Philosophical Fragments by Adam J. Pearson

By Adam J. Pearson

Compassion isn’t always a shoulder to cry on or a word of support. Sometimes it’s yanking someone’s face out of the toilet in which they have been vomiting up their drugs and shouting in their face, “IS THIS THE LIFE YOU WANT?” Sometimes it’s helping a drunken friend walk when they can barely stand. Sometimes it’s taking a punch when you’d really like to throw one.

Compassion can be soft and tender and it can be hard and shocking. It can be expected and it can be surprising. It can be peaceful and it can be violent. It can be adaptive and it can be regular. It can be different and it can be the same. The fabric of compassion is as diverse and varied as the complicated tapestry of life.

Compassion is grounded in a way of seeing situations in which something is needed and doing what is needed. It’s built on addressing suffering through action rather than apathy. Ultimately, it’s not only a way of seeing, but also a way of being. Compassion is something we practice and something we are. Our challenge is to stay rooted in it and not let the irritations, frustrations, and preoccupations of life tear us out of it. In the end, compassion is not a luxury, but a necessity; as the Dalai Lama once said, without it “humanity cannot survive.”