First of all, right now our compassion is limited: it’s only for victims. You see a little dog being kicked, and then you see the guy who does the kicking; you see a child being abused, and you see the abuser; you see one group of people who are poor, and you look at all the rich people who take advantage; you see the innocent people who get bombed and then you see those who are doing the bombing. We’re always seeing it in terms of victims and harmers, aren’t we?
So we have compassion for the victim, but then immediately we have anger towards the harmer: that’s just the way we are. We’re always looking for who is the problem, who is to blame, where’s the person who’s caused the problem. That’s how we think, you know?
At one level it’s true. There is a man who kicked the dog, there is a child who got abused, there are poor people who get taken advantage of – it’s true, it’s true – but the Buddhist view of compassion goes to deeper levels. And this is the point here: until you’ve done a certain level of work on your own mind, it is impossible to have this deeper level of compassion.
For example, I was just talking to somebody recently – he’s a Buddhist, a friend of mine – and he was telling me about this particular fellow who is a serious, chronic liar. That’s a particular kind of suffering, isn’t it, where people tell the most bizarre lies. This was serious lying: every word out of his mouth was a lie.
The first thing we think is, oh, how awful this person is. But the first thing we should think is, wow, look at how he is causing himself suffering.
Then this becomes the basis of compassion. But we will never understand this until we understand that this is why we ourselves suffer and therefore why we harm others.
The Buddha’s whole point is this: in the very first level of practice – the wisdom wing – you learn about what Buddha calls the Four Noble Truths, which is Buddha’s very first teaching; it’s a general teaching, and it applies to everybody, but, obviously, if you’re wanting to learn about Buddhism, you want to learn about it for yourself – not just, “Oh, look at all the suffering out there.” Buddha’s talking to you, honey – he’s trying to tell you about your suffering – and this is the part that we find difficult.
Let’s say you’re not poor and you’re not being terrorized and you haven’t been raped. Then you think, “Well, I’m not suffering?” And what does that mean? That means we’ve only got a certain understanding of a certain level of suffering.
The point that Buddha’s making, if we start to look into this more deeply, is that we’ve got these deeper levels of suffering, and they exist where? In our mind.
All Buddha’s telling us is this: “Hey, honeys, yes, it’s true, your husband beating you is called suffering, and yes, it’s true, being stolen from is called suffering – people doing bad things to you is called suffering. But there’s a deeper level of suffering.”
The deeper level of suffering is the suffering states of mind themselves: things called attachment and anger and jealousy and depression.
We all hear this, we recognize this – we know these states of mind are suffering – but we tend to get guilty about it. Or we know it’s suffering, but we blame somebody else for it, we try to get off the hook.
The real point of the wisdom wing practice is to really begin to know our own minds, and, with kindness to ourselves, see the pain of these states of mind. The words are very simple, but we find it very hard, you know?
So what’s the point of this? How can this help me get compassion? This is the point now: you check your own life, you check your life. You know you’re not a saint: that means you’ve got anger, attachment, depression, and jealousy. You also have relationships with other people and you might sometimes harm them.
Now, if you’re the person who’s always being abused by somebody else, this is very hard to see, that you might do something to other people. But if we look at ourselves very honestly, since we’re a little child, we can see we have done a few things.
This is the part that’s hard to see. In fact, many of us really believe we don’t do anything wrong. We know we’ve got anger, we’ve got depression, but we think we’re a nice person – we never harm others. It’s just not true!
We might not be as bad as the boyfriend, that’s right – maybe we don’t go around shouting and screaming. But if we look with honesty at ourselves – for example, even a fight you had with your sister when you were ten, you shouted at her because you got hurt or something – there are some things we’ve done, even if out of a lack of wisdom, where we’ve made a mess of a relationship. We haven’t understood how to be wise.
Now check: what is it going on in your mind when you do those things? Well, it’s not love, it’s not compassion, it’s not wisdom, it’s not kindness. It’s the other states of mind: it’s the fears and the jealousy and the low self-esteem that only seem to harm you – that do harm you – but they are also why you make a mess of your life. They’re why you do anything that’s a mess, even a tiny bit, that somebody else gets the result of, you know?
For instance, when you’re very depressed, you can’t think of anybody else, can you? This is not criticizing yourself, but when you’re very depressed, it feels like you’re harming nobody but yourself, but you’re also harming other people because you don’t even notice them: you’re completely self-centered.
What I’m saying is these delusions are why we suffer and they are why we do anything at all that makes a mess of our relationships.
When you can own your anger and your depression and your fears and your jealousy – and the actions you do with your body and speech on the basis of those, which are the actions that harm others, even if it’s a small amount of harm – then you know why you make a mess of your relationships: because of your delusions.
You’ve either got anger, jealousy, resentment, bitterness, or you’ve got love and kindness. Now, if love and kindness are prevalent in your mind, you don’t harm anybody. If it’s anger and jealousy, then you harm people.
So what’s the reason people harm people? Because they’re suffering with anger and jealousy. But you won’t know that that’s suffering until you know your own – that’s the very simple point – and then you won’t just leap in and criticize others as if we’re some kind of saint.
You’ll see the problem – and you might even try to help – but you’ll have compassion. We’re all in the same boat!