A Practice in Compassion

Compassion is actually quite a radical practice and something that I have been thinking of quite often recently. I don't believe compassion is innate to us - it's something that must be practiced. The word compassion actually stems from the Latin word "compati" which means to "suffer with". For the majority of us, suffering is something we usually try to avoid. Suffering isn't always easy to be with, but it is an inevitable and unavoidable part of the human experience. When someone offers us compassion in a moment of suffering they temporarily share the load of that suffering so that we don't have to bear the burden alone. I witnessed a beautiful example of compassion earlier this week, when my Godmother's husband suddenly passed. She and my mother have been best friends for 50 years, and as my mom told me the news she started to tear up she told me the part that hurt her the most, was knowing how much her friend was hurting. My mother did not shy away from this hurt - not hers, or her friends. In fact, despite the suffering they both felt, she packed her bags and went to go and stay with her best friend, who was devastated by her beloved's passing. She drove through the snow to be with her (and this is particularly wild because my mother will not drive in snowy conditions for any reason I can even think of.) Even though she could not repair the situation, or reduce my Godmother's suffering, rather than turn away from the hurt, she turned directly into it, to bear the storm of suffering with her friend. That is true compassion. --

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