hctiB G: Compassion, Lack Thereof
originally posted Nov 18, 2009
In “Compassion” [from 9/4/05, and which starts with a PSA for help for New Orleanians after the Floods], Gil Fronsdal says that compassion is hard because it requires feeling the suffering of others:
When compassion flows freely, there’s a feeling of rightness of it even though it’s painful.
Compassion. The word “com” is “with” and “passion” in the old way meant suffering, to suffer with. And that points to something about compassion which is not very pleasant…
Compassion is a wonderful ideal…but we can’t avoid the fact that compassion arises in contact with the suffering of the world…
That difficulty and unpleasantness might explain some things:
- lack of compassion for NO post-Floods in NO
