We talk about suffering. All life is suffering. We might now call it anxiety, stress. The French have colorful superlatives for their finer despair: ennui, melancolia. But I have not suffered.
“All beings grow old,” but I don’t feel age in my body. “All beings get sick,” but I’ve always recovered. “All beings die,” but not quite yet. It’s bourgeois suffering: the suffering of existence. But what happens when you see someone suffer and know that you’re helpless to help?
My best friend’s brother is in the hospital right now. For 10 years he has managed aggressive thymoma (he wasn’t supposed to have long to live when he first heard this diagnosis). The cancer is suffocating his heart such that he needs tubes to remove liquid to make room. He doesn’t wake up in pain because he doesn’t go to sleep: he rests, in pain. Treatment too will be painful.
I’ve been regularly dedicating my practice to him, to his family. Buddhism doesn’t give you an intercessory being like a god to pray to, to ask that He intercede on your friend’s health – that He cure him. When I dedicate my practice, the most I can hope for is that the peace, the presence, the living force that I cultivate on the mat and cushion be not wasted on me, but be shared – that this becomes my friend’s. And with this, the hope that peace brings healing, recovery.
It’s magic talk – that my intentions be felt 1,500 miles away… that my love be felt at all. (aside: disregard for a moment prayer research) Beyond hope, I had no reason to think I was making a difference. Until last night: I had insight.
Gido chanting is a devotional practice meant to cultivate the virtue of the bodhisattva whose name you’re chanting. Last night, with 6 others, we chanted Gwanseum Bosal (Sk.: Avalokitesvara) – the Boddhisattva of Great Compassion. Then it dawned on me, my dedication was cultivating compassion. Compassion literally means “to suffer with.”
My dedication is a vow to be there with my friend – miles away – that he is not alone in his suffering – that we are in this together – that I take on some of his suffering – and he shares some of my peace and presence – and that we are all connected, that it’s not just a lot of sentimental peace-love lip service.
Compassion is not sympathy. Sympathy is a simile, a metaphor. Compassion is literal. And because it’s so real, there are no words for comfort. How do I know “it will be alright?” I don’t.
But I do know that it IS alright. I hear your spirits are up, that you’re the same old Scott. For all that could be “not right,” at this moment in time, you are loved, you are surrounded by those you love. You are compassion for all those who suffer because they love you.
