Compassion for Dummies

[thirdreel]

Comments

[turil]

See, I'm not second guessing my own instincts about what true compassion and helping is, but I do have a very different idea about things than most everyone else, and I get a lot of people complaining that the way I'm helping or not helping is making things worse. It's a catch-22, you know

[thirdreel]

What I'm basically saying is, ask people how you can help. Do it, unless your instincts tell you it would be wrong.

Is it a recurring pattern in your life, that you ask people how you can help, do it, and then they complain? Is it the same people every time?

[hk2999]

Compassionate idiot... I love that. That goes so well along 'holy idiot'. :D

[dharma_ben]

Yeah, well said. I can't make my ethics into absolute principles. I gotta see the context and circumstances first. The second I try to say "In every situation, this is how I should act" is the second I've turned moral wisdom into moral absolutism, or in this case, idiot compassion.

[mindfulness]

Beautiful. Thanks.

[buddhagrrl]

I don't see idiot compassion as a new concept to Buddhism, just a new way of describing it. The old way would be "not transcendant compassion". In other words, what compassion is transcending is ego, the fixed notion of self and other. Ego is transcended by seeing clearly rather than seeing ego's projection. Seeing clearly is seeing what's needed, which enable's compassionate action. Ego's projection is what lets us think something is compassionate because it makes us feel liked by the recipient. Like the paramita of generosity, transcendant compassion is beyond the concepts of giver, receiver, and a thing that is given, ie beyond ego.

What Trungpa did which was so skillful was present these concepts in a way that was relevant and applicable to 20th century laypersons, especially those 20th century layfolk who had strong conceptual notions of kindness and doing good deeds but could sometimes use good deeds to build up ego instead of dissolving it.