2023-07-05-Gil-Aspiration- (3 of 5) Developing and Serving

6:15PM Jul 10, 2023

Speakers:

Gil Fronsdal

Keywords:

discursive

deeper

suffering

fixing

ideas

chaplaincy

capacity

aspiration

helping

conditioning

serving

reinforced

meditation

develop

compassion

thinking

kinds

compassionate

learn

grow

So continuing on this theme of aspiration, one of the really beautiful parts of compassion is this desire for the alleviation of suffering for suffering to come to an end. And we're so fortunate we live in a world where people do have this aspiration have this wish. And, and because it's such a beautiful and important desire or wish, it's important to consider the different facets of it or how to how to do it. Well. If we do it kind of just, you know, kind of automatic pilot, but you know what we think it's supposed to be like, we might do it simplistically or ways it actually might not even be helpful. I'm involved with training people to do chaplaincy, Buddhist chaplaincy. And they were chaplaincy is kind of, in the public sphere, one of the few, maybe professions where it's much more explicit, almost like a job description, is to bring compassionate care to patients and hospitals to be inmates in prison, to all kinds of different situations to hospice scheme in schools, colleges, many places where they have chaplains. And one of the core ideas of chaplaincy world, is that the compassionate care should be done in the service of others, as opposed to fixing them or helping them there was a famous article by Rachel. No, no, no, no, me, no me. Raman, who wrote about this distinction between fixing and helping and serving, and not not representing her so accurately, but speaking for myself, that fixing implies that someone is broken. And if we're gonna go fix them, then we're fixing their brokenness. And it doesn't really feel good to be approached as if you're a broken person. And, and it kind of where are the well, the compassion might be there, it comes along with a message that that can reinforce all kinds of societal ideas and personal ideas, that there's something wrong with us. The other idea is to help. That seems like it's innocent enough, this idea of help and helping and it's, it's often a beautiful thing to do. But provided that we're not seeing other people's being helpless. And if we see other people that helps helpless, we're also kind of conditioning people or viewing people in a very limited way. And so if we go in there to alleviate suffering for people, and we try to get rid of the suffering as fast as we can, we might actually be limiting people dramatically. Serving is a third option. And the idea of serving is that there's deep respect for others, and for their agency and for their capacity and for their potential. And that we're there to support that to grow. So yesterday, I talked about going deeper, below this, to the causes of suffering. And today, I want to emphasize that we also want to go deeper, and look at people's potential, how they can develop and how they can grow. And, and it's more than just removing the causes of suffering. It's really growing up and developing yourself in such a way that we have the strength, the inner strength, the inner capacity to people everyone had, we're helping to develop the inner capacity to be with the difficulties of life. And the adversities of life, the challenges of life is often where people grow where people develop and get stronger and wiser and, and working through some of the complex complex kinds of attachments and, and conditioning we have that gets in the way. And so to simply go there and alleviate suffering too quickly, kind of can deny people the opportunity to grow into it and develop themselves. And so to see people as being not broken, but see them as capable see them as as whole beings moving towards wholeness is see them not as helpless. But see that yes, they have the potential that capacity to help themselves. And so then we serve those capacities we serve their ability we serve their wholeness, their movement, or its wholeness. And so we're available were there, we're not the savior or not coming in there in our, you know, with, you know, as you know, you know, Savior and shining armor to be the one who helps them. And it's a delicate thing, because people, some people sometimes want to be saved. They're looking for others to take responsibility, they're looking for others to do it for them. And the end, we come along and offer them help. And we've been fixed them in some ways, temporarily, perhaps. And they're so grateful and so rewarding as a compassionate caregiver, to feel the gratitude and the wonderfulness of people that we've saved. And we feel like we've done the right thing. But maybe not, maybe we've done a fine thing. Maybe it's maybe it doesn't cause harm. But maybe it's shortchanged people. And what really what needs to happen is people need to grow up, they need to grow, or even if there are grown up, there's all this continued capacity for emotional growth, spiritual growth, relational growth, that people are capable of. And, and so if there is emotional, psychological challenges, that may be theirs, we should be a little bit tender and careful not to interfere with people's ability to struggle and people's ability to find their way with what's difficult. And as serving them, we're there with them, we're accompanying people, we're available. We say I'm here for you let me know what I can do, what can I, how I can support you, or I'm here with you. And I see that you're, you're challenged, you're struggling. And I want to support you in that struggle to find a way through it. And then, you know, we kind of are there as a companion as a support as a sounding board as maybe we offer ideas, maybe we offer questions that helps people understand. But it's important not to take away people's agency or take away people's ability to, to move to wholeness, because that movement towards wholeness, that movement to health is a health, health and wholeness in and of itself. So, to allow people to develop. So people who suffer, where do they need to develop what needs to grow and be cultivated. And so for example, I mean, because we're, I'm in the meditation tradition, someone who's suffering a lot. Maybe you support them, to go to a meditation retreats. And then they're really sitting really present for themselves in what's going on. And it's remarkable, the deeper connection, the deeper process of working through things, and growing and developing and capacity that can happen on a meditation retreat. So being coming to help people, you know, you're helping them to help themselves. And you offer them the possibility of do a retreat. There's many other things they can do. But the idea is to support people to do it, and find a way themselves. And so development, and service, and to be careful with the fixing mode, and the helping mode. So these are two aspects of our aspiration, to look and see how to support the people's development, and to look and discover how within ourselves, we can be of service. And one of the supports for this. For ourselves, to be able to have compassionate care this way, is to learn how to be present for ourselves and for others, from someplace deeper than the realm of our discursive thinking. discursive thinking even when it wants to help people can come along with so much bias and prejudice and simplistic ideas and stories and memories and associations. It's remarkable that discursive thinking is not so innocent. It's sometimes heavily conditioned by so much of background luggage that we carry along with us. And so to be able to feel or know, or connect to a thinking that's deeper than discursive thinking, is one of the great skills that can come from meditation practice, where we learn to quiet the discursive mind, so that we can listen and feel and No and be wise from someplace that's below that level. And as I said in the meditation,

part of the problem with men, their discursive thinking discursive constructions of stories and ideas and commentary is that if any of that is negative in nature, the stories we tell say about others stories we say about ourselves, the ongoing nature of discursive thinking means that that's being reinforced. And it's like creating an atmosphere and a mood. And once we start creating atmospheres and moods within us, it feels like it is us, it gives it a kind of sense of truth, or this is how it really is. There's a kind of an authority sometimes in the moods and attitudes and emotional states that we end up in. But when those are reinforced by discursive thinking, it's probably best not to give them a lot of credence. So too, so to have the ability to drop deeper, and as I said, in the meditation as well, one of the ways of, using our capacity to, to know and feel and sense from a quieter, deeper place, is that we can turn that to our discursive mind itself, kind of like we're being with a friend who is troubled, and we're not fixing them, we're not saving them, we're not helping them except what we're doing. We're being present and listening. And accompanying them, showing them that not alone, listening to them deeply, maybe asking simple questions to help kind of bring forth what's really happening. And, and so the same way we can do with ourselves, that deeper presence, that deeper awareness towards our discursive mind, and all its constructs and ideas that spinning in, there's always going to be something deeper underneath it. That's always that's always a surface expression of something that's really more important that needs to be heard and felt and known. And so as we learn this aspiration for aspirational aspects of compassion, we're learning also how to connect and be with ourselves and with others, from this deeper capacity we have, that we are developing the capacity to be present from a place of wisdom of love of care, that is not skewed by some of the spinning discursive thoughts that are so easy to live in our minds. So

so thank you. And I hope that these words are useful for you, and if they're not, then please feel free to discard them. And then we'll continue with this word aspiration tomorrow. Thank you