? How do you manifest it in your life and work? How do you have compassion for someone you consider to be your enemy?  I turned to several wise friends in my life for their thoughts on compassion:

The funny thing about compassion is how we learn about each other. When we look into each other's eyes, not just on some superficial level, but with real attention, we suddenly see ourselves reflected back. What happens to you happens to me--an endless kaleidoscope of connection.  

- Maryann Hurtt, 62, Registered Nurse Hospice
Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin

The very opening of the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, starts with Bism'Allah ir Rahman ir Rahim.  This translates to "In the name of Allah the Compassionate and Merciful."  It is important to have compassion for the poor, orphans, widows, and any other wayfarer. Zakat, or charitable tithing, requires us to take a percentage of our money and give it the needy. Fasting during the month of Ramadan teaches us what the poor experience; we can empathize with them and this enables us to have more compassion toward them.    

- Mario Moreira, 48, Agile Coach and Enterprise Change Agent

    Winchester, Massachusetts

http://www.cmforagile.blogspot.com/

As a nursing student who has provided hospice care to his dying mother, I can say that compassion is very easy to find. But at times, finding compassion is difficult, especially when you need it the most. You may feel that you are being manipulated by others, but often what people want is your attention, validation, and, yes, compassion. I have yet to find a magic formula regarding when it is correct to be compassionate and when to press on with one's own urgent tasks. It's a judgment call. You have to trust your feelings.

- Ari Kirsch, 50, former financial and actuarial analyst, currently pursuing RN certification and acting in local theater

West Bloomfield, Michigan

I define compassion as a longing to lessen the suffering of others.  For me it makes no difference if the "other" is a human being that I know or don't know, or an animal. I commiserate, I sympathize, I show mercy, I want to help. Can compassion be learned? I'm not sure. I do know that compassion is an emotion that is felt deep within.

- Barbara Gilmore, 70, Travel Planner
Grafton, Wisconsin 

Compassion is seeing beyond what the limited ego wants to see, and into the illuminated heart. My practice involves seeing this illumination in all living creatures, big and small, and also in myself.  Being compassionate to myself has been the hardest part of this equation. Too often I push myself to be the person I think I should be--or others think I should be. In just being who I am and practicing self-compassion, I discover a vibrant inner peace.

- Shilpa Agarwal, 40, Writer, Los Angeles. Shilpa's book, Haunting Bombay, is a literary ghost story set in India. http://www.shilpaagarwal.com

"We don't fear the people whose stories we know," so goes the saying.

The earliest stories I can remember are those of The Ramayana and The Mahabharata; tales filled with dubious heroes and compelling villains, tales that should leave us unsettled, invigorated, and challenged. Often though in the service of gleaning a clear moral we look for oversimplifications of these rich and varied texts. We search for the hero and hunt the villain.

The story of creation, of existence, according to the Upanishads and Vedas, revolves around the Hindu sustainer God, Vishnu, who sleeps on the coils of a serpent floating in an ocean of milk. From Vishnu's navel grows a lotus flower in which sits Brahma, the creator god of the known Universe, which is ephemerally the dream of the sleeping Vishnu. When the cycles of life are completed, Vishnu awakens and the Universe dissolves, danced into oblivion by the third deity of the trinity, Shiva. After a certain period of rest, Vishnu falls asleep again, another lotus appears with another Brahma and the whole thing starts all over again.

This is an essential cosmological construct in that the metaphor is...we are all Vishnu's dream. Even more essentially we are all Vishnu, psychologically speaking...in that we are all just different manifestation of his own psyche. It's the reason why Hindus put their hands together in Anjali, the familiar head waggling greeting/gesture of worship; because they recognize Vishnu twinkling behind every pair of eyes they encounter. Only thing is, most Hindus don't have a clue as to why they do this, beyond good manners. And yet there is this kind of breathtaking recognition that happens when we meet one another; powerful, in that we are meeting Vishnu and perhaps more powerfully, ourselves.

In Sanskrit there is a saying, Tat Tvam Asi. I Am That!--a furthering of this idea that implicitly recognizes that we are all Vishnu. We have, however, done and continue to do the most horrific things to subvert that recognition in order to renege on the courtesy, care, and dare-we-say, love that we should extend to one another and thus to ourselves: Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Gujarat, Sudan, Iraq, and Afghanistan are just a few instances that come to mind within the last 20 years.  

I Am That! Tat Tvam Asi!  

Again, most Hindus don't know the phrase. Or if they do they don't know what it means. Or if they know, they don't live it or perhaps dismiss it as some Koan-like filigree. Oddly enough most creation stories are taken to be prosaic Gospel or more dangerously, as fact; ask any devout Hindu, Christian, Muslim or Jew. And yet the essential poetry we should embrace is this very idea of...I Am That! I Am Vishnu!

What might the world be like if we lived that consciously? Would we ever leave any child behind? Would we allow our inner cities to rot from within? Would we knowingly sell the shit-sandwich-derivatives that led to our recent financial collapse? Or rather would we have more people jumping onto subway tracks to shield an epileptic from certain death? Would more people stand in vigil to prevent the execution of inmates on death row? Would we refrain from cheering when we hear of the eye being shot out by a Navy Seal Team of an unarmed and infirm villain?

In embracing this kind of thinking, compassion for others isn't some selfless act of sacrifice but a selfish one of self-preservation and sacred duty. And the people whose stories we'll know and fear no more will be us. 

Shishir Kurup, an actor-playwright-director-composer-lyricist-librettist-filmmaker-father-son-educator and long time ensemble member of the nationally renowned Cornerstone Theater Company, http://www.cornerstonetheater.org/, is an inveterate hyphenate and immigrant born in Bombay, India and raised in Mombasa, Kenya and the US. His most profound and instructive creation, however, is his daughter, Tala Claye Ananya Perl Kurup.

Working in the courts I learned compassion.

To see the individual beyond the status of inmate,

Beyond the jail uniform and handcuffs,

Beyond the attitude and swagger.

I saw that each is a child of God,

Worthy of grace and mercy, of dignity and respect,

Worthy of my attention and smile,

Worthy of second chances by direction and for correction.

Many times compassion meant bending the rules

Allowing a hug from a mother,

Allowing a father to hold his newborn,

Allowing a defendant a cup of coffee before trial,

or a step outside for fresh air.

Compassion meant risking discipline by supervisors,

possibly pink paper dropped into my personnel file.

Each time I waited, wondering

if I was going to be written up

for being nice.

Rachel Ryan, 48, lives in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and was formerly employed by the Sheriff's Department there. Rachel was not fired for being nice, but she is taking a break from work to enjoy early retirement with her husband, Greg.

For centuries, the Balinese have offered up daily prayers for the entire life cycle of food, from the planting of the seed to the harvest, and from the preparation of the ingredients to the finished dish. The Maya have created each celebratory meal with the "holy trinity" of Mayan cuisine--maize, frijoles, and squash--each of which holds deep spiritual significance. The Keralites have focused their culinary energies on meeting the deeply personal physical, mental, and spiritual needs of those for whom they cook.    

What does the way in which we in the US raise, purchase, prepare, and eat our foods say about us? What does it say about our concern for environmental sustainability?  How does it speak to the way in which we regard our bodies, our communities, and the universe at large?

In engaging and thought-provoking sessions including group exercises and a full-immersion cooking class, we will explore the sacred culinary traditions of the past, and how we can call on these teachings to better nourish our minds, bodies, spirits, and planet today.  Included among the topics:     

There are two upcoming opportunities to experience Eating with Reverence: Food for the Soul: 

Institute of Noetic Sciences

Petaluma, California, USA

July 8 - 10, 2011

Three-Day Conscious Living Workshop

National Wellness Conference

Stevens Point, Wisconsin, USA

July 17, 2011

One-Day Pre-Conference Intensive

To learn more, contact Shannon at shannon@shannonkringbuset.com.  Photo by Tyler Orsburn.