No Expectations
November 5, 2008 Compassion is the intention and capability to lessen suffering and, ultimately, to transform this suffering. When we adopt an awareness imbued with compassion, we seek to ease others’ pain. But in our wish to help, more often than not, we react emotionally and end up getting carried away by our feelings. At times we empathize so completely with what someone is going through that we subject ourselves to the same distress. So instead of one person suffering, there are now two miserable people!
Instead of reacting emotionally, we need to learn to temper our compassion with wisdom. Then we will know how to better help another help another. We will also realize that an individual’s circumstances are the result of past karmas. Therefore, it may well be next to impossible for us to improve another’s situation. This realization does not mean that we should stop caring about others or dismiss their difficulties as being their own fault. It means we understand that our wanting to alleviate their suffering may instead be of benefit to them in the future, in ways we cannot foresee.
So be compassionate, but do not focus on getting immediate positive results. Do not get wrapped up in egoistic thoughts, thinking that “I” can fix the problem. Without such expectations, we will not be disappointed or saddened when our attempts to help end in failure, or worse, aggravate the situation. We will not know how best to help if we fail to temper our compassion with wisdom. In other words, the person we want to help may not have the requisite conditions for us to do so.
When we stop focusing on immediate results and instead focus on just helping others, our compassion will ultimately be able to benefit all beings. By planting the seeds of compassion—the wish for all beings to be happy and free of suffering—we can be confident that we have indeed helped others.
Reader Comments (2)
I can accept that I can hold out the hand of compassion and companionship to friends, but to ones children?
I think all parents feel beholden to ease their childrens' suffering, and all act emotionally to their pain and tribulations. How does one avoid this dilemna? Worse is the feeling that as a mother, or father, you are somehow responsible for their behaviour, pain, or illness and wish to take on that pain for yourself, thus increasing your own suffering with all the Karmic consequences that this entails for both parties.
Is this parental emotion and desire to "make everything right" for ones children wrong thinking, attachment, delusion? How can it be avoided.
[You do throw some curve balls at times! LOL]
Throwing curve balls is part of the job description. ;-)
We cannot make everything right for others. If that was possible, the Buddhas would have done so long ago.
It is natural for a parent to want to alleviate the suffering of their children. But the wish to alleviate suffering (which is good) and the expectation that we can (which is not good) are very different.
Wanting another's suffering to ease is why we practice and learn Buddhism. The first of the four vows of bodhisattvas is "Sentient beings are innumerable, I vow to help them all." The "help" here is teaching and living the teachings to show others how to be free of suffering. But the reality is that we cannot "free" others. So it's a balance, the middle way. Parents want their child to be happy and have the responsibility to do everything possible to show and teach the child how. But, ultimately it's up to the child to make themself happy.