Category: psychology

Blog Post #14: Compassion and Self

You may remember when I started this blog months ago I mentioned that compassion is not resourced from our ego but our true self/core self, one with God.  I have worked with these concepts for many years, first exposed to it in the work of Thomas Merton[1].  Later in Merton’s Palace of Nowhere[2] Jim Finley provides more insights into this seeming dichotomy.  For years I’ve sought a language that does not include the concepts of true and false because of the pejorative connotations of “false” self.  Then we throw ego into the mix and where does that fit in the conceptual schema?

I thought I had settled into a type of at least linguistic comfort when I changed true self to core self as the self created in the image and likeness of God and one with God. Then changing false self to constructed self, defined as that part of us that learns through life experiences. Ego is part of the constructed self and is that part that interfaces with the world and can be either healthy or wounded.

I call this linguistic comfort because there was still a felt sense of not quite right that I couldn’t identify. Recently in my reading I’ve come across the term “Essential Nature.”  It’s probably always been in the spiritual materials I read but it seemed to fit better to describe the part of our being-ness created in the image and likeness of God, Divine Love.  It was using the term “self” that I was uncomfortable with probably due to years of psychological training and influence.

“Essential Nature” emphasizes to me the gift and “given-ness” of who Infinite Love created us to be. The constructed self is all the “add-ons” to our Essential Nature, both conscious and unconscious.  Our ego then as healthy, wounded or redeemed is how we present ourself and function in the world around us. Typically it is what we are conscious of in our thinking/feeling self. It is the interface between the inside us and us in relationship to the people.

Why is this important at all? Until we realize the given-ness of compassion in our Essential Nature, it is difficult to be compassionate.  In the ego, many people judge themselves or fear compassion, both for themselves and others, because of feelings of vulnerability, unworthiness, or that they will be unproductive by letting themselves “off the hook.”

Experientially this means that we focus on removing the obstacles to living with compassion or Christ-consciousness.  We also need to access and extend our awareness of oneness with our Essential Nature.  That is, we need to enhance our awareness and spend time living with compassion, that is, living from the oneness with our Essential Nature.  In my experience, enhancing our awareness will identify the obstacles so that as we become aware we can see the strategies necessary to decrease the influence of the obstacles.

How do we live from oneness with our Essential Nature of love and compassion?  There are many spiritual practices that develop and enhance awareness of this reality including mindfulness, meditation, contemplation, prayer, sacred dance, writing, and art as a few examples. Meditation is “any act habitually entered into with our whole heart as a way of awakening and sustaining a more interior, meditative awareness of the present moment.[3]” In this present moment we are in the midst of Infinite Compassion and our task is to awaken to it and live in it.

 

 

[1] Merton, T. (1972) New Seeds of Contemplation. New York: New Directions Publishing.

[2] Finley, J. (1978) Merton’s Palace of Nowhere. Notre Dame, IN.: Ave Maria Press.

[3] Finley, J. (2004) Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, p.45.

Blog 10: Welcoming Practice

Blog 10: Welcoming Practice

I have found a practice that I started paying attention to this summer.  It is called “Welcoming Practice” and you can find more information on it in Cynthia Bourgeault’s books, Contemplative Outreach’s website, an online course of the same title, and many more resources when you google it.  It is a way to pay attention on purpose and realign oneself in oneness with the God of Infinite Love and Compassion. Let me tell you about my personal experience practicing it this summer.

Obviously since I am new to this prayer practice I am no expert and know I have a beginner’s mind.  But I can share with you this approach and you may consider using it as a compassion practice.  There are 3 Steps and beginning is the key.   Perhaps you notice that you are a little frustrated or irritated; often these feelings increase particularly if we try to resist them.  If you’re reading this blog you are probably interested in enhancing compassion toward yourself and others and becoming irritated and frustrated just isn’t helpful on a contemplative compassion life path.

Step One is to Focus: to feel and become aware of what you are experiencing in your body.  In our example of irritation, I notice that I become tight and constricted.  I may even tighten my jaw and my breathing can change. Or it could be low blood sugar and I am hungry.  What is important is to notice what is going on in the body before my mind steps in to evaluate and often criticize or justify my irritation.  This may happen and it’s important to stay with what the body is experiencing rather than getting caught up in the mind’s storyline.

Step Two is to Welcome, that is, to welcome what you are experiencing, not to welcome the driver who just cut you off in traffic. It is an unconditional acceptance of “the reality of this situation…It is always the sensation you are accepting…and never the external situation itself.”[1]  Cynthia suggests that we “name the sensation lightly-‘Welcome, fear,’ ‘Welcome, pain,’ and so forth-rather than merely saying Welcome…”[2] Contemplative Outreach does suggest saying “Welcome, welcome, welcome.”[3] I have used both approaches and both are helpful.  I use “Welcome, welcome, welcome” to get me focused on Step 2, and then I can be specific with what I am welcoming.  This welcoming restores inner wholeness.[4]

Step Three is Letting Go.  It is not designed to fix things but rather to open ourselves and let go of repressing or reacting to what we are experiencing. It allows us the opportunity to reconnect with the Core Self one with God and then have the wisdom to act with compassion.  Letting go of the storyline we construct around daily occurrences which allows us to see clearly.  Cynthia writes, “The most important point I can make about this step is not to get to it too quickly…only when you sense that the energy bound up in the upset is beginning to wane on its own.”[5] It is a letting go of our expectations and need for control.

Cynthia Bourgeault writes about Welcoming Practice, “in fact, it is one, if not the strongest and potentially life-changing in the repertory of Christian spiritual practices.”[6]

 

[1] Bourgeault, C. (2016) The Heart of Centering Prayer.  Boulder, CO: Shambhala Press, p.91.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Contemplative Outreach (2014) “Welcoming Prayer: Consent on the Go.”

[4] Bourgeault, p. 92.

[5] Bourgeault, C. (2008) The Wisdom Jesus. Boston: Shambhala Press, p. 179-180.

[6] Bourgeault (2016), p.90.

Blog 9: Living the Compassionate Life

In Christianity we discuss compassion but usually in the context of acts of mercy and are discrete actions rather than a way of life. (This is a good thing, too, but not what I am focusing on in this blog.)  I have found a lot of practical guidance in living the life path of compassion from Buddhist and psychological sources.  In particular, I have found one practice that is a good beginning on the contemplative compassion journey.  That is Loving-Kindness (L-K) practice and there are many Buddhist authors and teachers who can lead you in this practice. Pema Chodron calls this Bodhicitta Practice[1].

For our purposes, I thought I’d share my modified L-K practice.  For me it is a prayer.  The language of the practice that I use is:

May you know happiness (compassion, or whatever their need might be)

And the roots of happiness (compassion);

May you be free of suffering

And the roots of suffering;

May you be peaceful and at ease;

May you know love and joy in your heart.

In Buddhist training, the direction is to start with yourself but many Westerners find expressing Loving-Kindness for yourself to be difficult.  So, the best way to begin this practice is by thinking of a person whose suffering you feel strongly and whose happiness is very important to you. This could be someone you know or have known, or someone you’ve seen on the street or read about in the newspaper. If people are too difficult, start with a beloved pet.

To expand your prayer practice to others, a typical progression might be[2]:

  • a beloved friend;
  • a benefactor or mentor;
  • a neutral person, who is someone who we neither like or dislike (like someone you meet while grocery shopping);
  • a difficult person, who is someone with whom we have experienced irritation or conflict;
  • and for all beings everywhere, without exception or distinction.

This can be part of your daily prayer practice and may arise from or lead you into contemplative practices such as Centering Prayer or Christian mediation.  It opens one’s heart to the God of Infinite Love and Compassion.

 

[1] Chodron, P.  (2013)  Living Beautifully: with Uncertainty and Change. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications and “Noble Heart Study Guide” (1995). Boulder, CO: Sounds True, p. 15.

[2] “Loving Kindness Practice.” Downloaded from: http://www.mindfulnet.org/Loving%20Kindness%20Practice.pdf on July 25, 2018.

Compassion is not a feeling.

Blog 6: Compassion is not a feeling

Compassion is not a feeling, yet we may have feelings and emotions while in the midst of its awareness. I find that the tender/kind aspect of compassion does create warm feelings inside me but that is not its motivation.  Yes, compassion is a motivation not a feeling[1].  It is a manifestation of the divine spark within us. Feelings too often are egocentric rather than a joining with and manifesting the divine spark in our daily lives. This is why compassion can be a way of life, a way of being in our daily lives.  It becomes the manifestation of all we do.

Even saying that, I know that we get distracted from this motivation.  In western culture we are very focused on the individual.  Our first response to everything tends to be, “what impact will this have on me and mine?” We are conditioned into this from a very early age.  When compassion is our motivation it asks more of us. It asks us to be aware of our competing motivations and to have the courage to choose compassion even in difficult circumstances.  Jesus tells us to “Love our enemies,”[2]  and to “Love our neighbor as ourselves,”[3] yet this is very different from the dominant values and motivations in our culture and as humans it seems to be weaned out of us.

Yet, every religion has some language that encourages the follower to love their neighbor.  Since it is such a dominant theme it must be possible for us to live compassionately.  In order to set out on the Path of Compassion, one must first be aware and conscious of how often we are not compassionate; not as a way to judge ourselves or create shame, but to see the opportunities when we can choose a compassionate response.  If you’ve ever wanted, like me, to be “non-judgmental” isn’t it amazing how it seems like all we do is judge! Yet, this is the silver lining of the cloud, to have the gift of sight so that one can see a way forward.  Even to consider that there is a different response, a response of compassion, in any situation is a step on the path.

This week let us pause and consider our motivations.  Is it an egocentric motivation or is another option available to us? And in this step, practice compassion for all our wayward ways knowing that God writes straight with crooked lines.[4]

 

 

[1] Gilbert, P.  and Choden (2014) Mindful Compassion. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, p. 59.

[2] Luke 6:27

[3] Mark 12:31

[4] Attributed as an old Portuguese saying; I first became aware of this through a talk given by James Finley, Ph.D.

The Courage to be Compassionate

Blog 4: Courage

Many people have difficulty with compassion because they think that to be compassionate you have to be powerless and become a “doormat.”  This is far from the truth although for me it is the most difficult aspect of compassion.  As I previously mentioned, Steve Gilligan described compassion as tender, fierce, and mischievous, and when I studied fierce compassion, I found that for me a better descriptor was courage.

In an effort to not practice “idiot compassion” (please see Blog 3: Wisdom), one needs to be able to be fierce like a mother protecting her child.  We often see this in the wild, where tiger and lion moms will sacrifice and fight to the death to protect their cubs.  Human moms express their fierceness somewhat differently but we can still observe a mother’s reaction to anything that potentially threatens her child.

There are other examples when courage is necessary to compassion.  When we see wrongdoing in the world, and take action to create change, this requires the courage of compassion.  You have perhaps encountered someone who is quite strident in their social justice words and it has the effect of discounting their efforts.  We don’t need to be aggressive and mean to change the world, such as using forms of violence to create peace and justice. We do need to seek, from our Core Self/Christ Consciousness, what Love is calling us to do in the situation.  It is only when we pause and seek to see from Christ’s eyes that we can select the best path of action.  Even personally, it will require setting ego boundaries to find the capacity to pause and awaken to Christ consciousness because we automatically respond with retribution rather than restorative justice.  This is the “fight or flight” response of our basic brain structure.

Pema Chodron recounts in her audio series “Noble Heart”[1]  a story that a student shared with her.  The short version is that this person had a roommate who was addicted to drugs.  Out of tender compassion, although he did not support his behavior, he did not interfere and accepted him as he was. One day he came home to find his roommate nearly dead on the floor and he became so angry at the roommate he screamed at him to stop doing this to himself and take care of himself. He then left the apartment. He expected upon his return that his roommate would be very angry with him and/or moved out. Instead he found a roommate who was grateful that he had cared enough about him to get angry and the roommate stopped using drugs.

Paul Gilbert, Ph.D. wrote in 2015, “When people hear the word compassion, they tend to think of kindness. But scientific study has found the core of compassion to be courage.”[2] He continues, “The point is that kind people don’t always have the courage to behave compassionately.”  For some people, it takes courage just to acknowledge suffering, let alone act to alleviate it.  Compassion requires something out of us and it takes courage to open ourselves to suffering and use the three facets of compassion, tenderness, courage, and wisdom, to act from our Core Self.

 

 

 

[1] Chdron, P. (1998) “Noble Heart.” Boulder, CO.: Sounds True.

[2] Gilbert, P. (2015) “Compassion Universally Misunderstood” in Huffington Post-UK. Aug. 25, 2015, retrieved on June 12, 2018.