Quote:
Originally Posted by sanityseeker
Hi Rainbowzz... I do agree to a point. It depends on the audience and the degree of diversity. Differences in nationality, culture, race, religion, gendar, social-economic status will present challenges to 'walking in the other person's shoes.' Same can be said in my opinion with applying common sense. What may be common sense to one person may not be the same for another of a different background and life experience.
I understand what you mean in a general sense and think it is an admireable guide but I think they are subjective and dependant on commonalities to be present.
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yes, I think I do agree with you here. However, i veiw that as a challenge just as you said - rather than a total roadblock to understanding.
Now, there are MANY things which I experience in life where I lack understanding, some I dont even feel like TRYING to understand - like the drinking and driving, like someone mentioned. But, for me, I so highly value compassion that I try anyways.
HOWEVER. Here is a big thing too: There is a huge difference between :
Idiot Compassion
and
Real Compassion.
a spiritual teacher I beleive a great deal in wrote the following on her website:
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Pema: Idiot compassion is a great expression, which was actually coined by Trungpa Rinpoche. It refers to something we all do a lot of and call it compassion. In some ways, it's whats called enabling. It's the general tendency to give people what they want because you can't bear to see them suffering. Basically, you're not giving them what they need. You're trying to get away from your feeling of I can't bear to see them suffering. In other words, you're doing it for yourself. You're not really doing it for them.
When you get clear on this kind of thing, setting good boundaries and so forth, you know that if someone is violent, for instance, and is being violent towards you —to use that as the example— it's not the compassionate thing to keep allowing that to happen, allowing someone to keep being able to feed their violence and their aggression. So of course, they're going to freak out and be extremely upset. And it will be quite difficult for you to go through the process of actually leaving the situation. But that's the compassionate thing to do.
It's the compassionate thing to do for yourself, because you're part of that dynamic, and before you always stayed. So now you're going to do something frightening, groundless, and quite different. But it's the compassionate thing to do for yourself, rather than stay in a demeaning, destructive, abusive relationship.
And it's the most compassionate thing you can do for them too. They will certainly not thank you for it, and they will certainly not be glad. They'll go through a lot. But if there's any chance for them to wake up or start to work on their side of the problem, their abusive behavior or whatever it might be, that's the only chance, is for you to actually draw the line and get out of there.
We all know a lot of stories of people who had to hit that kind of bottom, where the people that they loved stopped giving them the wrong kind of compassion and just walked out. Then sometimes that wakes a person up and they start to do what they need to do.
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This is what I think you need to apply to situations like that. You don't need to accept a behavior or allow a bad behavior in order to be compassionate IMO.
