Hii Sean, I think you asked some good questions as far as I know,
In a community, most individuals will have a feeling that they are kind deep inside their hearts but when it comes to interaction with other people in a group, a sort of friction may take place which is quiet a different matter at present. Having said that we are compassionate beings by nature and it is one fundamental force deep-rooted inside us. Therefore, one can experience compassion inside the self continuously.
We do act out of compassion in most cases for any given community. Even religions try to teach ( or hammer us) in many different ways on the topic of compassion.
Compassion : "the state of being affected or acted upon by something external”. Thus my definition will be : not in a state of subjugation to our own reactions (motivation, desire, preoccupations) but embracing the actual content of our consciousness - ie. in a relation with what seems to be presenting itself to me.
When we talk of our compassion to the whole, this can only be the whole of what is being presented now - not what may be somewhere else at some other time.
It is free from suffering, because to “embrace” means to be free of the conflict between what is and what I want.
Literally it means ‘suffering with another.’ It includes and transcends empathy, to steal a catchphrase from integral theory. Without empathy there could be no compassion. But compassion is more than just empathy, it’s empathy with an urge to alleviate suffering. Maybe. Funny, I consider myself to be a kind person and gentle (mostly) with the emotionally fragile creatures of our species, but I don’t feel I know much at all about compassion.
Well, this is what we are wanting to address here, isn’t it? Can we go beyond “theory” and find out if we can touch, taste, smell this ‘fact’ that K has proposed, which is that we are the world, that the consciousness of humanity is one consciousness.
Theory is the known, beyond is the unknown. The known is cozy, like a good fairy tale. The unknown, well, best I follow Wittgenstein’s advice and shuttahellupaboutit!
I can’t say that the feeling or sense of compassion is connected to me. There are moments when there manifests a feeling of care and affection for everything, clouds spiders children animals earth grass mosquitoes trees butterflies….the whole of creation; a sense of kindness and responsibility to act in no way that causes suffering or disharmony. It does seem not at all to have a relationship to me, nor any memories or thoughts. I don’t say this romantically or idealistically, or think of it as something special. It just occasionally happens out of the blue.
Is it possible to talk about the unknown? No answers please, that can be addressed by the subsequent question : “but isn’t that just the known?” (the known which may include errors, fallacies, delusions and conscious ignorance)
Just so we’re clear, the question I thought we were looking at is the one raised earlier with Emile and Sean, concerning our relationship with other human beings (and nature):
K: What prevents us from seeing the very simple fact that this world is ours, that this earth is yours and mine to live upon, undivided by nationalities, by frontiers, to live upon happily, productively, with delight, with affection and compassion?
Are you saying that we cannot do this? That such a question is off-limits to our intelligence?
Yes. I think this is what we are probing into. As was said on Sivaram’s recent thread on compassion, we are not saying that this quality can be cultivated. K said we have to approach this issue obliquely, obscurely (meaning indirectly). But this quality is clearly important to our humanity.
As K said (in one of the quotes above), without compassion a human being is less than an animal.
Hello James. I see things very similarly to you here. As far as I know, K never made it clear if he thought that most humans were capable of expressing or feeling compassion. It seems very probable to me that they are indeed capable of this, even though it may only be a question of relatively fleeting moments. Sometimes, it seems he was talking about a revolution which had to take place in human beings before they could really be compassionate. It’s a pity that he didn’t make this clearer.
Hello Sivaram. What you say appears to be true. We probably perceive ourselves as kind and compassionate but perhaps we are oblivious to the moments the self asserts itself and our compassion and kindness disappear.
Okay. As you suggested, I offered my actual feeling and “experience” of compassion, not measuring it against anyone else’s sense or feeling or description authority or not, nor positing it as an absolute, so what next? Aside from no cultivation and the depravity ( I think comparing the human condition to animals is rather inaccurate and insensitive to their extraordinary intelligence and presence), what is this enigmatic oblique approach? And what is uncovered here other than a plethora of ideas?
The underlying question I consider, is can effort and exploration result in the dissolution of psychological existence, or might it only rarely manifest as a mysterious gift? Must I give up my indulgence in, and gratification of exploration of freedom, and no longer wait for more than is happening, allowing space for the seeds beneath the surface, to live or die without the interference of will.
For one thing this ( see below - which seems like a whole load of stuff : presupposition, projection, fear, desire, and a movement away from boring old what is) :
Yes. So I have gone through the list of quotations above, and summarised each one in a short sentence or less, to see where that leaves us.
A feeling for all living things on the earth.
Generosity, care, and not to be attached to any religion or ideology.
Not to be attached to any person or symbol.
Harmony in mind, heart, body.
Part of total attention.
Part of watching.
Before insight can be, this quality must exist.
Can such a quality be communicated to an other?
One cannot depend on anyone for this.
Where this doesn’t exist, hate and violence exist. Why can we not share this earth together without hating each other?
Without this quality we fall in intrinsic worth.
If one feels this quality, one will not kill another.
Can there be love without identifying with what one loves?
Love does not belong to a person.
This quality can only be where there is self-knowing.
First, the ‘smoke’ must be dissipated - then this quality is.
Compassion cannot co-exist with attachment to a belief.
Compassion is ‘there’ - it is not ‘me’ being compassionate.
Instinct (i.e. maternal instinct) alone is not that quality.
This quality cannot exist where there is indifference to the suffering of other people. One must realise that one is not separate from the rest of humanity for compassion to be.
Your neighbour is yourself.
This quality is a fundamental part of what it means to be religious.
When one is no longer separate from one’s own suffering, this quality has grounds to manifest.
Sorrow is passion: don’t escape from it, and then that passion is compassion.
&
Sorrow must completely end for compassion to fully be.
If the Buddha says to me, “The ending of sorrow is the bliss of compassion”, will I listen?
If someone is in sorrow, do you do not feel compassion? Such compassion then operates on the deeper layers of our consciousness.
&
When self-interest is set aside, the other is.
In the state of aloneness, this quality is.
When there is space and emptiness, this quality is. And this makes possible the manifestation of sacred truth.
Aspects of this list one can ‘do’ now, in whatever state of conditioning one finds oneself. Other aspects depend on a mutation in our condition.
So where are we to start?
One thing we can do is to ask ourselves very simple questions, without immediately throwing them out or rationalising an answer to them before they have had a chance to have an effect.
Such as (and, just to make clear, these are not intended to be in any way prescriptive - they are simply suggestive, based on the list just described):
Do we have a feeling for the living things of the earth? Do we care about plants, trees, animals, other people?
Are we generous?
Are we attached to a religion or a person (including the Buddha or K)?
Is our head in tune with our heart and with our physical body?
Are we able to be aware, to be attentive, to watch ourselves and the world around us for any length of time?
Are we waiting for someone else to show us ‘how’?
Do we see that without generosity and care the world can only be hateful?
What is stopping us from sharing this world together, without hate?
Are we aware that without this quality our world can have no real meaning?
Can we care about another without being attached to them?
Do we know ourselves?
Are we aware of our own ‘smoke’?
Are we attached to our beliefs?
Are we indifferent to the suffering of others?
Do we feel - at the core of ourselves - separate from other people?
Do we feel separate from our own suffering?
Can we refuse to escape from our own suffering?
If we see someone in suffering, do we not feel compassion?
Are we able to set aside our self-interest and see what happens?
What do we feel when we are completely alone, uninfluenced?
Are we capable of being empty, spacious? - to find out what happens in that emptiness?
I think it would be useful to clarify our use of the word compassion in this examination of “Krishnamurti on Compassion” as the thread is entitled. K as Sean points on might be using the word differently depending on context.
I can see this as likely if we are using the word compassion in the ordinary sense. For example, coming across a bird with a broken wing fluttering on the ground on a walk would fill me with what I would call a sense of sorrow (which I would describe as compassion). Things get way more murky if we expand the meaning of compassion to something much bigger than empathy. To something beyond this type of empathetic reaction, beyond being kind, generous, and considerate with respect to other living beings.
One such expansive use has to do with a sense of spontaneous connection with the entire outside world, not restricted to other sentient being alone. This usage would appear to be closer to the etymological sense of the word, com + passion, with passion, or with great energy, I would guess.
As James notes above the difference has to do with the “self-center”.
One question, if we want to stick to the OP, is what, if any, is the relationship between the two usages of the word compassion by K. Is the former indicative of a mind that has done the preparatory work - putting one’s house in order, I believe K referred to it somewhere - for the other to perhaps organically manifest? Just wondering. Not waiting for anything (lest the absolutists pounce).
The preparatory work is important, but can work both ways - intellectual understanding can be fallacious, detrimental to freedom, as well as beneficial. Being able to discuss the topics can also work both ways.
The organic manifestation and the manifestation through awareness of the self-process, are manifestations of something similar I would posit - if not, it would mean that we have created something from mere surrender/understanding. The only thing that one might wish to parse out would be the differences regarding our biological tendancies for care and the moments of absence of self/fear.
Looking at James’ meticulous and synthetic list of questions (big up! to the J!) - I was tempted to just say : Yes! Gentlemen our work here is done - time for a cup of tea!
We can look at the list and imagine that we are sorted : we are generous, pragmatic, capable of standing alone etc… I may not pick up every hitchhiker, but have opened my home to people in need. I may worry about my finances, but still sometimes donate etc…
Are we expecting constant samadhi (absence of reaction from the known)? Some say yes - but isn’t the capacity for freedom and maybe more importantly, ease, acceptation and right understanding of our biology actually more compassionate? (than becoming demi-gods)
PS - Just a little apology for any lack of tact and sophistication in some of my replies to folk (sorry)
I am just thinking these things thorough out loud, so I may not say things correctly. But can we, provisionally, distinguish between what one might call compassion (a) and compassion (b) ?
As we said, in K’s use of the word compassion (or its far weaker synonyms, like affection, care, sensitivity, generosity, etc) it seems that sometimes he refers to compassion (a) and sometimes to compassion (b). The same might also be said of his usage of the word “intelligence”, and for the same reasons - but I don’t want to overcomplicate things here (as they are already complicated enough!)
So, let us take compassion (a), compassion in its “ordinary sense”, as Emile put it:
Another expression of this would be macdougdoug’s example of generosity:
So compassion (a) is something that we can all comprehend, if we are not too ill, too jaundiced, too psychopathic etc. This is probably why Sivaram wants to call it “natural”:
Of course, we must be careful here, as we are apt to sentimentalise children and young mothers! (who, as quote 19 makes clear, may simply be acting on deeply conditioned bio-chemical instincts, reinforced over millions of years of natural selection).
Nevertheless, we can be open to the possibility that compassion (a) is entirely natural - if we take “natural” to mean the likely response of a human brain (that is not deeply neurotic, unhealthy, traumatised, diseased, psychopathic, etc) to the world around him/her. So compassion (a) - we might say - is a healthy human response.
Therefore, if I can utilise one of Sean’s comments to make a positive statement here:
remembering that we are of course talking here about compassion (a).
However, compassion (b) seems to be somewhat different. Compassion (b) may necessarily involve
Compassion (b) apparently involves a broader energy and scope than compassion (a). As Emile says, it points to
or even, as macdoudoug says, something akin to
Compassion (b) can only manifest when certain conditions have been fulfilled, such as: the total ending of sorrow, and the total ending of self-interest. As Leep asks,
(for the sake of discovering true compassion)
Or, put differently, compassion (b) perhaps necessarily involves having an “insight” into human consciousness (and therefore human suffering) as a whole: a total insight. And until such insight exists, this ‘greater’ compassion cannot be.
And yet, as we said before, K elsewhere says that there must be the perfume of compassion for “insight” to occur at all!
So, this naturally leads us to ask the question, as Emile puts it,
Or, expressed differently: is compassion (a) necessary for the (organic) manifestation of compassion (b)?
And if it is, then can we cultivate compassion (a)? …
As was mentioned on the other recent compassion thread, K says “no” to this last question:
To say, “I love you” that feeling must come naturally, not be forced or stimulated. One can’t say, “It is necessary therefore I must love you.” How do you have this affection? … It may be that you must come to it obliquely - you understand what I mean? … You can cultivate chrysanthemums or other things, but you cannot cultivate affection - cunningly, unconsciously or deliberately, you can’t produce this. (School Dialogue, Brockwood Park, 1973)
So we have to come to compassion (a) “obliquely”, according to K.
What does this mean?
One way of inquiring into this question is to ask what else did K say is not cultivable?
Did he not say that awareness also was not cultivable, that it cannot be “practised”? He often spoke of an awareness without choice, of watching or seeing things without any motive.
So - I am asking myself - is there a relationship between awareness or attention and this quality of compassion (a)?
In that other thread it was also mentioned that K sometimes paired together affection, care with awareness and attention. E.g.:
Affection implies care, a diligent care in whatever you are doing—care in your speech, in your dress, in the manner of your eating, how you look after your body; care in your behaviour without distinctions of superior or inferior, how you consider people. Politeness is consideration for others, and this consideration is care, whether it is for your younger brother or oldest sister. When you care, violence in every form disappears from you—your anger, your antagonism and your pride. This care implies attention. Attention is to watch, observe, listen, learn. (The Whole Movement of Life is Learning: J. Krishnamurti’s Letters to His Schools, Chapter 34)
So, by appealing to this much more general, broad sense of consideration, sensitivity, watchfulness, generosity, etc, was K perhaps indicating a way of organically coming upon compassion (a)?
Remember that we are provisionally taking compassion (a) to be completely natural, part of the brain’s healthy operation, perhaps even part of our mammalian social instincts - involving the sensitivity of our sense-perceptions and emotional-physical intelligence, etc.
So we might even expect some agency on our part here, a ‘conscious’ concern for the well-being of others, a ‘desire’ not to harm living things, a ‘consideration’ for our own physical and psychical health, etc - without which compassion (a) cannot be - even though, truly speaking, such interests can only relate at best indirectly, obliquely, or marginally, to compassion (a & b).
However, compassion (b) seems to involve an altogether different order of perception, something that K suggested can only arise from “beyond” the brain; and can only show itself when the stream of consciousness - the stream of suffering - has been radically emptied (or has ‘emptied itself’) through a “total insight” into the nature of suffering.
So, could it be that compassion (a) - with its awareness and sensitivity, its care and attention - is a necessary condition for the correct, intelligent, healthy meeting of human suffering (both personal and collective) in a human brain?
And that only when such an intelligent, healthy meeting of suffering takes place (in which the observer is seen to be the observed) that an insight into suffering - an insight that is synonymous with compassion (b) - can take place?
And is it an organic process right the way through - starting with healthy perception at the level of the brain and body, which perhaps culminates in a healthy perception at the level of ‘compassion beyond the brain’?
Where does all this leave us? Are we (am I) any nearer to comprehending what it means to be compassionate, of having a sense of what is compassion?
Or is it sufficient to continue to ask oneself the kinds of questions already mentioned:
Do I have a feeling for the living things of the earth? Do I care about plants, trees, animals, other people? Am I sensitive? Am I generous? Am I aware? Am I attached? Am I out of balance? Do I know myself? etc.
What do others think/feel about all this? (apologies if I have written too much).
