Compassion, the virtue that could save us all

I remember last year being in Australia, going into this random hostel looking to connect with people as I was staying in my own Airbnb

I stumbled across this guy sitting alone playing Mario Kart.

Eh, he seems like the perfect guy to strike a conversation.

You get these random times traveling that you begin to see were always there to teach you more about life if you dare taking the chance.

I forgot his name as I wasn't too good with the name remembering things then.

But Mr. Guy, was from India.

This struck my curiosity as I was quite at the beginning of my spiritual journey traveling and was very interesting in this very spiritual country with this culture like no other.

I mentioned to him how I was interested in my life of being a monk as I found it would be very beneficial for my growth as a person.

I remember this key thing that stuck with me forever that then I tried to justify it as any westerner but the more I meditated and suffered through my path the more I understood really what he ment.

He told me one of the biggest problems about westerners coming to India to be a monk is that they truly struggle with compassion.

If you are like me and like most westerners, when reading this right now you maybe are telling yourself.

Yeah I see that most struggle, but you know, I am different because I am a very compassionate person, I care about people and my family and such.

Exactly, we think we are. But truly this state isn't an on or off switch or a 1 and 0 like a computer which we are slowly becoming like.

This is a forever practice, once doesn't become compassionate we always learn how to be everyday.

I knew I couldn't really say otherwise to him but think I could learn it as well. Because I do have a lot of confidence in my pain tolerance to learn things and fall down and keep picking myself up.

But I understood more and more what he meant.

We are taught to be individualist from birth, before even learning how to speak.

They are taught the skill of compassion.

We struggle deeply learning a new language at a older age, which has many factors to it but this will be another blog post.

But if the language of compassion isn't a spoken language where we are from due to the decisions of our world leaders, of our role models in school, of our bosses, of our elders, of absolutely everyone.

We can begin learning and we can practice by ourselves, but same as language.

If you aren't forced to use it and it's even frown upon to practice it.

You will only be at a certain level and this is just is.

This has been a year now since this meeting.

Since then I have deeply added this to the list of things I observe about myself because time and time again after I seen many times of me being very guilty of being selfish and putting my needs first.

This is all normal, we are taught to be this way. We are the victims of it all.

We deserve more then the neighbour.

Keeping up with the Jones philosophies and such.

This has been a driving force towards why we have been able to have such success developing and creating things.

But I do believe we need a balance of things.

Being someone who always obsessed about the truth and finding solutions instead of road blocks.

This has been quite a natural gift I must admit but does have it's cons like any one of our natural talents that we are given.

Wanting to seek answers and asking curious question and making observations about how things don't seem as black and white as we painted.

You can step on a lot of toes.

When everyone in a power of authority and control is suffering in their own ways with not knowing the truth and clinging to this false illusion that make them feel better.

You definitely don't want to hear a 5 year old kid or a 20 year old kid fresh out of school tell you otherwise.

Even if the questions aren't directed at them or of any negative intentions.

I learned this the hard way.

People with lack of compassion, truly hate this.

We hate being accountable.

Because we were also this kid that were told to not be able to share his ideas and his views on what he sees.

We are told, the elders are always right, and when it's your turn to be an elder.

You will have this power as well.

But without compassion.

This power is only keeping this chain going.

I now notice more and more.

The desire to be right at all cost, when truly right or truly wrong.

The feeling of losing the battle is much worst towards our ego then anything.

This trauma from our past, from our childselves that developed at an early age.

Now stays with us as long as we don't surrender the root of this and validate this through deep practice.

We then will always hurt people we love, people we meet, and the nature around us to constantly validate this desire.

The desire to be heard, to have the right to an opinion, to have the right to want what feels good to us.

But what is truly the truth anyways?

I live my life searching this daily.

I love physics as this was what seemed to be a pretty easy way to tell the truth since you know numbers right?

But life is so much more complexe then this.

We know so little, like when for many years we would of never been able to think or to admit the earth is round.

We become so caught up in our heads about how now we know it all.

This is just is and everyone else is wrong.

But is this compassion?

Our suffering is justifiable for our decisions and our thoughts.

But people doing what we believe is wrong, are in the wrong and we are in the right.

It's this going against what we just said at the beginning about us having compassion and being a fully compassionate person.

If we acknowledge how we were shaped through our traumas and as long as we don't make ourselves accountable for our actions that have been happening since then that we will always be bias.

That even though we never asked for this, no one asks for any of it.

The Buddha said a long time ago, life is suffering.

Therefore when we know it just is, the only way out is letting go.

That who ever caused us pain, whether a human, our environnement, or our own bad luck.

It's just part of the experience and we need to accept that it happens.

The only solution is how we learn from it and grow into a kinder person.

Through this suffering and detachment we can then start to understand compassion more and more.

Because now we know how much we felt trapped during and how it affected our decision making.

About how we made decisions and actions that didn't reflect who we were and that is okay.

Because when trapped in this suffering, we only want to breathe and will do anything to get a breath, at all cost.

This is how we are taught.

But what if we could just breathe with ourselves, without needing anything external.

To sit with ourselves and breathe full breaths to go in these suffering moments again that we ran away from.

To then re open this box and let them flow.

To feel this suffering like never before but this time instead of justifying why it shouldn't of happened to us and why someone else needs to act towards us achieving our peace.

That we just let it flow, smile and enjoy the suffering that will then make us into more compassionate people as through suffering we learn.

We learn to love ourselves more, we learn to be kinder to ourselves in the experience, we learn to let go of these ideas that are only of harm.

Beginning with ourselves, we can then practice much more with others.

To instead of when we justify why these people we don't agree with are this and are that.

All negative examples which are truly easy to find.

Flaws are the easiest things to find in everything.

I believe this is part of our DNA and in us for reasons that I still can't explain but I accept.

That when we practice to find the beauty first, the positive things about the person.

We can then be more compassionate and then take the time to listen and observe why they would do such a thing.

Because now we practiced to have love first.

When you love, you can then put things aside and become open to learn and truly understand why.

Through this, we tend have a totally different perspective.

We no longer blame, we then understand.

We see the suffering that they had, it's no longer a competition of who suffered the most.

That I wouldn't do this.

How do we know?

We only get a glimpse of what they lived through, with this non effective way of sharing emotion which is verbal language.

The person has a couple minutes to justify his point, and so many wrong sounds and intonations trying to explain something he doesn't really understand.

And he is the bad guy and i'm the good guy again.

That's all we seek truly, this validation of I am a good person because I have a trauma of being told otherwise.

But to understand that we all suffer with this trauma.

Who is right?

What is the truth?

What is just an illusion of my experience and what is really the right way to go through these things.

It's all just perspective.

But to understand someone and to be compassionate.

Is to try and try again to put on their goggles of life, to try to understand how can they see this.

To practice and practice, then we can start doing a bit more what we truly seek.

To help the ones we love, to be able to be a good role model, to give advice that would help them be more at peace and be their true selves.

But this practice never stops, life is suffering.

Through life, we will be put to the test again.

We will have more traumas.

We will be sent back down to rock bottom.

But now, we will use better tools.

The tools that begin with ourselves first.

Because to be compassionate to others

I believe starts with ourselves.

But what is the truth of all of this.

I still don't know, I only sit and think and observe while trying to keep surrendering and looking at many perspectives as possible.

But I do truly believe that with compassion.

We can truly make the world a better place.