Compassion and Abstraction

That is to say, compassion is an abstraction. In Buddhism the practitioner is asked to focus intently on the object of his/her meditation, and eventually to hold the feeling of compassion for all living beings in the mind in order to generate the spontaneous wish to relieve their suffering and to achieve enlightenment in order to do so. I find it hard to hold this idea in my head. I find it hard to fully comprehend a broad compassion. I find it hard to concentrate on one tiny instance of compassionate feeling, even, because it is extremely upsetting to focus on others’ suffering. It is much nicer instead to think of anything else.

I am still thinking about how I don’t like to watch upsetting movies. The two hour roller coaster is so fatiguing, and I feel so manipulated by it, and so spent. I am supposed to be trying to maintain equanimity in my life and in my mind, and going to the movies is the opposite of equanimity. It is purposefully discombobulating, the intentional upsetting of one’s balance for entertainment. I keep wondering whether this can ever be productive, ever.

And I do get upset – I was really upset by the movie I just saw with my friend in which the main character recounts some pretty upsetting things about his childhood, and I was watching my physical reaction to the scene. My stomach felt that anxiety feeling, I was angry and sad for his bad experience, I felt protective of the character as an adult even though the bad time was all over and there was nothing more to do about it, and I felt that feeling of wanting to hold someone and make all their pain go away. And I know this is what the Buddha teacher is talking about. That we have all had this experience of wishing we could take on the suffering of someone we love for them so they wouldn’t have to feel it. Whether it’s a little kid who had a terrible time during recess that day, or a friend going through a break up, or someone was rude to your mom in a coffee shop or someone is sick and dying – whatever it is, there have been moments in our lives in which we have wished for the power to make it all feel better or disappear or never have happened at all. And as far as I understand it, that unbearable feeling of seeing people we love upset or in pain is what we use to fuel our determination to reach enlightenment. I resent being upset by my own compassionate impulses when I go to the movies, and it makes me never want to go to the movies, at least not for emotionally trying films. Crappy romances, sure thing, no problem. Emotionally substantive? No thanks. No wonder it’s so hard for me to keep compassion in my mind for the benefit of world peace if I can’t bear it at the movies. Of course I don’t want to imagine suffering on purpose and focus on it really really hard. Every day I’d have to make myself cry as motivation for working toward enlightenment. I don’t really want to do that right now. I guess I’ll bring it up at the next Buddha club meeting and see what the guy says.