|
Today's
quotation:
Genuine compassion is based on the recognition
that others have the right to happiness just like yourself, and
therefore even your enemy is a human being with the same wish for
happiness as you, and the same right to happiness as you.
A sense of concern developed on this basis is what we call
compassion; it extends to everyone, irrespective of whether the
person’s attitude toward you is hostile or friendly.
the Dalai Lama
|
|
Today's
Meditation:
What
would this world be like if each of us felt genuine
compassion for all of the other people on the
planet? What if, instead of judgment, we passed on
love and encouragement for people to find their own ways
and live their own lives? What if we could feel
compassion even for those people who hurt us, and not
respond to them with anger and harshness and some of the
other defensive emotions that we feel and show?
It
can be very hard to recognize, though, that the people who
most annoy us, who most hurt us, have just as much of a
right to happiness as we do. Sometimes it seems that
they make themselves happy by making us miserable, so it's
hard for us to see that they need our compassion.
But no matter what a person does to us or says about us,
that person has just as much of a right to be happy as we
do. It's not an exclusive right.
Perhaps
that person's actions are the result of a poor influence,
someone who has taught him or her that hurting others is a
way to make oneself happy. In that case, the person
deserves even more of our compassion, because he or she is
traveling a road that certainly won't lead to happiness.
Compassion
isn't just for the objects of our compassion-- it's much
like forgiveness in that it serves a great purpose for us,
ourselves-- it gives us greater peace of mind and a
stronger sense of love of life. And once we know
that everyone deserves our compassion, things get easier
for us because we no longer have to try to decide who
deserves our compassion and who doesn't.
|
