“Compassion, rather than annoyance, should be foremost in our interactions with others.” From the Fountain of Inner Joy
To be compassionate we have to stop thinking about ourselves. We have to put the other first. Putting the other first means staying out of our ego mentality. Really, when we are not thinking about ‘little me’, or ‘important me’, then our mindset is automatically compassionate.
Compassion has nothing at all to do with ‘enabling’. Feeding into the weaknesses of others is NOT compassion, but neither is superimposing our images on others. ‘Superimposing our images’ means perceiving others through the lens of our ego.
When we are in our ego we can imagine that we are being compassionate, but in fact, it is just a form of self-righteousness. Being self-righteous means we are convinced we are right and we have to let others know it. It means we want others to know we are right when we are not doing right ourselves.
Doing right means doing good for goodness sake. It certainly doesn’t mean doing good to show others (or even ourselves) how good we are.
Ego always has a hidden agenda. Ego always seeks some form of personal reward or recognition. To go beyond our ego, we first have to recognize it, and then refuse to give it any recognition. In other words, we need to deliberately deny our ego gratification. If we don’t feed our ego it will eventually perish. When our ego dies, compassion will flourish in our mind and will naturally express in our thoughts and actions. We will harbor ill-will to none and will become the well-wisher of all. OM