Compassion

[JaxKeymaster]

“When we experience the pain of another person, we instinctively want to take away that pain. But by taking away the other person’s pain, we also take away his or her opportunity to grow. To be truly compassionate, we must be able to share another person’s suffering and pain — knowing there is nothing we can do to relieve it and that we are not responsible for it, and yet knowing and understanding what that pain feels like.”

— John Gray

[JaxKeymaster]

I believe and understand what this person is saying.  What I have a harder time with is knowing when to interfere and when to let them learn.  I know this comes the more in touch you are with your intuition, but it’s hard while you’re still learning. 

[IcarusParticipant]

Well, I think that the only way to deal with these situations is to offer an alternative approach. That way, you have tried to help them through the pain, but still allowed them to work through it on their own. Hope that makes sense.

[JohnParticipant]

In my job as geriatric nurse, this is a pre-programed crisis. People come with: the loss of their home, their health, independance, hope, fiends, and even their lives. Each person in turn presents their problem in a unique way. Some want sympathy, advice, or agreement. But many I have learned don`t want anything. They just want someone to listen and talk. This I think is what is the hardest for a listener. Very often we feel helpless, something has to be done. So we have a problem with ourselves and not with others situation. Just being with someone is hard.

[Jedi_PhoenixModerator]

I agree with where jon was going.  I think he’s got a point about listening and just letting others vent.  Listening can even be more powerful than giving advice.

Icarus, I think I know what you mean…but offering advice can become harmful to not only that person, but you as well.  What if your adivce made them feel worse??Then you are the blame for it, because that person more than likely was trusting you.  If you offer advice, then what has that person truely gained from this experience???

In the end, I think we need to keep mum.  We don’t always do that, but we are human.  The more we choose to open our minds, hearts, and ears, and shut our mouths; the bigger effect we will have. 

[JohnParticipant]

Tai Chi Yoda I would like to go a step further. It is my experience that on silent retreats that you are forced to look/feel carefully as to what the other wants, especially at meal times. A small glimpse indicates “I would like the salt please…!”etc. In silence we can say so much more: a gesture, a touch, an expression…which speak for the moment and make no far reaching promises. We have to always keep in mind that we probably play only a short time role in others lives. Every assertion is to make a long time responsability.

[Jedi_PhoenixModerator]

How true!  I never thought about it like that.  but then again, that is like body language…so there is a flip-side to that coin.  We have to be conciancious about all of our decisions.

:yoda

[JohnParticipant]

I think it is a matter of being yourself, not what you think you should be or what you think the other wants you to be. I think it has a lot to do with feeling the force and expressing it in its simplest form. Maybe?

[Jedi LawheadParticipant]

compassion to me means doing the right thing, it may be killing, it may be saving, it may be listening, it is always serving the best interests of life in general.

[IcarusParticipant]

Quote:

Icarus, I think I know what you mean…but offering advice can become harmful to not only that person, but you as well.  What if your adivce made them feel worse??Then you are the blame for it, because that person more than likely was trusting you.  If you offer advice, then what has that person truely gained from this experience???

Sorry, I didn’t see this before now. (I have old eyes.)

Now, it isn’t a matter of telling someone all of what they should do. Simply listen to the Will of the Force, and the give them little tidbits of a suggestion, to let them formulate their own way towards following that Will. How do we know that this is the Will of the Force and not just our own tendencies playing about?

It’s hard to explain, but the best way that I know to do that is this:

Tell yourself a lie. Go on. Do it. Say, “I hate chocolate.” Do you feel a psychosomatic response take place? Is there a tightening in your solar plexus, or your heart area? Or, is there a heavy tingling in your mind? Does it just feel wrong?

Now, tell yourself a truth: “I love chocolate.”

Do you feel the way that the body is loose and flowing and there is a settlement that takes place within the solar plexus?

That is how we know. Well, at least one way. We can do this with the Will of the Force and use this to help others along their own paths. If it be the Will of the Force that a person gets a specific message, then it is our duty to provide that message to them in a way that they will understand it, and not cause harm to themself or others.

So, that is what it is all about. We should not go blabbing our own thoughts and opinions to others, only telling them how they should be acting or leading their lives. No…. and there are ways of suggesting things that others will not take as being harmful, but quietly and peacefully come to in their own way. Try using coded words, gestures, things like that.

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