Tenderness

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  In 430, at one of the darkest moments of the senseless and destructive Peloponnesian War, Sophocles (c. 496–405 BCE) presented his tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant to the people of Athens. When reason failed, it was still possible for human beings to learn from their pain. Renowned for his clear-sighted wisdom, Oedipus proved fatally, tragically ignorant. To his horror, he discovers that not only has he unwittingly slain his father, but also, unaware of her true identity, that he has married his mother. His tragedy, however, gives him an entirely new vulnerability and, consequently, an ability to enter into the suffering of others. 6 His speech, hitherto reasoned and controlled, is now interspersed with wordless exclamations: “ Ion … ion! Aiai … aiai! ” When he meets his weeping daughters, he forgets his own distress in concern for their plight. The members of the chorus make their own journey to compassion. Initially appalled by Oedipus’s predicament, they cannot bear to look at him and shrink away in horror, but as they learn to appreciate the depth of his grief, this revulsion gives way to affection; they show the audience how to react to his tragedy as they reach out to Oedipus, calling him “dear one” and “darling.” 7 In Oedipus at Colonus , which Sophocles presented at the end of his life, Oedipus, a man shunned for his unspeakable but unintentional crimes, becomes a source of blessing to the citizens of Athens when they have the compassion to take him in and give him asylum. 8 Tragic drama reminds us of the role that art can play in expanding our sympathies. Plays, films, and novels all enable us to enter imaginatively into other lives and make an empathetic identification with people whose experiences are entirely different from our own. They can give us moments of compassionate ekstasis , and we should resolve, during this step, to allow art to unsettle us and make us question ingrained preconceptions. Films are especially emotive, because the big screen brings us even closer to the characters. We can find ourselves moved to tears, our mirror neurons firing as we witness the pain of characters in a movie, even though our rational minds tell us that their suffering is entirely fictional. When we have been affected in this way, we should not be too hasty to forget the experience as we leave the cinema or put the novel back on the shelf. We should let the pathos lodge permanently in our minds, in the same way as Athens made a home for both Oedipus and the Eumenides. Imagination is crucial to the compassionate life. A uniquely human quality, it enables the artist to create entirely new worlds and give a strong semblance of reality to events that never happened and people who never existed.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  God has willed that these wishes of mine should not be granted, but now that you have taken it into your head to die unless you are back again in Pavia by the date you prescribed, I dearly wish that I had known of all this in time for me to restore you to your home with the dignity, the splendour, and the company that your excellence deserves. Since, however, I am not even allowed to do this, and you are determined to be in Pavia forthwith, I shall do my best to get you there in the manner I have told you of.’ ‘My lord,’ said Messer Torello, ‘quite apart from your words, your actions have supplied me with abundant proof of your benevolence towards me, which far exceeds all my deserts, and even if you had said nothing, I should have lived and died in the certain knowledge that what you say is true. But since my mind is made up on the subject, I beg you to act quickly in the manner you have proposed, for after tomorrow I shall no longer be expected.’ Saladin assured him that everything was settled; and on the next day, it being his intention to send him on his way that same evening, he caused a most beautiful and sumptuous bed to be prepared in one of the great halls of his palace. It was a bed fashioned in the style of the East, with mattresses covered all over in velvet and cloth of gold, and Saladin had it bedecked with a quilt, embroidered with enormous pearls and the finest of precious stones, geometrically arranged, which was looked upon later, in these parts, as a priceless treasure. And finally he had two pillows placed upon it, of a quality appropriate to the bed itself. This done, he ordered that Messer Torello, who had now recovered, should be clothed in a robe of the kind that Saracens wear, more opulent and splendid than any that was ever seen, whilst around his head he caused one of his longest turbans to be wound. It was already late in the evening when Saladin, along with many of his lords, went to Messer Torello’s room; and having sat down beside him, he began, almost in tears, to address him as follows: ‘Messer Torello, the time is approaching for you to be severed from me, and since I can neither go with you nor send another in my place, being prevented from doing so by the manner of your travelling, I am forced to take my leave of you here and now, which is why I have come. But before bidding you farewell, I implore you in the name of our love and our friendship to remember me.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  However, Laozi was proved right in the end, because Qin’s cruel, oppressive policies led to a popular rebellion in 209 that brought the dynasty to a premature end. We can stop the vicious cycle of attack and counterattack, strike and counterstrike that holds the world in thrall today only if we learn to appreciate the wisdom of restraint toward the enemy. We have seen that when Jesus told his followers to love their enemies, he also urged an ethic of ahimsa . The written Torah permitted limited retaliation, so you could take only an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth 8 —but as Gandhi famously remarked, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”: Jesus was asking us to show courage when he told his disciples, “Offer the wicked man no resistance.” 9 But I say this to you who are listening: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly. To the man who slaps you on one cheek, present the other cheek too; to the man who takes your cloak from you, do not refuse your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and do not ask for your property back from the man who robs you. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. 10 Jesus is preaching an openhanded, openhearted attitude designed, as in the Daodejing , to disarm the enemy. Such love expects no personal recompense. “If you love those who love you, what thanks can you expect? … Instead, love your enemies and do good, and lend without any hope of return.” 11 The Greek text is obscure here: the last phrase could also mean “driving no one to despair” or “despairing of no one.” We have witnessed the result of hard-line policies inspired by a righteousness that can see only the worst in the enemy. We have seen the danger of ruthless retaliation that drives people to despair, ignores their needs, and refuses to take their aspirations seriously. We have become aware that when people feel that they have nothing to lose, they resort to hopeless, self-destructive measures. This voice of compassion is not confined to the distant past. We have heard it in recent times. At the end of his life, Gandhi claimed that he no longer hated anybody. He might hate the oppressive system of British colonialism, but he could not hate the people who implemented it. “Mine is not an exclusive love. I cannot love Moslems or Hindus and hate Englishmen. For if I love merely Hindus and Moslems because their ways are on the whole pleasing to me, I shall soon begin to hate them when their ways displease me, as they may well do any moment.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  In Semitic languages, the word for “compassion” (rahamanut in post-biblical Hebrew and rahman in Arabic), is related etymologically to rehem/RHM (“womb”). The icon of mother and child is an archetypal expression of human love. It evokes the maternal affection that in all likelihood gave birth to our capacity for unselfish, unconditional altruism. It may well be that the experience of teaching, guiding, soothing, protecting, and nourishing their young taught men and women how to look after people other than their own kin, developing a concern that was not based on cold calculation but imbued with warmth. We humans are more radically dependent on love than any other species. Our brains have evolved to be caring and to need care—to such an extent that they are impaired if this nurture is lacking. 21 Mother love involves affective love; it has a powerful hormonal base, but it also requires dedicated, unselfish action “all day and every day.” A mother’s concern for her child pervades all her activities. Whether she feels like it or not, she has to get up to her crying infant night after night, watch him at every moment of the day, and learn to control her own exhaustion, impatience, anger, and frustration. She is tied to her child long after he has reached adulthood; indeed, on both sides, the relationship is usually terminated only at death. Maternal love can be heartbreaking as well as fulfilling; it requires stamina, fortitude, and a strong degree of selflessness. We know from our own experience that human beings do not confine their altruistic behavior to those who carry their genes. The Confucian philosopher Mencius (c. 371–c. 289 BCE) was convinced that nobody was wholly without sympathy for other people. If you saw a child poised perilously on the edge of a well, you would immediately lunge forward to save her. Your action is not inspired by self-interest: you would not pause to ascertain whether or not she was related to you; you were not motivated by the desire to ingratiate yourself with her parents or win the admiration of your friends, or by the fact that you were irritated by her cries for help. There was no time for such calculation; you would simply feel her plight in your gut. There would be something disturbingly wrong with a person who watched the child fall to her death without a flicker of unease. Firefighters regularly plunge into burning houses to rescue people who are entirely unknown to them; volunteers risk their lives to rescue climbers stranded on mountainsides; and we have all heard stories of passersby who save total strangers from drowning, often insisting that there was nothing heroic about it: “I could do nothing else,” they will say. “I could no more have let go of his hand than cut off my own.”

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  Bring this image deliberately to mind at various times in the day. Summon it when you are feeling sorry for yourself—or during a moment of happiness, when you are filled with gratitude for your good fortune. Make a friend of the distressed person, so that she becomes a presence in your life: direct your thoughts of loving kindness and compassion to her during your meditation on the Immeasurables. But it cannot stop there. Christina found that the way to transcend the overwhelming memories of her appalling childhood was to work practically to alleviate the pain of others. If we hug the memory of our own grief to ourselves, we can close our minds to other people’s wretchedness. We may even think that our unhappy experiences give us special privileges. But the Golden Rule requires us to use our afflictions to make a difference in the lives of others. We cannot allow ourselves to feel paralyzed by the immensity of global misery. Christina’s story reminds us of the significant difference that one person can make. We cannot all rush off to foreign parts as Christina did. Indeed, there is no need to do so: we will find plenty of opportunities on our own doorstep. Suffering is not confined to distant parts of the globe. During this step, take time to look around your world again. Your training in mindfulness and new appreciation of the ubiquity of pain should make you experience your immediate environment differently. You may find that you are now more sensitized to the sorrow that is present wherever we look. We need to train our minds to see it. Because we have a self-protective tendency to keep suffering at bay, insulating ourselves in a psychological equivalent of the Buddha’s pleasure park, we sometimes fail to recognize the signs of poverty, loneliness, grief, fear, and desolation in our own city, our own village, or our own family. So look at your world anew, and do not leave this step until you have chosen your mission. There is a need that you—and only you—can fulfill. Do not imagine that you are doomed to a life of grim austerity or that your involvement in suffering will drain your life of fun. In fact, you may find that alleviating the distress of others makes you a good deal happier. Journalists often compare Christina to the late Mother Teresa, but she will have none of it. I don’t know why they do that, it only proves they don’t really know me. I do all the things a saint wouldn’t do. I belt out songs in clubs ... I enjoy a double whisky now and then. I love dancing. I like to ride fast on the back of a Honda. Although I detest violence if I have to protect a child by giving someone a wallop, I’ll do it. I’m more than a bit wild. I’m Irish.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  We have thought carefully about the way our own suffering affects the way we behave. We have learned that the seeds of our anger are often in our own minds and that it is neither helpful nor accurate to assume that other people are always responsible for our pain. When you see violence in other parts of the world portrayed on the evening news, do you look askance at the rage and hatred in people’s faces, or do you ask yourself about the distress that has inspired this anger? Make a habit of looking behind the headlines to the ordinary people who are affected by a crisis. Remember that they did not choose to be born into that part of the world. Like you, they simply found themselves in a particular situation and may have been forced to conduct their whole lives in a context of violence, deprivation, and despair. We know from our own experience that deeds have long-term consequences. We are all affected, consciously and unconsciously, by the unkindness, neglect, contempt, and violence we have endured in the past. This is also true of whole nations: persecution, chronic warfare, bad governance, exploitation, marginalization, occupation, humiliation, enslavement, exile, impoverishment, and defamation all leave psychic scars that persist long after the event. They affect the way the new generation is brought up and can infiltrate the religious, intellectual, ethical, and social development of a country. People who have been taught to despise themselves cannot easily respect others. Those who have been brutalized by hatred, persecution, or oppression cannot readily cultivate the trust that makes it possible to reach out to others. We should ask whether our own nation has contributed to the problems of a particular region and realize that, in our global world, if we ignore the pain of a people, it is likely that at some point this negligence will rebound on us. Remember Confucius’s advice about the way to apply the ethic of the Golden Rule to politics: “You yourself desire rank and standing; then help others to get rank and standing. You want to turn your merits to account; then help others to turn theirs to account.”6 We can no longer thrive at the expense of others. A practically expressed respect for the other is probably indispensable for a peaceful global society.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  The violence and cruelty of the Warring States had made Xunzi more acutely aware than Confucius of the darkness of the human heart. Everybody, he said, “is born with feelings of envy and hate, and if he indulges these, they will lead him into violence and crime, and all sense of loyalty and good faith will disappear.”42 But if he found a good teacher, submitted himself wholeheartedly to the li that taught him to treat others with respect, and obeyed the rules of society, he could become a sage.43 It was no good doing what came naturally or relying on Heaven, the High God of China, to step in. It was pointless singing hymns to Heaven and paying no heed to the conduct of human affairs. If we concentrated on Heaven and neglected what human beings could do for themselves, Xunzi insisted again and again, “we fail to understand the nature of things.”44 According to popular legend, the rituals (li) had been devised in remote antiquity by the legendary sage kings of China, Yao, Shun, and Yu. Xunzi argued that when these saintly men had contemplated the world, they realized that the only way they could end the intolerable misery they saw all around them was by a huge intellectual effort that began with the transformation of their own selves. So they created li based on shu (“likening to oneself”) and the Golden Rule to moderate their own unruly passions, and when they put them into practice, they discovered an inner peace. By looking into their own hearts, critically observing their behavior, and taking note of their own reactions to pain and joy, these sages found a way to order social relations.45 A ruler could bring peace and order to society only if he had mastered his own primitive instincts. The rituals, Xunzi believed, had been inspired by the sages’ analysis of humanity; they had shaped the basic emotions engendered by our brain, just as an artist skillfully brought form and beauty out of unpromising material: they “trim what is too long, and stretch out what is too short, eliminate surplus and repair deficiency, extend the forms of love and reverence, and step by step, bring to fulfilment the beauties of proper conduct.”46 Even the stars, the planets, and the four seasons had to “yield” to one another to bring order out of potential chaos.47 So far from being unnatural, the li would bring a practitioner into alliance with the way things are and into the heart of reality.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  The written Torah permitted limited retaliation, so you could take only an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth 8 —but as Gandhi famously remarked, “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”: Jesus was asking us to show courage when he told his disciples, “Offer the wicked man no resistance.” 9 But I say this to you who are listening: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly. To the man who slaps you on one cheek, present the other cheek too; to the man who takes your cloak from you, do not refuse your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and do not ask for your property back from the man who robs you. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. 10 Jesus is preaching an openhanded, openhearted attitude designed, as in the Daodejing, to disarm the enemy. Such love expects no personal recompense. “If you love those who love you, what thanks can you expect? ... Instead, love your enemies and do good, and lend without any hope of return.” 11 The Greek text is obscure here: the last phrase could also mean “driving no one to despair” or “despairing of no one.” We have witnessed the result of hard-line policies inspired by a righteousness that can see only the worst in the enemy. We have seen the danger of ruthless retaliation that drives people to despair, ignores their needs, and refuses to take their aspirations seriously. We have become aware that when people feel that they have nothing to lose, they resort to hopeless, self-destructive measures. This voice of compassion is not confined to the distant past. We have heard it in recent times. At the end of his life, Gandhi claimed that he no longer hated anybody. He might hate the oppressive system of British colonialism, but he could not hate the people who implemented it. “Mine is not an exclusive love. I cannot love Moslems or Hindus and hate Englishmen. For if I love merely Hindus and Moslems because their ways are on the whole pleasing to me, I shall soon begin to hate them when their ways displease me, as they may well do any moment. A love that is based on the goodness of those whom you love is a mercenary affair.” 12 Without any feelings of recrimination, Nelson Mandela walked out of the South African prison in which he had been confined for twenty-seven years, and when he came to power initiated a process of reconciliation rather than seeking revenge.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  That is the whole of the Torah and the remainder is but commentary. Go study it.” 48 This provocative statement was intended to shock the audience into an appreciation of the importance of compassion. There is no mention of such doctrines as the unity of God, the creation of the world, the exodus from Egypt, or the 613 commandments. For Hillel, all these were simply a “commentary” on the Golden Rule. Other monotheists would come to the same conclusion. It is not that other devotions and beliefs are unimportant; the point is that there is something wrong with any spirituality that does not inspire selfless concern for others. Hillel was also making a statement about exegesis, the interpretation of scripture. He concludes with a miqra, a “call to action”: “Go study!” As they scrutinized the ancient texts in an effort to make them speak to the post-temple age, Jews should use their creative insights to make them all a “commentary,” a mere gloss, on the Golden Rule. The great rabbi Akiva, executed by the Romans in 135 CE, taught that the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” was the greatest principle of the Torah. 49 Only his pupil Ben Azzai disagreed, preferring the simple biblical statement “This is the roll of the descendents of Adam” because it emphasized the unity of the human race. 50 In order to reveal the presence of compassion at the core of all the legislation and narratives of the Torah, the rabbis would sometimes twist the original sense and even change the words of scripture. They were not interested in merely elucidating the original intention of the biblical author. Midrash (“exegesis”) was an essentially inventive discipline, deriving from the verb darash, “to search,” “to investigate,” or “to go in pursuit of” something that was not immediately self-evident. A rabbi would be expected to find fresh meaning in scripture, which, as the word of God, was infinite and could not be tied down to a single interpretation. Another famous story shows that from the very beginning, the rabbis realized that compassion was the key to religion now that the temple had been destroyed. It happened that R. Johanan ben Zakkai went out from Jerusalem and R. Joshua followed him and saw the burnt ruins of the Temple and he said: “Woe is it that the place, where the sins of Israel find atonement, is laid waste.” Then said R. Johanan, “Grieve not, we have an atonement equal to the Temple, the doing of loving deeds [gemilut hasadim], as it is said, ‘I desire love [hesed] and not sacrifice.’ ” 51 Practically expressed compassion was now a priestly act that would atone for sins more effectively than the temple sacrifices. It is a good example of the new midrash. Rabbi Johanan is quoting the prophet Hosea, who would probably have been surprised by his interpretation.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  Some researchers attribute this response to the “mirror neurons” in the frontal region of the brain, which light up on the neuroimagist’s screen when the subject watches somebody else burning her hand. These recently discovered neurons seem to mediate empathy and enable us to feel the pain of another as if it were our own—simply by watching her experience it. 22 You could stamp on this natural shoot of compassion, Mencius argued, just as you can cripple or deform your body, but if you cultivate this altruistic tendency assiduously, it will acquire a dynamic power of its own. 23 The religious systems have all discovered that it is indeed possible to nourish the shoots of compassion described by Mencius and learn to withstand the me-first mechanisms of the old reptilian brain. Human beings have always been prepared to work hard to enhance a natural ability. We doubtless learned to run and jump in order to escape from our predators, but from these basic skills we developed ballet and gymnastics: after years of dedicated practice men and women acquire the ability to move with unearthly grace and achieve physical feats that are impossible for an untrained body. We devised language to improve communications and now we have poetry, which pushes speech into another dimension. In the same way, those who have persistently trained themselves in the art of compassion manifest new capacities in the human heart and mind; they discover that when they reach out consistently toward others, they are able to live with the suffering that inevitably comes their way with serenity, kindness, and creativity. They find that they have a new clarity and experience a richly intensified state of being. The Four Fs are powerful; they can overturn all our efforts to live more kindly and rationally in a second, but we are thinking beings, with a fully developed neocortex, and have the ability to take responsibility for them. Indeed, we have a duty to protect ourselves and others from our more destructive instincts. Do we want to succumb to our reptilian brain, when we have seen for ourselves what can happen when hatred, disgust, greed, or the desire for vengeance consume entire groups? In our perilously divided world, compassion is in our best interest. To acquire it, however, will demand an immense effort of mind and heart. Gandhi memorably said that we must ourselves become the change that we wish to see in the world. We cannot reasonably expect the leaders of our own or other people’s nations to adopt more humane policies if we ourselves continue to live egotistically, unkindly, and greedily, and give free rein to unexamined prejudice.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  In exactly the same way as you apply it to family life, Confucius replied: by treating everybody with respect. Behave away from home as though you were in the presence of an important guest. Deal with the common people as though you were officiating at an important sacrifice. Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no feelings of opposition to you, whether it is the affairs of a State that you are handling or the affairs of a Family. 2 8 There would be no destructive wars if a ruler behaved toward other princes and states in this way; the Golden Rule would make it impossible to invade somebody else’s territory because nobody would like this to happen to his own state. It was quite simple, Confucius explained to his outspoken pupil Zigong: As for ren , you yourself desire rank and standing; then help others to get rank and standing. You want to turn your merits to account; then help others to turn theirs to account—in fact, the ability to take one’s own feelings as a guide—that is the sort of thing that lies in the direction of ren . 29 Any ruler who behaved in this way, working for the true welfare of the people and laying his own interests aside, would become a force for great good in the world. The family was the place where a junzi learned to live as a fully humane and mature person. 30 It was a school of compassion. But ren could not be confined to the family. In a vision that was not unlike the Buddha’s, Confucius saw each person at the center of a constantly expanding series of concentric circles of compassion. 31 The lessons a junzi had learned from taking care of his parents, his wife, and his siblings would educate and enlarge his heart so that he felt empathy with more and more people: first with his city or village, then with his state, and finally with the entire world. The summons of ren was never ending. It was difficult because it required the abandonment of the vanity, resentment, and desire to dominate to which we are addicted. 32 And yet because ren was natural to us, an essential part of our humanity, it was easy. “Is ren so far away?” Confucius asked. “If we really wanted ren , we should find that it was at our very side.” 33 Those who followed his Way found that it transformed their lives, even though it was a lifelong struggle that would end only with death. 34 Confucius did not encourage speculation about what lay at the end of the Way; walking along the path of shu was itself a transcendent experience because, if practiced “all day and every day,” it led to a continual ekstasis that left the grasping self behind.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  As you progress, you will probably become aware that everything is more complex than you thought. We tend to see other peoples in simplified snapshots similar to the sound bites of the evening news that stick stubbornly in our minds. People often assume, for example, that London is perpetually shrouded in fog, because they have seen too many television adaptations of Charles Dickens, and that it is always raining, even though London actually has less rainfall per year than Rome, Istanbul, or Sydney (though I fully admit most of it does fall in summer!). People also seem to think that Britons drink gallons of tea every day and reel back in astonishment when I refuse a cup—I have disliked the stuff all my life! As you get to know your “adopted” country or tradition a little better, you will begin to notice this stereotypical thinking in your friends and will want to put them right. You may also find that they are surprisingly resistant to changing their perceptions and ideas, because these have become part of their private geography. When you make the meditation on the Immeasurables, you might include the people you are getting to know, extending to them your friendship, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. Think of the marvelous qualities of the country or tradition you are studying, feel gratitude for its particular contribution to humanity, but also recall its suffering, its failures, and its crimes, and extend your compassion to it. Remember the millions of people who have participated in this tradition or been citizens of this country, each with their own history of pain, and wish for them everything that you wish for yourself. Finally, you will regard them with upeksha: their traditions may be as flawed as your own, yet you extend your compassion, friendship, and sympathetic joy to them nonetheless. Once you have begun to appreciate the complexity of understanding another country or tradition, it is time to embark on the second exercise of this step. Here you will be investigating issues that are more sensitive. Turn to the Suggestions for Further Reading and find the section headed Concern for Everybody. Here I have listed some books about the current tension between the West and the Islamic world, a topic of major concern at the moment and one on which most people have an opinion. First read the titles and get a sense of the range of issues that are being discussed. Then select a book that you think will reflect your point of view and another that will probably challenge it. Here too you will need to apply the “science of compassion” and the “principle of charity.” Again, remember the seventh step: How Little We Know. As you read, list the ways in which both authors have altered your thinking.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  In this step, you are going to add three more stages to the meditation on the “immeasurable minds of love.” Again, imagine yourself at the center of a series of concentric circles. Then, after you have directed your friendship, compassion, joy, and even-mindedness toward yourself, turn your attention to three individuals known to you. It is important to be specific or the exercise will degenerate into meaningless generalities. Call to mind in turn a person for whom you have no strong feelings one way or the other; somebody you like, such as a friend or family member; and finally a person you dislike. Call them by name; picture each one of them sitting beside you so that they are vividly present to you. As you direct the four Immeasurables to each one of them in turn, think of their good points, their contribution to your own life; their generosity, courage, and sense of humor. Look deeply into their hearts, insofar as you can, and see their pain: the sufferings you are aware of and all the private sorrows that you will never know about. You will then desire them to be free of their pain and resolve to help them in any way you can. Wish for each of your three people the joy that you desire for yourself, and finally admit that you all have faults—yourself, the person you feel neutral toward, the one you like, as well as the one you find objectionable. You are striving for upeksha, the equanimity that enables you to relate to people impartially. The meditation obviously becomes more difficult when you try to direct these thoughts of friendship, compassion, joy, and even-mindedness to the person you dislike. Stay with this difficulty and become fully aware of it, because it shows how limited your compassion is. We may think that we are compassionate people, but so much of our goodwill is dependent upon subjective likes and dislikes. Notice the angry thoughts that arise in your mind when you think of this individual and see how unattractive they are. Other people like her, so it is probable that your dislike stems entirely from her attitude toward you. Does she threaten your interests, get in your way, or behave in a manner that makes you think less well of yourself? If so, your dislike is probably based on the ego delusion we considered during the last step. There is nothing immutable or objective about friendship or enmity: nobody is born a friend or an enemy; last year’s friend can become next year’s enemy. She has good and bad qualities, just as you do. Like everybody else in the world, she longs for happiness and wishes to be free of pain. She suffers in ways that you will never know. How, therefore, can you single her out for your dislike and refuse to direct your feelings of friendship, compassion, joy, and even-mindedness to her?

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  His lay disciple King Pasenadi of Kosala was extremely impressed by the friendliness of the Buddhist community, which was in marked contrast to the royal court, where everybody was on the lookout for himself and chronically quarrelsome. When he sat with his council, he complained, he was constantly interrupted and sometimes even heckled. But when he visited the Buddha, he saw monks “living together as uncontentiously as milk with water and looking at one another with kind eyes ... smiling, courteous, sincerely happy ... their minds remaining as gentle as wild deer.” 6 One day he told the Buddha about a conversation with his wife in which they had both admitted that nothing was more important to them than their own selves. Instead of lecturing the king on the “unskilful” nature of egotism or launching into a discussion of anatta, he entered into Pasenadi’s position, starting from where his disciple actually was rather than where the Buddha thought he ought to be. He suggested that if the king found that there was nothing dearer to him than himself, he should reflect that everybody else felt exactly the same. Therefore, the Buddha concluded, giving Pasenadi his version of the Golden Rule, “A person who loves the self should not harm the self of others.” 7 Like Socrates, the Buddha believed that knowledge was a process of self-discovery. You did not gain insight by accepting the opinions of other people but by finding the truth within yourself. Even laypeople could achieve this. The Kalamans, a tribal people living on the northernmost fringe of the Ganges basin who were trying to find their place in the new urban civilization, sent a delegation to the Buddha. They were utterly confused: one teacher after another had descended upon them, but each simply promoted his own teachings and poured scorn on all the others. How could they tell who was right? “Come, Kalamans,” the Buddha said, “do not be satisfied with hearsay or taking truth on trust.” Instead of reeling off his own dharma and giving the poor bewildered Kalamans yet another doctrine to puzzle over, he told them that they were expecting other people to give them the answer when, if they looked into their own minds, they would find that they knew it already. Step by step, he helped them to draw upon their own experience: Was greed good or bad? Had they not noticed that when somebody was consumed by greed, he could become aggressive and even steal or lie? And had they observed that hatred simply made the hater unhappy? Yes, the Kalamans had noticed all this. So, the Buddha concluded, they had not needed him at all: they knew his dharma already. If instead of giving rein to their hatred and greed they tried to live more kindly and generously, they would find that they were happier.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion. We therefore call upon all men and women [image file=image_125.jpg] to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion; [image file=image_125.jpg] to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate; [image file=image_125.jpg] to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures; [image file=image_125.jpg] to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity; [image file=image_125.jpg] to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies. We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community. The charter was launched on November 12, 2009, in sixty different locations throughout the world; it was enshrined in synagogues, mosques, temples, and churches as well as in such secular institutions as the Karachi Press Club and the Sydney Opera House. But the work is only just beginning. At this writing, we have more than 150 partners working together throughout the globe to translate the charter into practical, realistic action.1

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  79 To counter the arrogant self-sufficiency of jahiliyyah , Muhammad asked his followers to make an existential “surrender” ( islam ) of their entire being to Allah, the Compassionate ( al-Rahman ) and Merciful ( al-Rahim ), who had given “signs” ( ayat ) of his benevolence to human beings in all the wonders of the created world. 80 A muslim was a man or woman who had made this surrender of ego. One of the first things Muhammad asked his converts to do was to prostrate themselves in prayer several times a day; it was difficult for Arabs imbued with the haughty jahili spirit to grovel on the ground like a slave, but the posture of their bodies was designed to teach them at a level deeper than the rational that the “surrender” of islam entailed daily transcendence of the preening, prancing ego. Muslims were also required to give a regular proportion of their income to the poor; this zakat (“purification”) would purge their hearts of residual selfishness. At first the religion preached by Muhammad was called tazakkah , an obscure word related to zakat , which means “refinement, generosity, chivalry.” Muslims were to cloak themselves in the virtues of compassion, using their intelligence to contemplate God’s “signs” in nature in order to cultivate a similarly caring and responsible spirit that would make them want to give graciously to all God’s creatures. Because of Allah’s bountiful kindness, there was order and fertility where there could have been chaos and sterility. If they followed this example, they would find that instead of being trapped in the selfish barbarism of jahiliyyah , they would acquire spiritual refinement. Islam is not a pacifist religion; Muhammad had to fight a war of self-defense against the Qurayshi establishment of Mecca, who had vowed to exterminate the Muslim community. Aggression and the preemptive strike were strictly forbidden. Sometimes fighting was necessary to preserve such humane values as religious freedom. 81 But it was always better to forgive and to sit down quietly and reason with your enemy, provided that this dialogue was conducted “in the most kindly manner.” 82 Tragically, Muhammad found that war had its own deadly dynamic; in the desperate struggle, atrocities were committed by both sides. So as soon as the tide turned in his favor, Muhammad adopted a nonviolent policy, riding unarmed with a thousand unarmed Muslims into enemy territory. There, having narrowly escaped being massacred by the Meccan cavalry, he negotiated a treaty with the Quraysh, accepting terms that seemed to his outraged followers to throw away all the advantages they had gained. Yet that evening, the Qur’an declared that this apparent defeat was a “manifest victory.”

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  That would have made many people bitter—myself included—but she had not allowed this to sour her; she was one of the kindest people I had ever met. There was nothing sentimental about her, however; indeed, she was often quite fierce with us. She was also rather eccentric, so it was impossible to put her on a saintly pedestal. One afternoon, I remember, she got it into her head that the garden was in a deplorable state and sent us all out, in our long black habits, veils, and clattering rosary beads, into the driving rain to weed the flower beds, banging on the window to spur us on. And even though she herself was in constant pain, she was horrified to hear about my increasingly frequent bouts of nausea and nosebleeds. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in genuine distress. Despite her increasing debility, she took time to give me special lessons in logic, and was genuinely delighted when I got good reports from the tutors who were preparing me for the entrance examinations to Oxford University. But finally she was taken to the Mother House to die. We young nuns all went into her room and stood around her bed to say good-bye. As she bade us farewell, she spoke of her imminent death with her usual pragmatism. “They’ve appointed a new superior for you, but she won’t arrive until August!” she exclaimed, managing to laugh despite her obvious weakness and pain. “I’ll be dead by then!” As we trooped out, she called me back and I went to kneel beside her bed. “Sister,” she said, “when you came, I was told that you might be a problem. But I want you to know that you have never been a trouble to me. You are a good girl, Sister. Remember I told you so.” I have never forgotten it. She was not saying anything cheesy, such as “I see future greatness in you”: what she must have seen was a confused, immature, and rather tiresome young woman. It would have been so easy for her to close her eyes with relief as we left the room, take her pain medication, and sink back onto her pillow, but she made a valiant effort to reassure me because she could see that I was struggling. I tell this story to show that one small act of kindness can turn a life around. I am quite sure that she must have forgotten the incident after an hour or two, but it has stayed with me all my life. In the troubled years that followed, I often recalled her words at particularly bleak moments. Indeed, I think of them still when I feel anything but good.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  Once we know that the cause of so much human pain is within ourselves, we have the motivation to change. We will find that we are happier when we are peaceful than when we are angry or restless, and that, like the Buddha, we can make the effort to cultivate these positive emotions, noticing, for example, that when we perform an act of kindness we ourselves feel better. Mindfulness should not make us anxious. Instead of being afraid of what will happen tomorrow, or wishing it was this time last week, we can learn to live more fully in the present. Instead of allowing a past memory to cloud our present mood, we can learn to savor simple pleasures—a sunset, an apple, or a joke. Mindfulness should be something that becomes habitual, but it is not an end in itself. It should segue naturally into action and could, after a few days, be profitably combined with the next step. THE SIXTH STEPActionOn arrival at the House of Studies as a recently professed nun, I discovered that my new superior was dying of cancer. I was twenty years old, bruised by the abrasive training of the novitiate and eager for this new phase to begin, but things were starting to fall apart for me. Even though she was so sick, I was fortunate in my superior during this difficult time. She had had a hard life. She had been a promising school principal but, at the age of thirty, had suddenly become deaf, had to give up teaching, and was sent to work in the laundry room, where she remained for decades, folding towels and darning sheets. That would have made many people bitter—myself included—but she had not allowed this to sour her; she was one of the kindest people I had ever met. There was nothing sentimental about her, however; indeed, she was often quite fierce with us. She was also rather eccentric, so it was impossible to put her on a saintly pedestal. One afternoon, I remember, she got it into her head that the garden was in a deplorable state and sent us all out, in our long black habits, veils, and clattering rosary beads, into the driving rain to weed the flower beds, banging on the window to spur us on. And even though she herself was in constant pain, she was horrified to hear about my increasingly frequent bouts of nausea and nosebleeds. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in genuine distress. Despite her increasing debility, she took time to give me special lessons in logic, and was genuinely delighted when I got good reports from the tutors who were preparing me for the entrance examinations to Oxford University.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  But one night, King Priam of Troy enters the Greek camp incognito and makes his way to Achilles’ tent to beg for the body of his son. To the astonishment of Achilles’ companions, the old man throws off his disguise and falls at the feet of his son’s slayer, weeping and kissing the hands that “were dangerous and man-slaughtering and had killed so many of his sons.” 23 His utter abasement awakens in Achilles a profound grief for his own dead father, and he begins to weep too, “now for his own father, now again for Patroclus.” 24 The two men cling together, mourning their dead. Then Achilles rises, takes Priam’s hand, and raises him gently to his feet “in pity for the grey head and the grey beard.” 25 Carefully, tenderly, he hands over Hector’s body, concerned that its weight might be too much for the frail old man. And then the two enemies look at each other in silent awe: Priam, son of Dardanos, gazed upon Achilles, wondering At his size and beauty, for he seemed like an outright vision Of gods. Achilles in turn gazed on Dardanian Priam And wondered, as he saw his brave looks, and listened to him talking. 26 In the midst of a deadly war, the shared suffering and pity of it all had enabled each man to transcend his hatred and see the sacred mystery of his enemy. A Last Word The Trojan War did not end with the embrace of Achilles and Priam. The fighting continued the next day and would not cease until the beautiful city of Troy was destroyed. We have moments of insight that take us beyond our self-absorption, but it is all too easy to fall back into our old ways. Yaakov’s epiphany at Peniel was the high point of his life, but he was unable to build upon it. The authors of Genesis show that his later life was characterized by a debilitating egotism. When his daughter Dinah is raped, Yaakov is more concerned about his standing in the region than with her suffering. Instead of treating all members of his family with equal affection, he shows a self-indulgent partiality to his favorite son that has almost fatal consequences. This does not mean that we end on a depressing note. It is rather a reminder that the attempt to become a compassionate human being is a lifelong project. It is not achieved in an hour or a day—or even in twelve steps. It is a struggle that will last until our dying hour. Nearly every day we will fail, but we cannot give up like Yaakov; we must pick ourselves up and start again. If you have followed the steps carefully, you have come a long way. But the process is not over. You will have to work at all twelve steps continuously for the rest of your life—learning more about compassion, surveying your world anew, struggling with self-hatred and discouragement.

• From Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life (2010)

  But Xunzi refused to lose faith. He still believed that the “yielding” spirit of the rituals could bring China back from the abyss, although he admitted that in these hard times they would have to be backed up with incentives and punishments. He remained convinced that a charismatic, compassionate ruler could save the world: He takes up arms in order to put an end to violence and to do away with harm, not in order to compete with others for spoil. Therefore when the soldiers of the benevolent man encamp, they command a godlike respect; and where they pass, they transform the people. They are like seasonable rain in whose falling all men rejoice. 41 It was a beautiful vision, and although Xunzi had to admit that the Confucians had never succeeded in persuading rulers to let the Golden Rule guide their policies, he insisted that it was not an impossible ideal. Any man in the street, he believed, could become a Confucian sage. The violence and cruelty of the Warring States had made Xunzi more acutely aware than Confucius of the darkness of the human heart. Everybody, he said, “is born with feelings of envy and hate, and if he indulges these, they will lead him into violence and crime, and all sense of loyalty and good faith will disappear.” 42 But if he found a good teacher, submitted himself wholeheartedly to the li that taught him to treat others with respect, and obeyed the rules of society, he could become a sage. 43 It was no good doing what came naturally or relying on Heaven, the High God of China, to step in. It was pointless singing hymns to Heaven and paying no heed to the conduct of human affairs. If we concentrated on Heaven and neglected what human beings could do for themselves, Xunzi insisted again and again, “we fail to understand the nature of things.” 44 According to popular legend, the rituals ( li ) had been devised in remote antiquity by the legendary sage kings of China, Yao, Shun, and Yu. Xunzi argued that when these saintly men had contemplated the world, they realized that the only way they could end the intolerable misery they saw all around them was by a huge intellectual effort that began with the transformation of their own selves. So they created li based on shu (“likening to oneself”) and the Golden Rule to moderate their own unruly passions, and when they put them into practice, they discovered an inner peace.