Compassion

Sometimes we feel discouraged
When we see the ways of the blind
But then we become encouraged
Through peace in the greatest mind

The winds of this world are strong
And the waves of the sea do grind
But we’ve found rest with sanctuary
Through peace in the greatest mind

The mystery of the unchartered future
And the history we've left behind
Makes us stand fast and strong
Through peace in the greatest mind

To whom greater can we turn to
Or in whom wiser can we find
Than the One now with us to lead us
Through peace in the greatest mind

©2010 Copyright Lawrence E Tucker

Speak in tongues that confuse the minds of scholars.
A thousand miles away, a woman screams in terror.
The devil dances in fields of corn.
No ordinary laugh.
She's chained to life like a prisoner,
doubting her faith with a lack of hope.
Everyone is plastic, rubber coated hearts.
Feelings bounce from one to another.
It's no ordinary laugh, when the heart is broken.
Standing in the middle, a sponge soaking in infection.
Her disease is the woman, she pretends to be.
Loneliness isn't so bad when, you love yourself.
Trying to remove the plastic, easy to assemble.
In a world of broken hearts, the ears are listening.

Speak in tongues that confuse the minds of scholars.
A thousand miles away, a woman screams in terror.
The devil dances in fields of corn.
No ordinary laugh.
She's chained to life like a prisoner,
doubting her faith with a lack of hope.
Everyone is plastic, rubber coated hearts.
Feelings bounce from one to another.
It's no ordinary laugh, when the heart is broken.
Standing in the middle, a sponge soaking in infection.
Her disease is the woman, she pretends to be.
Loneliness isn't so bad when, you love yourself.
Trying to remove the plastic, easy to assemble.
In a world of broken hearts, the ears are listening.

Our needs are simple: food, shelter, security, comfort, leisure to create.  But historically, there has never been enough to go around.  The basics of life were available only to those who could command the labor of others on their behalf.

There has always been a struggle to determine who shall toil and who shall live in leisure.  Comfort was linked inextricably to oppression.  Because we were either slaves or masters, we have a long habit of distrust, and have learned to regard each other as competitors in a struggle for power and pursuit of scarce resources.

In the 21st Century, mankind for the first time has the potential for sufficiency.  Machines substitute for labor.  Technology has given us the horn of plenty, and no one’s comfort need depend any longer on the suffering of another. 

Habits die slowly.  The mental orientation toward scarcity is deeply ingrained, and the hunger for power will not die in a single generation.  But reality will free us in time from resentments and struggle.  As the basis for our fears dies away, so, too, will the fears, and with them our constrained habits of thought.

We shall be freed to regard one another as sacred souls all, reflections of ourselves and companions on our voyage into mystery.

A billion years ago, when you implanted the first nuclear membrane in the first eukaryotic cell, laying the foundation for multicellular life, impatience was nowhere in your process.

So what if it takes another thousand years to establish utopian peace and universal human empathy?

© 2008 by George Polley; from an earlier version copyrighted by the author in 1999.

In a laboratory setting, macaques were fed if they were willing to pull a chain and electrically shock an unrelated macaque whose agony was in plain view through a one-way mirror. Otherwise, they starved. After learning the ropes, the monkeys frequently refused to pull the chain; in one experiment only 13% would do so - 87% preferred to go hungry. One macaque went without food for nearly two weeks rather than hurt its fellow. Macaques who had themselves been shocked in previous experiments were even less willing to pull the chain. The relative social status or gender of the macaques had little bearing on their reluctance to hurt others.

If the circumstances were reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scientists, would we do as well?

Of my city the worst that men will ever say is this:
You took little children away from the sun and the dew,
And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky,
And the reckless rain; you put them between walls
To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages,
To eat dust in their throats and die empty-hearted
For a little handful of pay on a few Saturday nights.

Humanity’s resort to violence
To settle ego’s conflicts makes no sense,
For everything we claim to be humane
Bids us to be compassionate and sane:

To love our neighbors as we love ourselves
And stash our grievances on basement shelves
Once we’ve resolved our conflicts peacefully
With justice, honor, truth and equity.

That’s our ideal, proclaimed by saints and sages
In wisdom texts and scriptures through the ages,
And yet in all this time we’ve still not learned
The arts of peace for which we’ve deeply yearned.

Only a peaceful Spirit saves the day:
“There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices, -
Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.

And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
"Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net;
For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us."

And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, - buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.

And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.

Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].

Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.

This has been my life; I found it worth living.

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled
with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep
and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

The Child I love

Backward and untouchable

Looks like any other child

But upon closer look

There's something different about him

He's not your usual child

For he lives in two worlds

His own and ours

Yet he's not fully in ours

But only physically

Try to hug him

And his world turns upside down

As though a cataclysmic event occurred in his life

Or an Earthquake shook his world

He does not desire physical affection

Yet he appreciates praise

This child of mine

I long to hug

And have the hug returned

I wish to be in the same world

He in mine and me in his

That will never be

For it seems he can't be reached

To be hugged or be understood

Nor will he hug or understand

There is a world far bigger than his

Maybe one day he'll seek out this world

Maybe one day

He'll come to me

And hug me

Just because he loves me

Maybe one day

I can hug him

Just because I love him

Maybe one day

We can share each other's joys and sorrows

Maybe one day we can share our two worlds

And others can share theirs with him

I join my hands, beseeching the enlightened ones
Who wish to pass beyond the bonds of sorrow;
Do not leave us in our ignorance;
Remain among us for unnumbered ages.

And through these actions now performed,
By all the virtue i have just amassed,
May all the pain of every living being
Be wholly scattered and destroyed.

For all those ailing in the world,
Until their every sickness has been healed,
May I myself become for them
The doctor, nurse and medicine itself.

My body, thus, and all my goods besides,
And all my merits gained and to be gained,
I give them all away withholding nothing
To bring about the benefit of beings.

May I become at all times, both now and forever

A protector for those without protection

A guide for those who have lost their way

A ship for those with oceans to cross

A sanctuary for those in danger

A lamp for those without light

A place of refuge for those who lack shelter

And a servant to all in need.

For you my child, born to besieged city
bathed in blood, I bow my head.

Breathe deep, oh, child of war,
my gift to you this day,
the breath of life.

Draw hope, from freedom's gasp
inhale, for I mere mortal man,
exhale humanity.

I bear no arms against
the beauty at my breast;
bask in my benevolence.

I cradle you, treasured infant.
I, a surrogate, mother,
you rest, that I might bring you shelter.

Bring back my youth,
the child beneath these battered walls,
and not the prodigy of battle.

For bonded by a blanket,
soaked and stained, you and I,
our souls are still the same.

Courage or cowardice, truth or lies,
wisdom or folly, life or death;
war distorts.

God speed, my little one.
I protect you;
glory, grace and virtue,
personified through child and man.

Today, my precious ragged urchin,
you will live.
Compassion for the child
has conquered all.
The tragedy of life that brought us here,
Pales beneath the guiding
hand of God.

And this my innocent of war is victory.

You live, life lasts, war ends, time moves on.

The Dalai Lama shared the following simple practice that will increase loving and compassion in the world.

The Practice:

1. Spend 5 minutes at the beginning of each day remembering we all want the same things (to be happy and be loved) and we are all connected to one another.
2. Spend 5 minutes -- breathing in - cherishing yourself; and, breathing out - cherishing others. If you think about people you have difficulty cherishing, extend your cherishing to them anyway.
3. During the day extend that attitude to everyone you meet. Practice cherishing the simplest person (clerks, attendants, etc., as well as the "important" people in your life; cherish the people you love and the people you dislike).
4. Continue this practice no matter what happens or what anyone does to you.

These thoughts are very simple, inspiring and helpful. The practice of cherishing can be taken very deep if done wordlessly; allowing yourself to feel the love and appreciation that already exists in your heart.

Please put your attention on the breath for a few moments.

Find patience and acceptance in your heart for your own difficulties, your own mistakes, for all the things that you think about yourself which you might not like. Find the acceptance and the patience to endure that in your heart. Let the patience and acceptance grow so that they fill you from head to toe, a feeling of ease. And with that love arises and you can surround yourself and embrace yourself with love.

Pick out one person and accept that person fully. And with the acceptance have patience for that person. No demand. No pressure. No wanting. Just acceptance. Fill that person with that acceptance, with that non demanding patience , and then surround him or her with love.

Now think of your parents. Fill them with your acceptance. Non demanding patience. Surround them with your love.

Now think of those people who are closest to you. Those you might live with. Patience and acceptance. Lovingness. Embrace them with those. Fill them with those. Nothing else works.

Now think of your good friends. Accept them exactly the way they are. Do not wish them to become other. Let patience with them arise, which is non demanding, and non judgmental. Fill them with that and then embrace them
with your love.

Now think of neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, people at work. Accept them exactly as you know them. Fill them with that acceptance, with that non demanding patience and non judgmental attitude, and then embrace them with
your love .

Now think of anyone whom you find difficult. Accept that person exactly the way he or she is. With non demanding patience. Fill him or her with that acceptance and patience. Then embrace him or her with love.

Now have a look inside to see if there is anyone or anything that you dislike, whatever it maybe, whoever is may be, small or large, and then accept that the way it just is, or accept the person or the ideas or the situation. Just accept it and have patience with whatever it is. Reach out with that acceptance and patience to the person or situation involved.

And now imagine that your acceptance and your patience is like a rose colored cloud coming from your heart and going far and wide, giving people joy and peace by seeing this lovely patience and acceptance that comes to them on this rose colored cloud which can reach very far. First to people around here and then further and further afield. Bringing patience and acceptance and love onto this planet, into this universe.

Now put your attention back on yourself and feel yourself filled with patience, acceptance, and love. Let that be your inner being. The warmth of the love. The peacefulness of the patience and acceptance with yourself.

May all beings have patience with each other.

Make us worthy, Lord,
To serve our fellow men
Throughout the world who live and die
In poverty and hunger.

Give them, through our hands
this day their daily bread,
And by our understanding love,
Give peace and joy.