I was recently writing about a teaching that took a different course than many, because it provided tools to apply the Dharma in life. On a Buddhist social networking site, in response to one of my blog posts someone explained the 'Kadam insight' which was that Dharma teachings were meant to be PRACTICED not just heard and studied, which is why Sravakas are criticized for being hearers.
When I looked up “kadam,” I found the following reference about Kadampa, “[A]ll the Words (ka) of the Buddha are taken as practical instructions (dam).” During the past year or so, I have been thinking about this matter of living the Dharma, not something theoretical but imminently practical. This is the message I get from my reading, the message that Carmen taught me, the message of Venerable Lama Sonam and Garchen Ripoche. To the extent that I have been able to live the Dharma I have been able to handle everything that has come my way during all these months of the diagnosis of cancer, treatment planning, treatment and now recovery from treatment.
As a result, now I cannot help but think of the same thing with regard to compassion. It is not just a feeling, an emotion, an attitude, although it certainly starts there. However, if it doesn't mature into action, it has a chance to be only illusion or even delusion. We are not talking about the heroic kind of compassion from one of the stories of the Buddha's previous lives in which is is said, “Folklore states that an early incarnation of Buddha was walking in the forest near the present site of Namo Buddha when he came across a mother tiger and her five cubs. The mother was so weak she could not feed her cubs so the man offered his own flesh to her in strips - she slowly ate and was able to feed her cubs and eventually ate the whole man up.”
For us ordinary folk, our acts of compassion are likely to be more modest. Is there a neighbor who is old or disabled? Do you know someone who needs help with transportation? Is there someone who has been out of work and could use a good meal whom you could invite to dinner? There is always so much need and we Americans have so much wealth that we waste!
Be creative, but do so with an understanding, an empathy for the feelings of the one you seek to help. Furthermore, you don't have to just stop with helping fellow human beings, but should extend your compassion to “all mother sentient beings” to which we refer in our prayers. In this, however, we might have to examine ourselves to be sure that we have a genuine feeling of compassion for the animals to whom we show acts of compassion such as liberating them from the danger of death or having them blessed. Remember that the preservation of the habitat of wild animals, no matter how small they are, is also an act of “liberating animals from the danger of death.” In all these things I firmly believe that the proper action without the proper motivation is incomplete just as the proper motivation is incomplete without the proper action.
Possessing a “precious human life,” we have the opportunity to study the Dharma and to practice the Dharma, the opportunity learn to meditate and to advance in meditation, the opportunity to avoid nonvirtue and to practice virtue, and even the opportunity to accumulate merit and to cleanse negative Karma. We shouldn't waste it by seeking those things that do not serve the highest goal which is enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Toward that end, we need to remember that the “stuff” we own is not to be accumulated and hoarded, but rather should only serve our actual needs and be shared for the needs of others. Even as little as I have, I still find opportunities to share with others. When I was growing up, we were very poor. Nonetheless, we shared with others. When someone came up asking for food, I often saw my grandmother go into the kitchen and cook a meal for them and then give them a bag of groceries as well. Nevertheless, we always had enough for our needs if not our wants.
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