True Compassion is hard work. It is not rainbows and kittens. Although Rainbow Kitten Surprise is an excellent emerging band from Boone, NC, that is not what we are referring to when we talk about compassion training. 

Compassion is the genuine wish and deep desire for all beings to be free of suffering, for all beings to be happy, healthy and loved. 

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As it states, this includes ALL BEINGS. Even the most difficult, the most challenging, even the people who have committed serious crimes and harmed you or others. 

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Yikes! How do we do that? Why would we do that? 

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Compassion is not forgiveness, not really anyway. We begin fundamentally with the recognition of our common humanity. That we are all engaged in our lives in ways that we hope to be happy, healthy, or feel loved. That we are primed for our survival. Even if we can’t see that path. It is mired in darkness. Instability. A thick opaque film of debasement, corruption, contamination, defilement. 

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Fundamentally we are seeking love, want to feel love, want to feel worthy and know we are basically good. 

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When we intellectualize our pain caused by others, we justify in someway that they are somehow different from us. We go to “them/us”extremities. Right vs. wrong. We want to eliminate “those people.” How can we hold people who have harmed us or others in our hearts, openly with compassion?

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When we practice loving-kindness we are not asking that we rush out and forgive and love willy nilly....round up all of the bad guys and hug them and send them cards with rainbows and kittens. Compassion isn’t even requiring that we empathize with people who break our hearts. We don’t have to like these people. 

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Loving kindness is encouraging us to examine what happens in our lives or in theirs that lead them to get where they are. Can we see how they are striving, hurting, feeling unloved so they have put up walls, defenses, prisons that even they themselves cannot break out of. 

Can we hold people accountable for their actions AND acknowledge their humanity. 

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This is HARD! It holds us accountable. It requires an examination and a willingness to take in the dark suffering that troubles us. But when we open a window, even the tiniest of doors we can extend compassion, transform suffering before it is inflicted on others. Perhaps create a world that doesn’t lead people to addictions, commit acts of terror or violence. 

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Compassion is the work of eliminating radicalism and hate. It is work for the brave and the courageous who can lean into all of this. Compassion is action, a movement toward alleviating suffering. The work where our wish that all people be happy, healthy, and loved, begins. 

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Maybe a world where rainbows and kittens and surprises exist, where no one is hurting and inflicted their suffering on others, because from a compassionate standpoint we have trained in clarity, we have broken down our internal prisons, we have opened the dusty curtains and have begun to clean up our messes, our addictions, our biases and prejudices of others and of ourselves.