Universal Compassion

I have a challenge for you – but first I want to write a little about universal compassion. Many religions and philosophies hold “universal compassion” as a moral value that we should try to practice in our everyday life. It is best defined as a desire to alleviate the suffering of others, and it is often a byproduct of empathy (our ability to understand another’s perspective) and altruism (valuing the welfare of others).

When I was younger, I have to admit I used to disregard a lot of empathy and compassion as meaningless and superficial. I recall watching news stories that seemed designed to tug at my emotions and manipulate me to feel a certain way. It seemed that if I didn’t sympathize or want to help others, I should feel guilty and ashamed of myself. In reality, I just wanted to take care of myself and discover my values on my own.

Over time, I learned to minimize my empathy and compassion for others. They were values that felt forced down my throat, and as a reaction I decided that I wouldn’t practice them. I wasn’t a moral nihilist, I just wanted to discover my own values for myself, like most people want to. I think everyone’s morality needs to be discovered for themselves, and blindly following other people’s values is always a recipe for disaster.

Then as I got older, and perhaps a bit more selfish, I noticed I couldn’t find happiness living this way. I used to harbor really negative feelings towards others. I found many people to be manipulators, liars, idiots, guilt-trippers, haters, and just plain evil. By this point I was already starting to get into personal development and trying to find happiness on my own.

Then things began to change. I had learned a lot of useful personal development techniques already (how to think more effectively, set goals, and so on), but there felt like something at my core was missing. I felt more rational than ever, but emotionally lost. I couldn’t make any sense of it.

Then, upon someone’s recommendation, I picked up Eckhart Tolle’s books Power of Now and New Earth. From that moment I began meditating and getting more attuned to who I was as a person or “self.” I gradually began to read more resources on Buddhism, Taoism, and Sufism, and I felt a wave of wisdom and clarity slowly crashing onto me.

I found that I was not as independent of a self as I thought I was. I was, in fact, quite interconnected to the people around me. I found that when I harbored negative feelings toward others, it was actually a reflection of my own insecurities and personality flaws. I didn’t like other people mainly because I thought they could never like me. The changed the way I treated others, which changed the way they treated me, and it turned into a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy.

The more I understood and experienced the metaphysical notion of “interconnectedness,” the more I realized how important empathy and compassion were. Because when people did things that caused me pain, I knew that was actually a reflection of their own suffering as well. I knew it, because I had been there myself.

With this understanding, I practiced becoming more empathetic and compassionate toward others. Not because someone on the news, or at church, told me that this is what I had to do (or I was evil). I did it because I could see clearly why I should value and contribute to the happiness of others.

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Plato

In Robert Thurman’s book Infinite Life he describes a great metta meditation designed to expand our circle of compassion. We first start by sending positive intentions to those who are closest to us: friends, families or coworkers. Then we expand those positive intentions to the friends of our friends, families, or coworkers. From there we move on to showing compassion toward random strangers. Then, sometimes the most difficult step, is extending that compassion even to those who we dislike or consider to be enemies. Thurman describes a similar meditation in his TED video below.

Expanding Your Circle of Compassion

“It’s hard to always show compassion — even to the people we love, but Robert Thurman asks that we develop compassion for our enemies. He prescribes a seven-step meditation exercise to extend compassion beyond our inner circle.”

The Hitler Test

In light of this expanding circle of compassion, I wonder how many individuals can honestly say they have compassion for notoriously evil figures throughout our history, like Hitler or Osama Bin Laden.

It’s a question that I have pondered about for awhile (long before writing this post). I’ve asked people on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media if they could ever see themselves showing compassion to someone like Hitler and it has led to some really controversial debates.

I think this question is a good test for those who are trying to cultivate universal compassion. It helps to pay particular attention to our enemies, since those are the people who we often find most difficult to direct compassion towards.

To direct compassion toward someone like Hitler means that you sympathize with their suffering. Clearly, it takes a really sick man to do the atrocious things he had done. If only he had found true happiness and love in his own life, I doubt he would have acted so immorally. Perhaps if we can learn to better understand how to love our enemies, we can help reverse the cycle of suffering in this world.

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RELIGION AND MORAL BEHAVIOR

Out of good intentions or not, religion is largely an institution designed to control how others behave. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the ten commandments and The Bible serve as the pillar of moral code.

The ten commandments, which were supposedly authored by God and handed down to the prophet Moses say:

1. I am the Lord your God.
2. Thou shall have no other gods before me.
3. Thou shall not use the name of the Lord your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.
5. Honor thy father and mother.
6. Thou shall not murder.
7. Thou shall not commit adultery.
8. Thou shall not steal.
9. Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
10. Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods.

These are words that all good Christians and Jews should know and remember. At quick glance, and ignoring the superstitions regarding “God,” the ten commandments themselves seem like worthy recommendations of good conduct. Indeed, religion is largely an institution that glorifies love and respect for everyone, and thus the messages of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are so permeating throughout our world and culture. In many ways the values held by Judaism and Christianity have even shaped the Western legal systems we have today (even despite modern day secularism in politics).

MORALITY IN THE NAME OF RELIGION

Moral actions that are done in the name of religion are a different story, and often not as desirable as the conduct that is promoted in The Bible. Human history has been littered with holy wars, killing and otherwise immoral behavior – all in the name of a supposed all-knowing and all-loving God.

Something just doesn’t add up. What is it about the teaching of religion that can lead people to do such heinous acts?

I have a couple possible explanations. For one, humans are by nature imperfect. Some of them may misunderstand the teachings of their religion. Another reason may be that heavy emotions like greed, lust and hate get the better of an individual despite their religious upbringing. But I also think there is more to it.

WHAT HAS GOD DONE TO HUMAN MORALITY?

Despite the imperfect nature of man, religion itself is a vastly imperfect and out-dated construct of the human mind and morality. I don’t believe the flaw in religious morality has to do with the literal teachings of good conduct, which seem mostly reasonable, but the problem is in the context that they are presented.

A large part of this context is centered around God. God, the almighty inconceivable, is very much the foundation of religious morality. Without His existence, the whole system seems to fall apart. Why? Because good conduct is supposed to get you to Heaven, and bad conduct is supposed to send you to Hell.

The problem with this view of reality is that we are only given an incentive to do good for our own well-being, and we are told to avoid bad to save ourselves from eternal damnation. In other words, religion teaches us very little about the natural good in our hearts, and instead uses bribing and fear in order to coerce us into “good.”

I have a huge problem with this.

These kinds of stories and folktales, mostly to do with God, create a moral foundation of superstition. Without a solid foundations of values and virtues grounded in reason and evidence, of course there is a stronger likelihood of individuals abandoning their value system, acting irrationally, and willing to hurt others for careless and selfish gains. This is one of the main drawback of any dogmatic system.

HOW CAN WE FREE OURSELVES FROM SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS?

I think the best advice for finding one’s morality is to first deny the artificial values of any code of conduct created by religion and society. Certainly one can use religious texts and the values of society as a reference point. But in the end it really comes down to our own mind and rational thought in determining our specific system of values. I can’t imagine that any other being can rightfully make these decisions for us.

Defining one’s system of values is not a simple process. In fact, it is a process that is ongoing for as long as we live and act. We never know when we will find ourselves in a situation where we have to make a tough moral decision. We can look to the word of God, or we can get advice from friends and society, but in the end it is only the individual that chooses the action and bares its consequences. Sometimes we make wrong decisions – this does not mean we will be damned to hell, only that we have gained a new experience to learn from. In this sense if we take responsibility for our actions and the effect we have on the world, then we can never fall in the hands of “the devil.” We only have our self to fail, succeed, and grow. In a way this take on morality puts us in a much greater position of power and change then the morality touted by the traditional religions of the world.