227. Awareness Through Compassion

If I’m unable to see the reality of my own experience, then I’m less able to act from compassion. I need to be open to the totality of the world around me and to all of the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions arising inside me to even have a chance of seeing clearly.

For my awareness to expand, I need to pay attention to everything that exists. I need to question my understanding of it and of myself, and allow for the possibility that there is more than I’ve already seen. As my awareness grows, my sensitivity to myself and the world around me improves. I notice changes in myself and my environment more easily, and my intuitions tend to guide me towards more compassionate actions.

Anything that inhibits awareness from expanding will also inhibit compassion from arising. But the reverse is also true. Whatever inhibits compassion also inhibits the growth of awareness. For every compassionate action helps to develop the awareness of the person it is directed towards. This happens because compassionate actions meet needs, and when our needs are met, our suffering subsides, and our attention becomes more free to explore.

While awareness begins in the ordinary course of life, it broadens through the compassion we receive from others and the self-compassion we offer ourselves. It follows that the growth of awareness is restrained when there are norms and systems that oblige us to act in ways other than what is most compassionate.

To contravene these norms and systems might be the best option, but this is not always possible without attracting penalties that could hinder future compassion. Sometimes these penalties are nothing more than social disapprobation, but in other cases they might involve formal punishment through structures of authority and power. By reducing the range of compassionate action, these systems inhibit the growth of our awareness and contribute to keeping us trapped in a cycle of endless suffering.