The Mind Like a Soiled Sponge or Like a Clear Mirror?

When we empathize with another, we feel what they feel. We understand their situation and can relate to their problems. We remember situations where we encountered difficulties similar to what the other is experiencing. Empathizing with them, their suffering becomes ours.

Isn't this a good thing? The way a caring person reacts to the suffering of another?

If we don't handle the suffering correctly, no.

When the Buddha encountered Angulimala, a serial killer, the Buddha understood and knew the terrible suffering that Angulimala was undergoing. The Buddha also understood and knew the suffering of all the past victims and of their loved ones. If the Buddha had taken in all that suffering—like a sponge—it would have tainted his calm, clear mind.

Instead, the Buddha saw everything perfectly—like a mirror. Seeing everything perfectly, his mind retained its clarity. And in an instant, he knew the right words to say to enable Angulimala to wake up from his nightmare and to turn away from killing.

As ordinary beings, when we act from empathy, our mind acts like a sponge, absorbing all the pain, anger, and fear that is overwhelming the other person. We are like a compassionate person who jumps into a raging river to save a drowning man.

Too late we realize that, never having learned how to swim, now we too are drowning.

The alternative?

View the suffering of the other as if in a mirror. See everything clearly. Then react calmly. And if there is a way, we will be much better able to discern it and help the other person.

So we have a choice as to how to react to the suffering around us.

We can absorb it and like a sponge become increasingly soiled with time.

Or we can see it clearly and remain pure while we truly help others.

Comments

[Jon K]

Thank you Venerable Wuling for the clear explanation. It is not always an easy thing to practice.

I have found that even when I do not get upset in an otherwise upsetting situation, and instead do my best to be understanding and of service, the difference in the external show of unsettledness compared with others around me has sometimes been misinterpreted as being uncompassionate and uncaring.

I wonder if I need to express some show of concern first before continuing on with what I have been taught to do.

[Venerable Wuling]

Jon,

You raise an excellent point, thank you. In our endeavoring to not get upset, we need to show that we still care. So yes, expressing concern either verbally or physically should be another facet of our reaction. At first, we'll probably need to think of doing this. But as we become more skilled--and compassionate--the care will naturally manifest.

[christine c]

Thank you for this important message. It is so important not have others join or get into his raging river to empathize, but for us to come with intentions of clarity like a mirror that looks calm, to actually settle the waters within us and the suffering person. I will think about this in my next visit to my very dear and sick brother, and I will look to people who can reflect positive light into my days as well.

[Alan B.Goulding]

I find in the Buddha an example well worth following;inasmuch, he rejected the well-intentioned advice of friends/conventional wisdom and sought his own truth from his own inner resources! I have long held that each and every individual is able to access this same eternal font of irrefutable wisdom. The key is deep practiced meditation; and, the rejection of the admonitions of all those who seek to exercise any form of control over our lives or our minds! "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven within."

[Alan B. Goulding]

If we look around us at our world we see a planet writhing in almost total torment; Be it the pain and sorrow caused by a massive flood, tsunami, earthquake or the mindless mass murder of innocence by miscreant suicide bombers! If we allowed our natural empathy to run its course, we would drown in a veritable torrent of negative emotions and be of absolutely no use to anyone including ourselves. Given we cannot take any negative emotion into meditation, its regular practice, will set us permanently free and able to focus our natural empathy where it actually helps or does he most good.

[Yan Tsang]

There is a new website called "Charter for Compassion"
http://charterforcompassion.org/
It is worthwhile to visit this site.

Amitabha
Metta Yan