The Power of Coincidence (25 page)

Compassion
means acting with love and a caring heart toward those who suffer. A personal awakening brings with it an inner zeal for others to be awakened too. This emerges from a sense of solidarity with all beings and with all of nature—the very point of synchronicity.
Tikkun olam
is a Hebrew phrase meaning “repair of the world.” Such engaged concern is the proof positive of an authentic spirituality for it does not end in “feel good” but in “do good.” It is not simply about consolation for our minds but consecration of our hearts to this needy world.

Every pain and grief I meet is an address to me to enter the desperation of those who may not be able to find the Taoist “mysterious pass through the apparently impenetrable mountains.” The desperate dislocation that occurs corresponds to the dismemberment of the hero/redeemer—a metaphor of the divesting of ego—for the sake of suffering humanity. Our letting go of ego is meant to be the threshold to compassion.

Compassion is not an ideal but a phenomenon of higher consciousness, the new consolidation of ego-I with Self-world. Its purpose is to reorganize the ego around an all-embracing love. Universal love is how the ego becomes spiritually coherent—as it becomes psychologically coherent by being personally loved and loving. Compassion does not mean noticing pain or even understanding it empathically. Empathy is the mirroring of pain in others. Compassion
activates
our empathy; it does something about it. Yet true compassion is indeliberate and automatic too. It is like the moon, which makes no specific decision to reflect itself in the pond. It simply lets it happen without planning or parceling.

The Dalai Lamas are believed to be incarnations of Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of compassion. He is depicted with many heads to see the suffering of mankind from every direction. He has a thousand arms to reach out everywhere and an eye in the palm of each hand since compassion is not blind. This is a metaphor of the spontaneous urge toward compassion flowing from the wisdom of letting go of the sense of separate, rather than interdependent, existence. Once we are free of the illusion of separateness, we feel responsible for one another.

We notice in the
Heart Sutra
that Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, presents the doctrine of nonduality and of the emptiness of ego, not Sariputra, the bodhisattva of intellectual knowledge. The wisdom of the awakened heart
(bodhicitta)
motivates the enlightened person to give up liberation for himself alone in favor of the liberation of others. Tara, the Mother of all Buddhas and the female aspect of compassion, was formed from a teardrop of Avalokitesvara. She vowed to help him free all of us from the fetters of fear and grasping. Buddha himself is said to be born from compassion. He also lives to show compassion and to show it reliably and universally. This is why the practitioner says, “I take refuge in the Buddha.”

Compassion is a state of mind flowing from the realization of emptiness, that is, no inherent, self-sustaining existence in any thing or person. We are all interdependent both among ourselves and between us and all of nature. Awareness of this profound, primal, and indestructible unity leads us to mutual reverence and caring love. This is one way the wisdom of nonduality connects us to compassion.

Once we perceive the ultimate oneness of all beings, a solidarity results between us and them. This is our capacity to love without fear. This is the fearlessness that reckons every event and encounter in life as happening at just the right time and in just the right way for us to learn what we need to know. In such a synchronous world, nothing can go wrong, at least not for long. That trust becomes the basis of fearlessness. How does this fearlessness happen? A compassionate act shatters the walls that divide us and reveals the touching similarities that make us no longer so different from one another. The unconditional love, immortal wisdom, and healing power of the Self are then seen not as virtues we achieve but as natural consequences of spiritual liberation. Now personal liberation is equated with liberation of all beings since there is no separate I on whom to dote.

The bodhisattva path is the altruistic mind of enlightenment, now operating automatically and spontaneously in daily actions. One’s personal enlightenment is now secondary, a means to the goal of bringing others to enlightenment, not vice versa. A bodhisattva sees others’ suffering and pledges herself to their release from it in the same instant. She expends as much effort as if she could single-handedly do it. Thereafter, even receiving the appreciation of others is done for their sake.

Buddha’s message is about the utterly disappointing emptiness of the ego to satisfy us. In the tantric practice of Buddhism, this refuge in ego is not a sign of failure. It is how we finally notice what our mind is and what it can and cannot offer us. This recognition is the path to practices that will help us toward egolessness. Compassion toward others is one of those practices.

“Someday, I suppose it will become evident that the laws in the Torah are meant to lead to a universal love of humanity,” said the first-century Jewish historian Josephus, who knew that spiritual and religious practice has one and only one purpose: to increase our love. In fact, giving is the best way to free ourselves from the fears and attachments that make us so unhappy. This is because love is the only life purpose that can be worthy of beings like us. How is it expressed? It is shown in engaged and tangible ways: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, responding to human need. It is also a feeling response to human needs: compassion to the afflicted, comfort to the grieving, forgiveness of injury, redressing injustice, etc. This fits with the bodhisattva’s “four means to help others”: to give what is needed, to speak gently, to console and guide, and to be an example of active love.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave a sermon on the disciples’ asking of Jesus if they could sit on his right and left side in the new kingdom. They construed the kingdom to be about ego that is, making sure they would get what they were entitled to. King pointed out that those special places are reserved for the people who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, etc. This is a perfect summary of spirituality: letting go of ego and showing love concretely.

Toward the end of his sermon, Martin Luther King said, “Every once in a while I think of my death and I wonder how I will be remembered. I hope my eulogist won’t mention my Nobel Peace Prize, my education, my other awards. . . . I want to be remembered as one who tried to love somebody. Let him say that Martin Luther King tried to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit the imprisoned, to help the blind see and the deaf hear. . . . I have nothing to leave you, no riches, no luxury. All I leave behind is a committed life. Jesus, I don’t want to be on your right or left side because of fame but because of love.”

Spirituality is just such an engaged and committed life. It grants us hope, the conviction that behind the appearance of this latest triumph of evil is the ultimate and lasting victory of goodness. Our hope persists not because injustices have finally ended but because they are not final. They are not final because
we
are not returning evil for evil and thus perpetuating it. They are not final because we are still here transmitting restorative love and reconciliation. A seventeenth-century Japanese poem says, “If you keep one green bough in your heart, someday a singing bird will visit you.”
What makes this believable is the good thing I did today for someone in need.

In English, the word
nemesis
means a source of harm or ruin, one’s downfall. In ancient Greece, Nemesis was revered as the goddess/ personification of retributive justice. Her second name is Adrasteia, which means “inescapable.” In Homer, her name means “due enactment.” When Tyche, goddess of luck and windfalls, bestowed fortune on someone, Nemesis, goddess of downfalls, stepped in to humble him if he arrogantly boasted, did not use part of his wealth to alleviate the poverty of others, or refused to sacrifice to the gods in thanksgiving, that is, denied the element of grace in his good fortune. This is a colorful way of declaring that the touch of grace was historically associated with letting go of ego, acknowledging grace, and having the instinct for generosity and compassion.

Notice also how the three criteria that Nemesis looks for are precisely the foundation principles of spirituality: transcendence of ego, appreciation of grace, and compassion for others. All through the ages, in every spiritual tradition, we see this same expansive threefold sense of human potential and destiny. Buddhists affirm that when bodhisattvas and saints catch a glimpse of us loving in this way—no matter how secretly we do it—they hasten to our side to assist and encourage us. The guardian angel metaphor points to the assisting force of grace. Love attracts grace; ego repels it.

To love is to enter the synchronicity of grace. In love, the most striking of all coincidences occurs: two hearts or all hearts match in their encounter and enfolding of each other. Each grants the very tenderness the other wanted all his life to find or waited all his life to find again.

Love is the only bridge that hearts can toss across the yawning void of emptiness that the mind will make.

Love is the fire that can melt the ego in an instant.

Love forgives every offense with exactly the brand of healing that makes new offenses unlikely.

Love reaches beyond “I and Thou” to all living beings in far-flung compassion and unconditional caring.

Love lets go, never losing what it has once held.

Love lives on, never ending what it has begun.

Love remains steadfast, never abandoning what it has committed itself to.

Love is the rendezvous of closing and opening, of kneading and rising, of hungering and banqueting, of halting and dancing, of living and dying.

In love there is neither yours nor mine but only everyone’s Yes to the grace of opening.

I have opened a door for you that no one can close.

—R
EVELATION
3:8

M
AKING
L
OVE
C
ONCRETE

1. Prior to an activity or project in daily life, form an altruistic intention to bring enlightenment to others through what you are about to do. This form of the practice of loving-kindness locates our activities in the context of generous compassion. Upon completion of the activity, dedicate its value to the welfare of people and nature and to the increase of love in the world.

2. Aspirations can also evoke love. Repeat them until your love becomes spontaneous, universal, and continuous.

May I become ever more engaged in loving service.

May the whole purpose of my life be to put everything I do into the channel of universal love.

May I work for the harmony and reconciliation of all beings.

May I consecrate myself to nonviolence in the face of every conflict.

May I be stirred by the pain I see in the world and may I make a loving response to it.

Practice this love with specific individuals as well as to the world at large. Extend love especially to people with whom you have a karmic connection since they are the ones most in need of your love.

3. Do little favors each day for friends and then for strangers too, without calling attention to what you have done for them. Buddha himself said, “When your path is secret even from gods, angels, or human beings, you are truly priestly.” If you begin to feel a sense of obligation or compulsion in this practice, discontinue it. Begin again when you can do it with choice and generosity. Most of us have habituated ourselves to misleading information about our capacity for love. It is infinitely vaster than we ever dared imagine. Little acts of love grant the best entry into the overstuffed treasury.

4. One effective way to bring meditation into action is to carry out this resolve: “For every grace I ask, I ask the same for others. For every grace I receive, I give something of myself to others as a form of thanks.” This is an example of loving-kindness in our spiritual life. A transformation has happened when I have gone beyond the goal of handling things, that is, helping myself. I am now working for the higher stakes of healing the world. An equation has occurred between my work on myself and my commitment to my fellow humans.

5. Try any one of these once each day in any simple way that may work: Demonstrate your love for specific people in some concrete way. Find a community program that helps you feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, or care for those in physical need. Offer a feeling response to the emotional needs of people in your life: compassion for the afflicted, comfort for the grieving, forgiveness of injury.

6. The Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew, chapters 5–7), based on rabbinical teachings, has become the Christian recipe for the dismantling of the arrogant, self-centered ego. It proposes nonviolent techniques as ways of showing love. Read it and imagine what your life would be like if you closely followed it. Take one example of a current conflict with someone and apply Jesus’s recommendations. Notice how you feel about yourself. What happens to you when you no longer care about winning, being right, or retaliating? How have you thereby found a sector of your inner Self that was perhaps unexplored before?
Is the Sermon on the Mount perhaps a portrait of us at our best—what we would look like if we were not afraid of love?