Friday, November 14, 2008
Courage and compassion
Since the past does not exist (only the present exists) I find that my regret and remorse have no place to be but in my mind. They are intangible, real, and at times powerful. But they are only my thoughts and for better or worse I own them.
I recently stumbled upon the emotion of compassion as the best response to these sorrowful and at times painful thoughts. I have tried other alternatives to dealing with grief in all of its forms, including denial, dishonesty, running, and varied degrees of the the opposite, which is wallowing. None of those work as well as compassion.
Compassion is an emotional response, aimed at the memory of the loss (whatever it might be) and tailored to embrace it. The memories of the events and feelings that accompany regrets and related sorrows do not disappear. Indeed, who would want to forget the death of a parent or an important but awful moment? Instead, careful contemplation of the sorrowful moment with the mindful embrace of compassion brings the event into a clearer and a loving light. Repeated visits to the site of the wound result in greater healing. In short order the regret joins its place among other memories, while not crying for special attention.
This is not an infinite regression. I know I have a finite number of negative experiences. They pop up, I embrace them, and they don't pop up again. If I live long enough, perhaps I will run out. That would be nice.
This idea grew over a long period of time. The culmination came this Fall when I was thinking about the teachings of Buddha. Distilled, they are: The Universe is suffering; there is a solution; the solution is compassion. I had never really accepted the first proposition, that the Universe is suffering. I ducked and weaved around the "problem of evil" and the problem of pain. Finally, however, it became inescapable, there is great suffering all around, even in the littlest things. That compassion is the correct response is axiomatic (at least to me.) From that flowed the aforementioned internal dialogs.
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