The Dance Of Compassion And Gratitude
Compassion and gratitude are
well-known fruits of spiritual practice – arising spontaneously as a result of
our increasing awareness of the nature of our existence, its fleetingness, and
the mystery of life itself. But compassion and gratitude are also like partners
in a dance – with awareness of the compassion that has been shown to us inspiring
gratitude, and gratitude for the sufficiency that we are blessed with inspiring
us to act with greater compassion in the world. At times this dance of
compassion and gratitude is engaged in with such grace that it is difficult to
determine where one ends and the other begins. At other times, however, toes
are stepped on or one of the partners trips and falls.
For example, have you ever been in
a situation in which someone wants to show their gratitude to the group by bringing
in a box of donuts or something only to find that everyone is either counting their calories
or watching their cholesterol or boycotting ABC Donuts for not serving fair trade coffee, or who knows what else? And while counting calories and watching cholesterol and
boycotting ABC Donuts for not serving fair trade coffee are all very important
concerns, so is showing compassion to a sincere giver by accepting his or her
gift with gratitude – however “imperfect” it may be. Joyfully receiving a gift
is a gift in and of itself.
But what if it’s the case that
Jacques has brought ABC Donuts in to work knowing full well that Marissa has
been wrestling with her weight, and Lavon has been struggling with losing his
father to heart disease even as he himself has been diagnosed with high
cholesterol, and Suze, long an advocate of fair trade principles, has made it
known repeatedly that she has tried to get ABC to serve a fair trade blend of
coffee to no avail. So that leaves Sven and Li courteously nibbling on donuts
that they don’t really like and Jacques taking home the remainder to go stale, wishing
all the while that his coworkers would have been more receptive to his offer.
Yes, yes, yes, it’s the thought that counts. But maybe Jacques could have
expressed his gratitude to the group with a little more thought, a little more awareness,
a little more compassionate sensitivity to the issues that are important to
them. So it seems that the dance of compassion and gratitude is one that can be
engaged in nimbly, seemingly without a leader or follower, or one that can be engaged in clumsily, with many toes stepped on and the potential for hard
feelings all around.
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| Blind Man's Meal by Pablo Picasso |
Would it be too mystical of me to
wonder whether this dance of compassion and gratitude is, in fact, the dance of
life itself? Could it be that the tree shows its gratitude to the sun and earth
and rain by compassionately providing shelter and food to other living things? Could
it be that the rabbit shows its gratitude to the lush grass by compassionately providing
a meal to the fox? And might it be the case that the fox, in turn, shows it’s
gratitude to the rabbit by compassionately keeping them from becoming so overpopulated
that they begin to suffer from hunger and disease? Sound crazy? Yes, I suppose
it does when viewed from our usual vantage point. When viewed through the lens
of Native American spirituality, on the other hand, such ideas no longer sound
so crazy after all. In Native American spirituality, for instance, the elk or
the bear is considered to have shown compassion to the hunter by allowing
itself to be taken. Kirwan (1999) describes this process nicely:
[T]he act of
hunting, or more precisely the taking of the sacred game that offers itself up
to the Native American, is a process of understanding and communication between
the animal and the individual. In many ways the hunter must almost ‘be’ the
game, an exchange of identity aided by the Native American perspective of the
union between nature and culture. (p. 7)
Being shown such compassion by the natural
world is not unconditional, however. There are certain requirements that the
hunter must fulfill. Kirwan goes on:
These requirements
are the respect and thanks that the Native American offers to the caribou for
giving up his life in order for the hunter’s people to live. (p. 7)
Perhaps, then, thinking of life as
a dance of compassion and gratitude is not so crazy after all. And, yes, it is
a dance that Native Americans understand must be engaged in with great
awareness.
There is a version of a story
contained in the Jataka Tales – stories purportedly detailing the previous lives
of the Buddha – in which a prince,
while out on a hunting excursion, happens upon a starving tigress and her cubs.
With a compassionate heart the prince concocts a story to get his hunting
companions to go off and leave him alone, at which time he allows himself to be
eaten by the tigress so that she and her cubs might live. The interested reader
might want to check out another version of this story in which the
compassionate actor is a guru wandering
in the forest with his ascetic protégé. Regardless of the differences, each of
these versions involves an individual with much to be grateful for, whether a
prince with material abundance or a guru with abundant spiritual insight,
compassionately offering his own body as food for the sake of the larger web of
life. Schelling (1991) says of such stories:
I do believe… that
the Jataka Tales register the first instance in written literature of what I'd
call cross-species compassion, or jataka Mind, an immediate and unqualified
empathy shown towards creatures not of one's own biological species. Perhaps
the tales retain traces of a universal contract between living creatures, so
long ago vanished that no one remembers its ancient imperatives. With a bow to
the old stories, jataka Mind is that conscious human behavior which bears a
whiff of that old way of thinking. Tales like the one just recounted were meant
to waken a notion of kinship that sweeps across animal species.
Call it “a universal contract
between living creatures” or call it “a dance of compassion and gratitude”;
either way it is an expression of Life’s mutuality – mutuality that our very
existence requires, but with which we modern Western consumers could be a little bit
better acquainted. Oh, sure, we understand the concept of gratitude well
enough. In America we even honor it with its own national holiday. But instead
of merely expressing our gratitude, perhaps we could be a little bit more
practiced at showing our gratitude. No, no, no let’s become adept at living
our gratitude by engaging in a more compassionate relationship with all of life
and this earth that we share.
Must we head out west and offer
ourselves up as grizzly bear food in order to express such compassion? No, that
would probably not be the most productive expression of our compassion, and it would likely just end up with the grizzly being killed.
However, we might take action to ensure that grizzly habitat is preserved so
that we may peacefully coexist. Generally speaking, the healthy maintenance of
large predator habitat such as that which allows grizzlies to thrive is
indicative of a healthy ecosystem in total. So if lions and tigers and bears
remain healthy and happy, the entire world is probably healthy and happy. We
might also strive to eat less meat in order to diminish our impact on the
environment, or at least strive to increase our awareness of how those animals
that we do eat have been treated throughout their lives and during the process
of their lives being sacrificed for our sake. In case you are not yet aware, many
factory farming practices are simply inhumane and abhorrent. We might also strive
to live a less wasteful and materialist existence so that we use fewer
resources, thereby allowing more and cleaner habitat to exist for the sake of
others both human and non-human.
Give it a try – consciously and
with intention. With both compassion and gratitude, try bringing the well-being
of all of Life into your awareness. You might just realize how much you like to
dance after all!
Happy
Thanksgiving, everyone!
References
Kirwan, P. (1999) The emergent land:
Nature and ecology in Native American expressive forms. PaGes – Arts
Postgraduate Research in Progress; Volume 6, 1999. Faculty of Arts, University
College, Dublin. www.ucd.ie/pages/99/articles/kirwan.pdf
Schelling, A. (1991) Jataka mind: Cross-species
compassion from ancient India to Earth First! Tricycle; Fall, 1991. http://www.tricycle.com/feature/jataka-mind
Image Credits
Blind
Man’s Meal by Picasso via:
Copyright 2013 by Mark Frank
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