On Universal Compassion

No Enemies

Through the Buddhist practice you can develop a universal compassion. This kind of compassion is more expansive than what may be termed human compassion. Human compassion is still conditioned by the mind. In human compassion you still discriminate as to who you feel you should be kind to. Human compassion extends only to your family, your friends and perhaps your co-workers. However, an ordinary person will have difficulty extending compassion to all persons. On the other hand, a Buddhist should display equal compassion to one's family, friends, co-workers and even those that are typically perceived as one's enemies. In fact, to a Buddhist there should be no such thing as enemies.

Why is this so? Because a Buddhist perceives that all phenomena observed are a product of cause and effect, a product of not only one's own actions but also of those around oneself. For instance, a person might be kind to you because of your previous kindness displayed to them. On the other hand, you should also understand that wrongful actions taken against you are a product of cause and effect. This wrongful action may have arisen out of your previous conduct or even thoughts towards this person in this lifetime or perhaps in a previous lifetime. Thus, you should perceive that the conduct of this "enemy" is merely following the natural course of cause and effect. If your practice is good you will not experience any anger or desire to retaliate for transgressions perpetrated against you by another person.

No Karmic Blindness

When someone attacks you, either by words or actions, are you quick to retaliate? The ordinary person will perceive these transgressions as a personal affront to himself or herself, requiring some form of retribution or at the minimum a harboring of ill will towards the transgressor.

Why is it that one person can not be effected by the acts of another person, while someoelse seeks to avenge the same transgression? Once again, it is in our own perception of the phenomena that makes the difference. As a Buddhist, you should see clearly that the actions of another towards you may be a product of retribution for your past conduct. It may very well be that this retribution, while manifesting itself in this lifetime, may have had its seeds in a different life time. An ordinary person may be totally oblivious to the fact that they are paying for their conduct from a previous lifetime. In this sense, the ordinary person will not understand why a particular person is treating them so poorly. The inability to perceive the karmic seed of this transgressing conduct creates an endless cycle of transgressions whereby at one time one is the perpetrator of the transgression and the next moment or instance, one is the recipient of such a transgression. Whatever the transgression is, by the law of causality, such transgressions must be repaid in full.

If you are blind to this endless cycle of revenge then you are destined to remain in its grips until you can clearly see that the only way to break such a cycle is to put down the feeling or desire to avenge all perceived transgressions towards yourself.

The law of causality is extremely complicated, this essay only introduces this concept as a reference point to understanding the nature of universal compassion. Once you understand the nature of harmful actions perpetrated against you, you can no longer perceive the party perpetrating such harmful action against you as being bad. In all likelihood, you will have a sense of pity for those persons who are unable to control their conduct. If a person does something to harm you, you will be more likely to do as the Bible says... "If one cheek is struck, turn the other cheek to be struck as well". You should not discriminate that this person is good and this person is bad. Each person in this human realm is capable of causing bad karma. What is one person's strength may be another weakness and visa versa. It serves no purpose to become judgmental about people.

No Good No Bad

Suppose for instance, if you were driving on the road and someone believed that you cut them off, thereby enraging this person to the point of shouting obscenities at you. Your immediate reaction might be to reciprocate by yelling obscenities back to this passing motorist. Perhaps you have been exchanging these obscenities with this motorist over many lifetimes. What is to break this chain of causality? The chain of causality is broken your observation of the phenomena for what it is. You should not think either good or bad of this passing motorist. A wise person would put down all feelings of retribution of this passing motorist. In such a way, no bad karma has been created. Likewise, to the passing motorist the bad karma generated by his outburst of obscenities would be somewhat mitigated. By refusing to fan the fires of the situation you can create an environment that is much more pleasant to live in. However, you should also appreciate the understanding that your negative actions may sow karmic seeds that must be paid for in the future. The Buddhist practitioner would accept repayment without creating new karmic seeds.

Now you might perceive such conduct as being overly passive. Why should you restrain yourself when another is insulting you to the point of perhaps questioning your parentage? But why is it necessary to react to another person's anger? What does it accomplish? Such anger belongs to the passing motorist and not to you. It only belongs to you when your emotional state is moved by the passing motorist's conduct. If there is no movement in your mind then you will not be effected by the comments made by the passing motorist.

How can you make an observation in your mind that this passing motorist is truly a bad person. Have you not at least once in your life shouted in anger at someone? Perhaps you called them a bad name. If you only saw the person that you yelled at once in your lifetime, what would their perception be of you? If you saw this person again would you think that this person is bad and should be treated poorly?

Now think of yourself. Are you one hundred percent a bad person? Look at yourself honestly, do you have your short points as well as your good points? Even with your short points, I am sure you are not genuinely a terrible person. You are certainly not a person that would warrant another person's observation of you as being one hundred percent bad. Yet every day you make this absolute judgment about people you come into contact with. You perceive them as being either good or bad. When your mind makes this type of discrimination it ignores the possibility that this bad person might have good points or that the person that you perceive that is good might have bad points. Take for example the angry motorist. In your mind it is recorded that this is a very unlikable person. Because the phenomena you observed was negative your mind has made a complete judgment that this person is not a good person. And if the perceived transgression against you was substantial, you may even consider this person your enemy.

But consider what you do not see. Perhaps this person has a wife and children that he loves very much. Perhaps the night before he very lovingly tucked his children into bed and read them bedtime stories. Can we make such a discrimination that this person is totally bad? It is your mind which makes this discrimination based on the limited amount of phenomena that it perceives. Once again, the mind is the phenomena itself. It fabricates this false thinking of duality in the world. Because the mind only reacts to the phenomena it perceives, it remains in this dream of duality. In this dream, for one to have pleasure one must also have suffering. How much better would the world be for you to perceive phenomena without this duality?

Love Thy Neighbor

Is it not truly bliss to have no enemies? How much better would the world be if all of its human inhabitants would perceive each other as their neighbors? In the Christian doctrine a principal point is "Love thy neighbor". It is hoped that those of you that are reading this essay will begin to see the true and deep meaning of this statement. Neighbor does not mean to only love neighbors in close proximity to you. Neighbor means all of the inhabitants of the world.

The key to truly accepting this principal into your heart is a understanding of the circumstances which give rise to our appearance in this realm. You must feel these words beyond intellectual reasoning. It is a combination of faith and investigation of the Buddhist principals that allows a person to transcend from human compassion to universal compassion. When you understand the law of causality you will begin to understand that human predicaments and phenomena should be perceived as neither good nor bad. You must put down everything.

No Desires No Attachments

To some it is easy to put down their desires for riches and comfort. Some can even leave their home to become a monk. Yet it might still be difficult to put down emotions. The difference is that you might perceive wealth and comfort to be external from yourself. However the emotions are much harder because you perceive this as an internal matter belonging to your own personality. When you understand that even your personality is phenomena which is created by the course of causality it is much easier to put down these emotions. Emotions should be perceived as nothing more than phenomena.

Investigate Your Own Karma

Now, take this a step further. As you are reading this essay, perceive how you came to read this essay. What course of events caused click over to this essay and read it? Perhaps someone recommended it. What is your relationship with this person? At the present time, who is living with you? Do you like the people who live with you or dislike them? What about the people that work with you? Are there people at work that you dislike? Try to think in terms of causality to feel how your relationship with these events and persons came into being. If you have great faith in the Buddhist practice you might be able to perceive that your relationship with these persons has existed for many lifetimes. When you begin to perceive the relationship with those around you, you will find that the law of causality creates the situations in which you interact with those around you. When you are not moved emotionally by the conduct of others, that is to say that you treat the conduct of others with the same equanimity as observing other phenomena, you will begin to see the complexity of the law of causality.

Attain A State Of Equanimity

Return to the thought of how you came to read this essay. As you are reading this essay you may think that what is written is either good, bad, informative, uninformative, correct or incorrect. These discriminatory judgments are still phenomena. Such phenomena is created by the mind and is not real. It is this very discrimination in the mind which deludes a person into believing that they are an entity in and of themselves, separate and apart from all other phenomena. It is this discrimination which give rise to dualistic notions of good and bad.

When these dualistic notions do not exist in a person's mind, such a person is able to perceive all external phenomena in a state of equanimity. This state of equanimity allows them to remain calm and composed even when those around them would wish to torment or persecute them. The person's ability to perceive phenomena as impermanent in nature will not give rise to suffering in this person. Equally important, such a person will not hold any ill thoughts against the perpetrator of this torment. This is universal compassion. In universal compassion one seeks to assist all human beings to escape the endless chain of suffering.

Once Shakyamuni Buddha told his assembly that he had only two things to teach. The first was how suffering arises and the second how to end suffering. If you begin to understand the nature of causality and the arising of suffering you may awaken to the fact that you can end such suffering. If you have not awakened, then suffering, and the conduct which causes the arising of suffering, continues.

One who understands universal compassion recognizes that the suffering arises in the mind of a person. The experienced Buddhist practitioner recognizes the karmic affliction that deludes the thoughts of sentient beings. Through this understanding of the predicament of sentient beings, the practitioner's action toward other sentient beings is one of patience and understanding. This patience, understanding and care for all sentient beings includes not only those belonging to the human realm but to the other realms as well. One who understands universal compassion will assist all sentient beings in not causing more karma.

Extend Your Compassion To All Sentient Beings

A universally compassionate person will not eat the meat of another sentient being. You will obtain health benefits from abstaining from eating the meat of another sentient being. However, that is not the reason why a universally compassionate person will not eat meat. The true reason is because an animal, while belonging to the animal realm, is nevertheless a sentient being which has been born into this animal realm out of a product of the law of causality. There is nothing to distinguish such an animal from any other sentient being belonging to any other realm.

Being born into the animal world is a result of attachment to some form of desire or aversion. The law of causality now must be repaid. If your thoughts and conduct in this realm are substantially negative, for instance, if you had an insatiable appetite for greed or hatred, then through the law of causality you must pay for this wrongful conduct. If the conduct is sufficiently serious, such conduct cannot be repaid within the human realm and must be repaid in a lesser realm. Consequently you may be "reborn" into the animal realm, the ghost realm, or the hell realm. Each one with progressively serious consequences to the you in terms of duration and suffering within the realm. A universally compassionate person will take pity upon those sentient beings which caused such bad karma upon themselves. When universal compassion is present one may perceive sentient beings in their predicament. For instance, how pitiable such sentient beings are when they are controlled by their desires and vexations. They see these sentient beings often times digging a deeper hole for themselves. Perhaps these sentient beings will be reborn in a lower realm. If, in the unfortunate event that you are reborn in the animal realm would you want to be slaughtered, cooked and eaten?

Boundless Compassion

If you saw a soldier slay an innocent child, to whom would you give the pity or compassion? Your first response is to pity the child who has been slayed. Generally one only feels disgust or perhaps hatred towards the soldier. To the universally compassionate person such is not the case. Such a person is not bound by the thought of birth and death. A universally compassionate person would view the circumstance of both the soldier and the child as pitiable. The universally compassionate person will see that the action caused is a product of the law of causality. Perhaps this child, in a different lifetime, slayed the soldier in a like manner. The karmic retribution is now being paid back. Equally, the universally compassionate person will see the harm the soldier is doing to himself. This person can see that the soldier will pay severely because that child may cause a similar fate to be perpetrated upon the soldier, in this lifetime or another lifetime when the karma has ripened. The universally compassionately person will see this as a unfortunate vignette which will be sadly repeated through endless lifetimes until one or both of the parties can break their karmic bond.

Thus, the universally compassionately person cannot say, from the act of the soldier slaying the child, that one is good and one is bad. A much larger picture is unveiled to such a person. When karmic retribution is deeply understood, you cannot hold the thought of hatred or disgust against one who perpetrates villainous acts against another. Indeed, it was Jesus Christ who recited a universally compassionate statement at the time of his final persecution. As he was being crucified, he looked towards the heavens and asked God, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

When you have universal compassion there is no thought of the self. There is no suffering. But you can see the suffering in all sentient beings which maintain the idea of an individual self. As a compassionate person you will devote your life to help sentient beings alleviate their suffering. Furthermore, your assistance will be given without any idea of reward or emotional ties to your actions. Additionally, you will seek neither to obtain merit nor consideration from your deeds. There is only the present moment act of doing. To you there is neither giver nor receiver of the assistance. Thus, the merit of this gift knows no bounds.

From this essay you might begin to understand the difference between human compassion and universal compassion. While human compassion is limited in its scope and purpose, the universally compassionate person is not bound by such human limitations. Consequently, the universally compassionate person gives compassion to all sentient beings with no distinction of good or bad.

It is hoped that one who reads this essay might begin to develop such universal compassion. Such a person will certainly improve their life as well the lives of innumerable sentient beings which they come into contact with.

Homage to Kwan Yin Bodhisattva