Compassion...

There is a tendency of mind to believe that compassion must be cultivated or developed. But only thought would say that. If you notice thought, it is primarily self-centered. Our thoughts about others often say more about ourselves than anything. An outward judgment of someone else is often an inward attempt to build up or maintain the story of “me.” For example, if I see other people as flawed, this makes “me” believe that I am not flawed. I get to feel morally superior to the other person.

True compassion is not cultivated or developed through thinking. It is realized to be a natural attribute of awareness. There can be, relatively speaking, a deeper and deeper recognition of this natural compassion as there is less and less reliance on thought for a sense of self v. other. But compassion is an aspect of what we are. All that we can do is recognize, deeply, what we are—awareness.

When someone is suffering, notice the tendency to make judgments about them or even to fix them through thinking about them. What is noticing is awareness. That awareness contains true compassion. Trust it completely. Any necessary response to the person’s suffering comes directly from the inherent compassion of awareness rather than from judgment.


Scott Kiloby, Reflections of the One Life: Daily Pointers to Enlightenment