{"id":67,"date":"2007-02-07T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/?p=67"},"modified":"2012-02-18T10:31:24","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T18:31:24","slug":"educating-the-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/2007\/02\/07\/educating-the-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Educating the Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

The author is Melvin McLeod.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This article<\/a>\u00a0was NOT WRITTEN by the Dali Lama, but ABOUT him and his talks. I find that in this type of situation the writer sometimes does not convey the true mean or intent of the speaker. \u00a0Nor do many writers understand the words used and their INTENT, which is important.)<\/p>\n

Here are some quotes from the article that I like and then my comments:<\/p>\n

He doesn\u2019t deny the reality of our differences or the inevitability of conflict. What\u2019s important is how we choose to react. (referring to the Dali Lama)<\/p>\n

A lot of the Dali Lama article seems to be focused on how people relate to others. \u00a0There is little to no discussion on how we relate to OURSELVES.Are we being compassionate with OURSELVES? Or are we beating ourselves us with our emotional reactions to what life is offering us?If we do not FIRST have compassion for ourselves then we will not be in any shape to care about and have compassion for others.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd your empathy can be extended further, eventually towards your enemy. Your enemies may disagree with you, may be harming you, but in another aspect, they are still another human being like you. They also have the right not to suffer and to find happiness. If your empathy can extend out like that, it is unbiased, genuine compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

THIS I fully agree with.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the next paragraph the writer (not the Dali Lama) talks about \u201cthe three poisons of passion, aggression, and ignorance.\u201dThis shows the ignorance of the writer in that he included passion as a poison.Without passion there can be no com-passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis touches on the very definition of what we mean by compassion,\u201d the Dalai Lama replied. \u201cAt the heart of compassion is our response to someone else\u2019s suffering. The first point is their immediate suffering, and at another level is the causes or conditions of the suffering. Maybe it is wiser to develop compassion toward people who are creating the causes of their future suffering. That\u2019s wiser, because compassion can bring preventive measures. Immediate suffering has already happened\u2014we feel a sense of concern, but sometimes nothing can be done. Maybe our efforts should be to prevent these kinds of things in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what I talk about the most, Preventative Compassion, a compassion that confronts the CAUSES of injury BEFORE they happen.Sometimes bringing about crisis is the most compassionate way to wake people up to their habits that are causing the suffering.Confrontation is just bring forth the truth of what is happening so confrontation is a healthy way to wake people up to their unhealthy habits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe basis of compassion for others is compassion for oneself,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have the natural wish to be freed from your own suffering, you won\u2019t be able to empathize with others\u2019 experience of suffering. Therefore, the basis is compassion for oneself.\u201d<\/p>\n

YES, absolutely.My point exactly.<\/p>\n

I wrote about Dynamic Compassion yesterday in my blog.You can read it below and may see some differences between my perspective, which I would call a more holistic perspective, and the Buddhist\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The author is Melvin McLeod. This article\u00a0was NOT WRITTEN by the Dali Lama, but ABOUT him and his talks. I find that in this type of situation the writer sometimes does not convey the true mean or intent of the speaker. \u00a0Nor do many writers understand the words used and their INTENT, which is important.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[39,11,37],"class_list":["post-67","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health","tag-anger","tag-compassion","tag-dali-lama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":307,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jimfreedom.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}