Wisdom to resonate with the suffering of another (literally the meaning of com passion) is borne of innate and cultivated wholeheartedness.
After a week meditation on kindness I find myself on a 1st class train carriage due to a problem with the previous train. I am not alone. There are the "1st class" passengers and some drunk, nervously aggressive football fans who are poking fun at an elderly women wearing a kennel club blazer and comforting 3 over-groomed neurotic lap dogs arranged like ornaments on the carriage table.
Now normally I would confront them, appealing to a common masculinity to leave "her" alone, a risky and possibly aggressive strategy. Resonating with the kindness cultivated on the retreat, spontaneously I go and sit in front of her and begin to ask her about the dogs. The football fans leave her alone now she has company and she is reassured that she is not alone. We spend a pleasant couple of hours talking dogs and dog shows until it is time for her to leave the train, waving her goodbyes from the platform. Resonates with the suffering of another, the wisdom of compassion.
On Aug 11, 2015 James Lang Smith wrote :
Wisdom to resonate with the suffering of another (literally the meaning of com passion) is borne of innate and cultivated wholeheartedness.
After a week meditation on kindness I find myself on a 1st class train carriage due to a problem with the previous train. I am not alone. There are the "1st class" passengers and some drunk, nervously aggressive football fans who are poking fun at an elderly women wearing a kennel club blazer and comforting 3 over-groomed neurotic lap dogs arranged like ornaments on the carriage table.
Now normally I would confront them, appealing to a common masculinity to leave "her" alone, a risky and possibly aggressive strategy. Resonating with the kindness cultivated on the retreat, spontaneously I go and sit in front of her and begin to ask her about the dogs. The football fans leave her alone now she has company and she is reassured that she is not alone. We spend a pleasant couple of hours talking dogs and dog shows until it is time for her to leave the train, waving her goodbyes from the platform. Resonates with the suffering of another, the wisdom of compassion.