Compassion
I went to Powell's bookstore in Portland today and asked for An Interrupted Life, the journals and letters of Etty Hillesum. The person behind the desk looked it up, and asked if it was about the holocaust. As I said yes, I noticed compassion and sadness come up for me, and how the atmosphere changed. I also noticed how much I like that experience of compassion and intimacy.
And I saw clearly how it all comes from a story.
Without the story, there is just clarity. Jesus and Hitler is the same. There is ruthless equality.
With a story comes compassion and sadness. People shouldn't do those things to each other. It is so sad that such a beautiful young woman, with so many talents, had to die so young and in such a way. And so on.
It is a beautiful story in a way. And as I said, I noticed a great deal of attachment and comfort in the compassion it gave birth to. Yet, it is only a story. Only another delusion. Another veil.
Who wants to hear that? How can it be expressed?
At the same time, I see that conventional compassion has a content, a particular feeling associated with it. And transcendent compassion does not. Transcendent compassion, Big Heart, just acts. There is suffering and the desire of I in the form of you to be relieved from suffering, and it acts. It is the left hand helping the right. No hesitation. No dependence on any particular feeling. It is the ruthless equality of Big Mind appearing as love in action.
Labels: big heart, big mind, books, compassion