Compassion

Compassion is the understanding of others, with the cultivated awareness of suffering.    Perhaps  more  accurately,    Compassion is empathy with the awareness of suffering.

The western concept of “empathy“, popular in the writings of twentieth century humanists, philosophers and psychologist has its own active verb tense. “to empathize” or “empathizing“. compassion does not have a verb tense in English… perhaps ” to sympathize“… but I will stick with Compassion, here.

To empathize is to imagine another’s experience,  compare that experience with his/hers and to be affected.   One empathizes with another person(s), organism(s) and their circumstance. It should be noted, that from a stand point of certain schools of thought,as in Zen Buddhism, Humanistic Psychology and existential- phenomenology, an organism is always considered with his circumstances. One is always interacting, affecting and being affected by his environment . This is “experience”, the participation of an organism in its world. “Phenomenology” is big ugly word for the study of experience(s), from subjective lenses.    “Empathizing”, is being affected by and imagining another(s) experience(s).

Another overlapping concept is “perspective-taking“. “Perspective taking” is imagining another’s experience and world-view.   Perspective-taking is objective and rational in method; and deliberate in avoiding any emotional affect and judgments.    To take another’s point-of-view and study while holding back any personal bias and presumption would be perspective taking. (see also Husserl’s bracketing or epoche`)
Is it at all possible to remove all bias?    Some psychologists argue that perspective taking is a primitive form of empathizing .

Alfie Cohen, Author of “Brighter Side of Human Nature“…… poses another  phenomenological approach to empathy that he calls “feeling-into“. To “feel-into” another’s circumstance, personal happenings, gestalt or being-in-this-world. Feeling-into is an full cognitive investigation of another’s subjective experience.

Back to Compassion

I do believe that there are people who can empathize or feel-into another’s situation without compassion.
A study of the psychopathology of some dangerous criminals might support my claim.   For example: there are a few who feel powerful or aroused when they imagine themselves as the victims of their violent attacks. in this case there is empathy and perspective taking, for pathological pleasure, but no compassion.

To act with compassion is to act and empathize, while recognizing and considering suffering. To act with compassion is to act and be affected by the suffering of others.

Understanding suffering is at the core of any study, religion, or way-of-being that is called Buddhism.  Thus compassion is a much talked about subject-matter . Understanding the nature of suffering is fundamental to Buddhist practice.
Note below a translation of the four Noble Truths of Buddhism

Four Nobel Truths of Buddhism .

• Suffering Exists in Life
• The Source of Suffering is attachment
• The Emancipation of Suffering is attainable
• The Path or the “Eightfold Path” (wisdom, conduct, development)

 
In Christianity, (at least from my non-religious outsider’s stand appointment), A great deal of importance is placed on the suffering of Jesus at the end of his days. In interpretations,   God seeks to empathize with man in the Life and times of Jesus. Followers seek to understand God in part by empathizing with the life and Crucifixion of Jesus. The very important Christian theme of Redemption is tied to suffering and compassion just as it is the teachings of Jesus, in the “Sermon on the Mount“.

Compassion is care for others. What can, at times, be overshadowed is the care for ones own well-being.   IMHO: It is important to act in the same compassionate manner for his or herself, as he does for others.   Just as important as anything written here:    The care and wellbeing of one’s self and others includes happiness, pleasure, curiosity and a spectrum of experiences…. not just suffering.

Compassion maybe a cornerstone of ethics along with self- esteem and reciprocity. If we truly love and esteem ourselves (that is, our being) ;    If we treat each other in the manner we wish to be treated, then we may presume that no one likes pain and suffering.   We’d care for ourselves and others, and act accordingly— rich in understanding perspectives beyond our own.
It would be unethical to deliberatively harm another (or one’s own being) that we have compassion and care for.

New Years Day. Death, Living and Changing

It is the new year: The beginning of a new calendar cycle – a graduated period of time that measures Change. I am experiencing a great amount of change recently. The most meaningful event of the previous year was the death of the man who was both my best friend and Father. The most noticeable change upcoming is supporting my mother as she gains (at huge cost) more independence and responsibility.

Death

Death, it seems final. It is, after all, the end of a life.  Life, a graduated period of living. However each life is an integral part of larger impermanent event. Yet, I am not transcendental in my attitude. I’m instead I remain empirical  and existential in attitude. Death, living and changing are existential themes.

• What-exists is integral part of All,
• What-exists has it’s own nature —All while changing . Willfully or with beat of the Cosmos.

What exists as a person, may cease existing as a person – We often say is ” the end of a life” or a Death. What existed as a person may be soon exist as a tree, be the Earth below it,   dew forming on its leaves,   the atmosphere around it.

A figure of an ever-changing work of art… eventually  fades into the ground.   A wave disperses to back to the tumultuous sea.
Figure and ground.   wave and sea.   ones-own-nature and Nature.     being and not-being.   –phenomenologically speaking .

Living

As I postulated: one’s existence is part of All. The willful part of existing, seem to be “ doing”.

Doing something is expressing our own nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else. We exist for the sake of ourselves.

- Shunryu Suzuki

To say that I exist, that “I am!” (while remembering that, at the same time I’m an integral part of All) is to say that I am expressing my nature. I breathe, I feel, I move, I ponder… All the while I participate, I express my- nature  I am part of Nature — therefore I am.
(the two fold connectivity of “my nature”, and “Nature”. –Suzuki’s Oneness of two ; Kierkegaard’s authenticity, Te and Tao … I’ll save some future post/)

Changing

[...] the natural state of man is as a single, whole being not fragmented into two or more opposing parts. In the natural state, there is constant change based on the dynamic transaction between the self and the environment…

–Arnold Beisser, from: The Paradoxical Theory of Change (Gestalt Therapy Now) 1970

One exists by expressing his own nature and harmonizing with Nature  . IMHO, this is participation,  an organism separating, connecting and integrating with his environment –this is living,   When one is  living in the present, while letting go of what is no longer part of he/she —this is change.
I am presently remembering my Dad and his life still affects mine. At the same time I let go of  what-is-not-me today.

change occurs when one becomes what he is, not when he tries to become what he is not…

–Arnold Beisser, from: The Paradoxical Theory of Change (Gestalt Therapy Now) 1970

Its been a tough year, but i have a good life, with reason to optimistic towards the future.  I  am saving a Robert Frost poem,  that I read at my Fathers service, until my next post.  until then—
Happy New Year!

Wu Wei and “moving with the flow” –reposted

Reposted
Wu Wei and “moving with the flow” was origionally posted on 3-24-2011

 
There are  a couple distinctions in  Taoist philosophy::

The Subjective: The way people interpret and describe the way things happen.

The Tao: the way things, or Nature, truly happen, which transcends human description.

A person’s reaction to “the way things happen” is influenced on how he/she internalizes the way things happen.

great discrepancy between:

• the way nature happens(or Tao), and
• how a person internalizes the way things happens,

…can lead to stresses, and chaos.

According to Taoism , no person can fully know the Tao, The universe, nature’s forces  and  ways of change… because the Tao transcend human senses, full rational dissection, and full description. (thus the “Tao is Nameless” other than “Tao”)

However. Taoism’s practice is interpreting, behaving(or not behaving), interacting, or patterning more and more with the way nature happens as it becomes more apparent to the person.

That is:  Move , work with, or flow with Nature, Act in Harmony with Tao and one will experience less stress and chaos and one will experience more happiness.

Wu Wei

Wu Wei is the principle of “No Action”. More Accurately, its defined as abstaining from excessive effort and excessive action beyond the way a situation naturally happens..

If person canoing upon a river is paddling against, or across the current, he must exert a lot of energy. If the person turns his boat and point to move with the river’s current, he may need no action. He moves along effortlessly with the current., as the river “happens”.
Think  of the river current as a metaphor of how nature changes or flows. In Practicing Wu Wei one uses his experientially refined ability to recognize the way nature flows, and moves with it
Go with the Flow. Action in Harmony with the Tao and no action beyond that.
This is Wu Wei

Wu Wei in our modern world:

• If a person is worrying too often  about things that are not important to  his present moment or is  multitasking, the person is using more effort and then situation needs, and the result may be stress and fatigue.
• A production worker may find he is more productive and happier outside of work, If he uses body in more natural positions of lifting, ergonomics, and works with ways that require less noneffective effort.
• Permaculture designers create ecological garden and agriculture designs, that pattern nature and use of Wu Wei, resulting in relatively self  or long sustaining  systems of produce.

A person may increase ones capacity of authenticity, harmony or integrity of his internal way with the natural Way or Tao, by meditating: the witnessing the two-as-one, briefly . Others studies, are  Yoga, Tai -chi, or just taking walks.

From there they may be inclined  apply Wu Wei in what ever action or non-action they do.

As for the distinction of the “subjective” and the “Tao”, they may move together harmoniously.

Te

In the ancient philosophy of Taoism,

 

Te (Teh) is Virtue:  or  the personal truth and strength that one cultivates. It describes the way one cultivates himself and harmonizes with Tao.

Tao is defined as constancy and way all flows. I like to think of the word “Tao” as a default word to describe the totality of all the principles that govern physics, except that Tao, by definition… is mystical and lies beyond man’s  scope of knowledge.
Taoism is holistic. So Te is more than just intellectualizing ethics or a list of values. Te is acting (or idling) with character, being with ethics, being with authenticity, and being in manners that harmonize with Tao. Te applies to the person or organism as it lives in connection and integration with Nature or “the world”. Te is a quality.

If there is really a difference between wisdom, integrity and Te, I really don’t know.  Maybe it is cultivated and refined by the Authentic Experience that  Søren Kierkegaard    spoke of centuries after Lao Tzu, in other parts of the world.
perhaps its a universal concept and concern..

Here and Now, Revisited

I say “I have a memory” – I am remembering.
I say “I will take a walk”. -I am anticipating when ‘I am walking’.
I say “I had a conversation” – I am remembering when I was conversing.
I have a thought and a emotion. – I think, feel, and cognate.
When I read the paper about what is happening over there. I am reading right here.

remembering, walking, anticipating, conversing, reading … thinking, feeling, cognating, acting, doing, being and interacting, saying. — all happen in the Here and Now. The poetic license of of English Language can confuse us at times, but we happen in the here & now.

Here and Now Post – reposted:

From our first person point of view, what is happening is always in the present time.
What we think and feel about the future; the past; or somewhere else is actually taken place in real time where we are.

I am not saying that nothing is happening elsewhere other than where i am.

Its the here/now lenses that i perceive the future; past; and far away that is happening in the here and now.

Our thinking mind allows us to reevaluate the past; anticipate the future ;make rational judgments on whats happening elsewhere.

This all fine and healthy. along as we realize that all are feelings are of the moment towards the formulated thoughts in our heads of the past, future and elsewhere.
If we forget this realization we can fill are lives with unnecessary, guilt, inhibition, angst and arrogance.

Zen meditation brings me to real time sensing. Simplifying. I can allow my self to let go of the unnecessary baggage and clutter of my cognitions. I learn through living, by experience . with full body in the here and now.

previously posted Pennsylvania Echoes:here and now

A definition of being (or Zen true self) includes the present action (including doing and cognating) of a subject (eg. a person or organism). I am walking… I am remembering… I am talking…, I am anticipating…
The “Here and Now” is the  circumstance. It is that meeting place joining being to the always changing world.

Some Soren Kierkegaard Quotes and Thoughts

“How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.”

I have been reading some Soren Kierkegaard quotes, lately.
He is one of my favorite thinkers, whos profound words would influence many in the following century. Academics Jaspers, Husserl, Heidegger, humanist psychologist Carol Rogers, and physicist Neil Bohr claimed Kierkegaard’s words as inspiring to them.
Here are some more quotes by the Great Dane:

“once you label me you negate me.”
when one is being labeled he is objectified and dehumanized.

“What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.“
As Laura Perls would later say: “without pain there would be no Art“.

“Anxiety may be compared with dizziness. He whose eye happens to look down into the yawning abyss becomes dizzy. But what is the reason for this? It is just as much in his own eye as in the abyss, for suppose he had not looked down. Hence, anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which emerges when the spirit wants to posit the synthesis and freedom looks down into its own possibility, laying hold of finiteness to support itself. Freedom succumbs to dizziness. Further than this, psychology cannot and will not go“
The decisions one makes between: what he ought to do: his essence; his nature. and what he thinks he should do in preservation (dread) shape existence in Kierkegaard’s view. life is a series choices, the freedom in deciding comes with anxiety.
For Soren, ones essence or nature is his/her connecting to God. I wonder what he would have thought of Taoism or Zen, had he discovered it, for essence and nature are harmonizing with Tao and Buddha nature, respectively…. For the pantheist connecting with the Cosmos.

“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.“
Life is not just something to be analyzed from afar. the mysteries, hows and whats of life are understood by living or experiencing.

“Do not forget to love yourself“
Sounds so pretty simple. but read further:

“In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself, that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all“.
the path of happiness is authenticity. be true and find ones true nature, within and without and by living it. With that comes compassion,empathy, wisdom and love.

For more kick-arse Kierkegaard quotes  please check out this terrific blog link:
The Kierkegaarden.
from there you can receive daily Kierkegaard “Blooms” on twitter, Facebook, or RSS news Feed.

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