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Today's
Meditation:
Sometimes
we approach the idea of being compassionate with others as somehow coming from a position of superiority.
It's easy to do when things are going well for us and when
we see someone else who's going through troubles.
But this approach denies the truth of the situation-- that
virtually everyone deserves our compassion simply because
they're human beings going through trials that are very
difficult for them, just as we are.
"Our
shared humanity" is a good way of putting it.
We all are here as human beings, doing our best to make it
through life as well as we can. Many people hurt us,
try our patience, make us angry, offend us, or treat us
poorly, but are these people less deserving somehow of our
compassion? Or are they people who are even more
deserving of compassion because they're not able to deal
with the adversity in their lives as well as others, and
who feel so insecure about themselves that they need to
lash out at or harm others?
I
would like to consider myself to be a compassionate
person, but I sometimes find myself being judgmental--
sometimes harshly-- rather than
compassionate. And that's a shame because it limits
me rather than affecting those I judge. My
compassion can be helpful to myself and others, yet if I
don't practice it and show it, it's like a ten-dollar bill
that's locked away in a drawer: it certainly can't
help to feed and nourish me if I don't take it out and
share it.
All
people deserve our compassion to some extent or
another. We're able to feel and share that
compassion when we realize that we, too, have many of the
issues that others have, and that we, too, are fully
deserving of our own compassion. When we share
compassion with ourselves and others, we're adding to the
healing of the world instead of the harm; to the positive
energy of the world instead of the negative.
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