• sue elliott. He is a 'pompous little boy'. But to my mind, worse than that, he is a grinning fool - the whole family drive me nuts with the grins plastered on their faces whatever the circumstances - before the Steward's Enquiry or at the races it doesn't matter - grin, grin, grin. What are the odds on them all getting a toothpaste commercial? - Kate Rose
  • I've got one more. Whatever happened to Hermione the modern girl? Did she have one too many nights on the tiles? - Ruth
  • I have a 7 month old baby who doesn't sleep, which has helped my face to age about 7 years since she was born! - Bec
  • The greatest fuel for terrorism is publicity. It was established by extensive research in the 1970s during the waves of urban terror then, that a driving force behind it was the publicity itself. These two were asking people to film them on their phones. I don't think that we are able to censor people but we have to ask how our attitudes to murder porn in general fuel or give insane people like these some of their motivation. It seems so natural and immediate now to have graphic images that we are getting a normalizing effect. - Gabrielle
  • Ditto Jenny. Exactly the same here. We do change the channel to get rid of the pompous little boy, and now I have to work up to turning the footy on at all. Not sure how this will affect the State of Origin, but I am hoping I don't have to miss too much while channel surfing after points are scored. - sue elliott
  • @ Sharon. I am hardly an enemy of women. I think there is far too much time and effort and money spent explaining to women why we are so hard done by and this very often encourages women to be accepting of the 'norm'. It would be much better if we each took responsibility for our own situation and worked to improve it, if that's what we want. Laying blame and writing books about how shitful things are is hold us back. - sue elliott
  • [...] Fighting Dementia [...] - HAZEL: WE'VE ALL LOST A FRIEND
  • [...] The Hoopla  interviewed Patricia take a look here – http://thehoopla.com.au/fabulous-fiction/ [...] - With All My Love | Caroline Payne
  • [...] Giveaway: Enter to WIN 1 of 10 copies of The Yearning HERE. [...] - BOOK EXTRACT: THE YEARNING
  • Don't hold your breath - a backflip is a given, based on the sad track record of this incompetent federal government in such matters - not that the Coalition will do any better. Sad days for normal sport-loving Aussies. - devuman
 
Categories:  Must see, Wellbeing

OUR MIDWEEK MEDITATION: COMPASSION

Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others. It crushes and destroys the pain of others; thus, it is called compassion. It is called compassion because it shelters and embraces the distressed
~
The Buddha

 

Whenever there is a disaster in the world, natural or otherwise, it does a curious thing – it brings out the best in us.

All of us stop for a moment, don’t we, and feel a mixture of gratitude that we and our loved ones are safe, and sorrow for those suffering from the earthquake, tsunami, bushfire, flood or, in the case of Hurricane Sandy, hurricane.

 

New York workers prepare for the onslaught of Hurricane Sandy. Image via Reuters.
 

It’s then that our natural compassion comes to the fore. And yet, curiously, compassion, the virtue of empathy for the suffering of others, is not necessarily as readily available to us at other times.

In our ordinary, everyday lives it seems – on the face of it – that we have less need of compassion than at those times of crisis, be it family, community, or world-wide.

The etymology of compassion is Latin, meaning co-suffering; whereas empathy is the more simple attribute of understanding, compassion contains the desire to stop the other person’s suffering.

Deepak Chopra writes in his book Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul of the Tibetan Buddhist monks who developed ‘compassionate brains’ as the result of practicing a meditation on compassion, thereby transforming a spiritual quality into physical manifestation, erasing the split between body and soul.

 

Compassion: a Victorian firefighter cares for a koala left homeless by bushfires. Photo by Russell Vickery via smh.com.au.

 

But why are some people more compassionate than others? Why is it that psychopaths allegedly have no compassion, and are able to inflict cruelty without even the comprehension of what they are doing?

Chopra wonders whether even psychopaths might be brought to understand the nature of compassion through a change of brain activity.

To become compassionate, or more compassionate takes practice …as does every emotion, both good and bad.

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4 Responses to this article

  1. ro.watson October 31, 2012 Reply
     
     

    Compassion for self and other sentient beings can shield us from harm. I love that photo of the firefighter holding the burnt koala’s paw while giving the koala a drink of water. Thank you.

     
  2. helenbea November 1, 2012 Reply
     
     

    Well said and timely, thankyou Candida. Compassion is an expression of love outside the understanding of pop culture which is a driving force in conformity and sameness. As you say, compassion is about acceptance whereas pop culture is about rejection, measurement, judgements, criticisms.

    The stripping away of the edifices of the material world when natural disasters lay bare the land and its people, can only bring a fresh perspective…if people open hearts and minds to the experience.

     

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  • Kate Rose: sue elliott. He is a 'pompous little boy'. But to my mind, worse than that, he is a grinning fool - the whole family d...

  • Ruth: I've got one more. Whatever happened to Hermione the modern girl? Did she have one too many nights on the tiles?

  • Bec: I have a 7 month old baby who doesn't sleep, which has helped my face to age about 7 years since she was born!

  • Gabrielle: The greatest fuel for terrorism is publicity. It was established by extensive research in the 1970s during the waves of ...

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