Monday 7 November 2005

Cure is Compassion

Ever so often, we come across someone who may irritate us through their action or speech or body language or for any slightest non-descript reason. It may be a colleague who cracked the wrong joke at us. Or it may be your sibling messing up your stuff. Or it may be a door salesperson with his aggressive sales pitch. It may be a stranger digging his nose in public. Or it may be a stranger bumping into you accidentally. Sometimes, it may even be just ourselves thinking unhappy thoughts.

We often reciprocate all these with anger in return. And unhappiness ensue. In the end, both parties became disturbed and resentful and more anger results.

For Chinese, sometimes we attribute all these clashes with that person who made us angry to our birth dates (ie. 八字). But what happens if the person who clashes with us is our loved one, or mom or dad? I always believe that for every problem, there should be a solution. If we know someone clashes with us, there should be some remedy to counter the effects or to nullify the impact. Check with the experts.

Anyway, without dwelling too much in metaphysics, if we can generate kind thoughts about our "enemy", put ourselves in their shoes, sometimes the anger may just vanish into thin air. Developing kindness and patience for our enemy will help us generate compassion. And the very act of having compassion is the root cure to all problems.

HH Dalai Lama said: "Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend or an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happiness and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basis we develop genuine concern for his or her problem ...... It is possible to have anger without hatred. It is possible to have compassion without attachment. If we are clear between these, it will be useful in our daily life and in our efforts toward world peace. I consider these to be basic spiritual values for the happiness of all human beings, regardless of whether one is a believer or a non-believer."

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