- spoken by Atticus Finch, in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
Oh, Atticus. Can you have a crush on someone based entirely on their principles? If so, I've been crushing on Atticus since 7th grade.
Walking around in someone else's skin is a great way to describe feeling compassion for them.Literally translated, compassion means "co-suffering".
The buddhist definition is "wanting others to be free from suffering."
Which is kind of the same thing. When we walk around in someone else's skin and feel their suffering, minor or major...we want their suffering to end because we are feeling it as if it was our own. There is no separation between their suffering and ours.
The buddhist definition is "wanting others to be free from suffering."
Which is kind of the same thing. When we walk around in someone else's skin and feel their suffering, minor or major...we want their suffering to end because we are feeling it as if it was our own. There is no separation between their suffering and ours.
The focus on compassion is one of the first things that drew me to buddhism. Where many religions focus on our interactions with others as either a boon or a detriment to our relationship with God, the buddhist point of view is that our relationship with others IS our relationship to God and it is our relationship to ourselves.
There's no middle man.
Which I like. Not a fan of bureaucracy over here, especially with my spirituality.
Technically there is no God in buddhism. In my mind, the nun Tenzin Palmo explained it best "We think we are clouds, but really we're the sky."
In this quote I identify sky as spirit/light/love or however you define God or the particles you think God is made of....and ourselves as clouds - part of the sky with temporary shapes that we cling to and say "See...I'm different than the sky...I am fluffy...I look nothing like the sky." or "I'm different from that cloud over there - he is shaped like a bunny. I am totally shaped like a wave."
We each have an idea of how we are different from others. We layer it on - ethnicity, gender, fashion style, age, personality type, zip code, tax bracket. When we take a minute to walk around in someone else's skin, to share their experience for a moment...we get an idea of the ways we are all alike.
And when we realize how we are alike and the superficiality and impermanence of the differences between each cloud, we have the opportunity to recognize the superficiality and impermanence of the differences between the clouds and the sky.
Great post! :) I think that many times people might rub us the wrong way or we just don't like someone for whatever reason. But then when you get to know them it is almost impossible not to feel compassion for them because you know their background and realize why they are the way they are.
ReplyDeletethanks :) exactly!
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