‘Knowing oneself comes from attending with compassionate curiosity to what is happening within” Gabor Mate, IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOST.
In this blog post, I want to talk about compassion. In particular of the different levels of compassion and how deep can we go when we act with compassion.
In general, people take compassion to mean the feeling of wanting to alleviate other people’s burdens or pain or to take it away from them.In a deeper level of compassion you might feel inclined to act or not in order to actively help lessen other people’s burdens. But sometimes that is not the best way to help somebody. On a deeper level, compassion doesn’t alleviate the pain, but makes it meaningful, it makes it part of the truth, it makes it tolerable.
Compassion is defined by the MERRIAM-WEBSTER online dictionary as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it”. Getz, Keltner, and Simon-Thomas (2010) define it as “the feeling that arises when witnessing another’s suffering and that motivates a subsequent desire to help”. (P. 351). Also central to the definition of compassion is a sense of interconnection with the person who is suffering (Cassell, 2002) the Latin roots of compassion literally mean “to suffer” (passion) “with” (com). Blum (1980) writes that “compassion involves a sense of shared humanity, of regarding the other as a fellow human being” (p.511).
When we feel compassion, therefore we are willing to be present with the suffering of others and feel a sense of human interconnection. We also experience caring concern in response to their suffering and a desire to help that comes naturally from the best part of ourselves.
Levels of compassion
Going deeper, we can find different levels of compassion. There's the compassion where you see a person or an animal suffering and you just feel bad for them. That's ordinary mammal compassion. All animals have this capacity, and it's a good trade, but it's not enough. If you really want to help somebody it's not enough to feel compassion for them on an emotional level, you also have to understand their situation. And in order to do that, you need to honestly inquiry and go deeper into the roots of that behavior or pain.
For example, it is not enough to feel bad because this person is addicted to heroin or any other drug, that's not going to help them if they feel bad. It's good because at least you're not hating them or condemning them, but you also have to understand what pain is driving that addiction, or what pain is driving that depression of their feelings.
So we can call to this level, ordinarycompassion, which is somebody is suffering, and you feel bad about that. Most of people are capable of this, it comes imprinted in our biology.In this level, compassion is greatbut it doesn't do anything by itself.
It is necessary to inquire about what stories are driving the drama that keeps occurring in people's lives, that they keep recreating for themselves and therefore trapping themselves in their own damaging patterns making it very hard to scape from this loop.
Now, you're not just feeling bad because somebody is suffering, but you are extending yourself to understand why they are suffering. You know, I feel bad that you are suffering because you are an addict, but I'm not going to feel bad for you just because your addiction causes you suffering, I'm also going to find out the source of your addiction so that I can really understand you.
This is a second level which Gabor Mate calls the compassion of understanding.
Then there's the Compassion of Recognition.
Have you ever had the experience, when you see people suffering or struggling with somethingof seeing yourself in them?Most of us had this experienceat some point. Deep down there is this resonance of seeing yourself inthem. Not to the same degree necessarily, not showing up exactly the same way, but the same dynamics, the same pain, the same tendencies. And that's the compassion of recognition, where you recognize that you're not different from people struggling. You may be more fortunate, but you're not different. This level of compassion removes all judgement, all sense of I'm up here and they're down there, that we are different.
In this way it allows us to be in the same level and it eliminates the separation between ourselves and the one who is suffering and it brings up together, this might bring fears in yourself, since it is an uncomfortable place to be in, it requires a lot ofcourage not to look away.
Then there's the Compassion of Possibility
This is where you don't see people for their dysfunctions, weakness or momentary struggles, it allows you to see them for their possibility for healing and wholeness even when they don’tsee this in themselves at all.
Possibility is not hope, because hoping is something that happens in the future. In this case we are talking about the possibility that exists in the present moment for them to reconnect with themselves and their true essence. To have a taste of their unbroken essence that it was always there, beneath the broken pieces.
Thomas Merton, wrote, "In order to gain possession of ourselves, we have to have some confidence, some hope of victory, and in order to keep that hope alive we must usually have some taste of victory, we must know what victory is and like it better than defeat". When you can help somebody, even momentarily, be with a painful emotion and hold that emotion, you've given them a taste of victory, because they are able to be aware of a strength that they didn’t know that they have before.
The more you see your own unfolding possibility, the more you will be ready to recognize that in other people. So in a sense, this also works towards our connection with others because if you are able to mirror back this possibility on another human being you cannot help but seeing the same possibility in yourself.
Finally there is the Compassion of Truth.
The fifth level of compassion as it is seen by Gabor Mate and H. H. Almaas, could include hurting somebody else, or not taking their pain away when you see it. It is the ultimate understanding that we are not here to keep people from experiencing pain. We're not here to soothe their suffering. We're actually here to help them cope with their suffering, to find the strength in themselves to be resilient, and to grow from it. That comes from the truth. And that's what they call compassion of truth.
If you try to be compassionate and help a chick who is struggling to set free when it’s hatching, you might actually hurt it or even lesser its possibility to live and develop, it might be painful to witness this for a sensible soul but sometimes the most compassionate way is to let them struggle.
In the same way, if you take other people’s pain away, they won’t learn. Sometimes people need the pain, in order to learn something about themselves. Maybe they might not even learn about compassion, because the way to learn about compassion is to experience hurt. Now if you take people’s hurt away, they won’t learn how to be compassionate themselves.
“As such, compassion has to be according to the truth and for the truth. That’s why some actions that come from the deeper level of compassion might not look compassionate to someone else or to the external world. They might even look cruel, yet they might be the most compassionate things action. Often what people want to do in such a case—to act in a way that looks compassionate—is really not compassionate at all.” H. H. Almaas.
Seeing the truth often involves seeing through these false ideas, allowing us to recognize the deeper reality which we are, even when and painful as it is we have to face dis-illusionfrom ourselves and from others. Thus knowing the facts will free you from your emotional reactions, and being free from your emotional reactions will free that part of you that is truth. In a sense when you seek truth, you are actually seeking yourself.
The truth will set you free by allowing you to be yourself, and that is for me the greatest gift from compassion.
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