A Song of Compassion

Western people seem to enjoy the intellectual pursuit of book discussion groups.

Truly, published books seem to have magnetic energy and many enjoy being part of discussion.

I do and invariably I come away having learned a lot, especially about other people in the group.

I have been privileged to have been in several discussion groups that have been electric in their vitality, universal in outlook, willing to probe deeply into the heart and very accepting of other group members, a rare and satisfying combination!

All the religions of the world are fascinating and the compassion spoken about in Buddhism has always left me with the question: Just what is compassion?

It seems to be close to love in some circles. But with words like compassion and love, it is hard to pin them down.

I have just started a year-long book discussion group. We will come to grips with compassion, more than a religious or philosophical concept, and also as an ideal to be lived.

Karen Armstrong wrote Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, the theme of the group‘s discussion.

Source: egreenway.com

She says that compassion means to endure something with someone else or to stand in their shoes and feel their feeling and understand their thoughts.

Compassion contains the meaning of walking the journey of life with another so that you really, really deeply understand what they are going through.

For some, compassion is the practice of the Golden Rule or as the ancient Chinese would say, “Compassion is walking the way of the Tao”

Karen Armstrong is a powerful and well educated author who claims that our world is too polarized and puts us in great danger and thus the need for practicing heart-felt compassion. In 2008 she was awarded the TED prize to help her create, initiate and circulate a Charter for Compassion all over the world.

At some point I shall, if she allows, give you a copy of the Charter for Compassion. It is a stately document that is stately because of its clarity and simplicity. It is short and to the point. It’s brevity has that quality of making you spontaneously utter “Ah-hah!” The kind of ah-hah that one hears when people walk into a temple of a cathedral for the first time, and the architecture and light within draw the eye upward in total reverence and awe.

Karen Armstrong has the vision and understanding of compassion that makes one want to live it 24/7. Can there be a finer gift to the world?

She gave the Charter for Compassion to the world on November 12, 2009 in 60 different locations around the world. Mosques, temples, churches and cathedrals are repositories for Armstrong’s noble document—one that asks for the highest and most sacred we have within us.

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Rebecca A Field, author of the book To Choose The Fire of the Cosmos
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