Once you have a genuine sense of concern for others, there’s no room for cheating, bullying or exploitation. – Dalai Lama
Could they be this mean if they had any compassion? I believe compassion is the cure.
What does that mean?
In the last two weeks, we discussed how concern for others helped quell anger inside ourselves, and how concern for others could help us make our corner of the world a more peaceful place. Today, I would like to consider how that concern for others also translates to our sense of ethics and fair play.
The quote says it fairly simply. If you have a true and genuine sense of compassion for others, your outlook on life changes. You view other people differently, and they are more like potential friends than as potential victims. Can you come up with a better word for how you would have to view people you would cheat, bully or exploit?
Once we have developed a sufficient level of concern (and there is always room for improvement), that concern becomes a powerful reinforcement to our sense of ethics and fair play. How can you cheat someone for whom you feel compassion? Can you bully them and still be concerned for them? Can you feel compassion for them, and then turn around and exploit them? I think not.
Why are ethics important? At TheFreeDictionary.com, ethics is defined as: “A set of principles of right conduct.” and “A theory or a system of moral values.” We all have them, even though the principles and systems aren’t always exactly the same. They are the rules we live by, and the rules we are willing to bend, either a little, or a lot.
The more concern you have for a person, the harder it is to treat them badly. Most forms of ethics are related to helping others, at least in some form or another. Most religions and philosophies have a component of compassion built into them. While we can wander away from these values for a time, compassion for others will bring your attention back to equability, kindness, and fairness in short order.
The way I look at it, ethics is the mental component, what we say we value, what we say we should do. Compassion is the emotion we feel, which gives those words a chance to be put into action. Compassion is the feeling (hopefully leading to action), where ethics is the thinking.
Where can I apply this in my life?
Nearly everyone has as part of their ethical beliefs that stealing is wrong. If someone handed you a $20 bill and asked for two $5 in return, you could say you were ‘only doing what they asked you to do.’ That would be an excuse, but not a valid reason, and we know it was not the right thing to do.
If you felt compassion, you would realize that in that exchange, they would be out $10, and that they would be sad. They would most certainly have to do without something important (perhaps dinner, possibly for themselves and their children). When you think about the consequences of your actions, if you use compassion, it becomes abhorrent to steal from them, doesn’t it?
Can you feel both compassion for someone and simultaneously feel the level of resentment or hatred necessary to bully or exploit them? I can’t, and I don’t understand how someone could hold both in their hearts at the same time. Compassion drives the other feelings out of the heart, and leaves no room for them to reenter. At least that is how it works for me.
When else, and how else, does your compassion for others impact your life and how you perceive your place in the world and your duty to it (and those who live here)? That is a very personal question, and one which depends on the ethical foundation of each person.
However, only the most ethically bereft would find no place for compassion in their lives. Even Tolkien’s character from The Hobbit and the The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Gollum, still had a shred of compassion in it. Despite the suffering and corruption of ethical standards, there was still some compassion.
The only question is this: Will you open your heart and become more compassionate, or will you harden your heart, and be more open to cheating, bullying, or exploiting your fellow humans? I find this to be a fairly easy question for me to answer. What are your thoughts on the matter?
If you can find it in your heart to be compassionate, your ethics will be strengthened, even if only by a small amount. By being repeatedly compassionate, your ethics become solid. Once you can get to a point where you have a genuine sense of compassion for others, no one will doubt your ethics or your compassion.
From: Twitter, @DalaiLama
confirmed at : it’s from his own feed…
Photo by nist6ss
