Compassion

Compassion is feeling pity when we see a person or an animal fall into suffering, extreme hardship or death. It sounds easy to say, but it is not easy, and few people have this noble compassion. When we see someone slip and fall, most of us laugh. When we see someone involved in a serious or fatal accident, most of us are frightened. When we see someone poor, most of us look down on them. When we see someone ill and in pain, most of us are indifferent. This world does not have much compassion.

So when do we truly have it? When we feel another's suffering almost as our own, and sympathy and pity arise naturally. Some people go through life without loving anyone, until a terrible attack of kidney stones. After that, they feel compassion only when they see someone with kidney stones. Someone with wisdom and morality does not have to wait to go through suffering to feel others' pain. Their compassion is always present and ready.

A compassionate person often does decent things: rescue, generosity, charity. And the law of cause and effect never overlooks a decent deed; it repays it in kind, many times over. So a compassionate person always has great merit. If compassion appears early, such a person often chooses a profession of high sacrifice.

What we need is to make compassion appear in our own mind, because we may not be compassionate by birth. We have to force ourselves to feel for people and animals in distress. Telling ourselves this over and over, we gradually begin to feel a little compassion. If we keep reminding ourselves to feel pity, and also help people and animals as far as we can, compassion grows stronger over time.

Some people work in professions that by nature rescue people: doctors, nurses and so on. They come to the work with the fine initial thought of helping patients. But over time, with patients groaning and the pressure of work so heavy, they cannot stay compassionate all the time. They are exhausted, so they protect their spirit by keeping calm, then composed, then numb. It is easy to see a scene where the patient groans, the relatives worry and the doctor is perfectly cool. They explain that it must be so in order to monitor the patient: only when the patient feels the pain can they know the condition better.

Few people keep their compassion after practicing medicine for many years. The emotional numbness is real, and it seems necessary for them to stay calm while treating people. We sympathize with the medical profession too.

But losing compassion is losing a great asset of the spirit. Only wood and stone seem not to need compassion. People once filmed a lion that had caught a fawn and then grew attached and affectionate toward it. When another lion rushed in to bite the fawn, the lion fought back fiercely to protect it. Many who watched the video greatly admired that lion. People are the same: anyone with a lot of compassion will be loved and admired by everyone. If there really are gods in heaven, even they will surely love those with great compassion.

Compassion is an important attribute of morality. Let us look back at how much compassion we have had to live through this life. If we have none, we must try to plant it. If we have a little, we must tend it so it blossoms.

The world is full of suffering, and it still needs our compassion for each other.