This morning I tried to write about why we practice this bodhisattva thing - why is it so good to not just do it for ourselves but everyone else as well? Pretty quickly I had written myself into a corner. I’d speculated that the impulse to be kind to each other, to establish relationships, was deep in our primate genes because we had collectively discovered that the opposite, being emotionally isolated, leads to expulsion from our group which then makes us a prime victim for predators. So basically play nice or die. However, this then caused a problem. Had I just reduced the bodhisattva’s motivation to nothing but a highly polished survival instinct? Something that was just about the survival of the species and really nothing more.
At this point I shuffled about a bit and couldn’t quite see where to go next. Then I realised that for all of this to be real it must be based in our own experience - so if I observe myself what do I find?
Well, it’s true that when I go to the checkout in the supermarket, chatting with the person there turns something fairly deadening into something that leaves everyone feeling better. Okay, so this is my basic healthy primate stuff in operation - making relationships. However, I also know that I don’t always feel that healthy and I can when I feel stressed just close in on myself. If I notice this, if there is some awareness, I can open out again and sometimes the bodhisattva meditations might help this - they remind me we are all in the same boat, I’m not alone.
I then sat back for a bit and realised this is still all about me. Then I remembered some fairly rare occasions when something really hard to describe had happened. I think of it as the heart opening - not just a feeling of warmth or sympathy when something moves us, but something that leaves us unable to watch the news without bursting into tears. A huge opening that is not in any way comfortable or even welcome. A complete, totally undefended experience of the suffering of others that is very, very painful. Thinking about this it seemed to me that while this was in the same spectrum as the innate urge to get on with each other, it was of an entirely different order. This experience does not feel like playing nice so we don’t get eaten but rather the bursting in or through of something that almost annihilates our usual sense of self. Something vastly bigger than ourselves that reveals our interconnection with everything else. Something that is definitely bigger than survival.
So was this what Buddhism was trying to talk about? Yes, we clever monkeys have worked out that to survive we have to get on. And that furthermore we can work this instinct up through intentionally encouraging it - the practices of relative bodhichitta, loving-kindness, compassion, exchanging self and other etc. But in addition to this slow and patient cracking open of ourselves, creating a crack in the door of self. Sometimes for reasons entirely unknown, the door suddenly slams open, compelled from the other side, and what pours through is an almost unbearable torrent of knowing what others feel, and it is this tsunami that is an expression of the awakened mind, ultimate bodhichitta, that has at its core what may only be described as - love.
NW. 25 July 2024
an endeavour by many to help elevate suffering . That is a beautiful thing to witness also.
Somehow knowing there are always changing conditions , and we desperately want that to be for those suffering . Is it that all our hearts want to feel love even if there are hugely painful ways some strive to find that connection .
whoops this was the rest of what I meant to say.
This post was so helpful to look deeply into what we study and talk about as compassion, love kindness and empathy . How to be very sensitive and aware when becoming overwhelmed with the suffering of people, animals , our planet . Some of witnessing is so unbearable, how to be present to all the sadnesses, without the colouring of what I have experienced so far , in a non judgmental, all inclusive way , can I feel be so incredibly sad but there can be places of shutting off too. How to be balanced in truly caring not scared of witnessing.
Yet I see so many generous acts everywhere , and even in horrible situations kindness is abundant , …
I think from my experience, the heart opens and closes. I had an ineffable heart opening experience after a long period of stress and suffering. For a while it felt like my "doors" were blown wide open. I remember my heart hurt for people who had caused terrible harm to others, I had a strong sense that no one "chooses to come in with that wiring that causes them to do such harm" and I felt desperately sad for them. This was impossible to describe, my husband looked at me like I had lost it when I tried to describe it (and he'd spent a month in Plum Village with Thich Naht Hanh,so has lots of insight and experience).That sense…