Hui. Kindness, benevolence, favor, charity. The deepest kindness comes not from simply thinking of others, but in feeling what they feel.
We were all taught to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. That is fine, but there is still room for mistakes. True kindness comes not from those who just think of how it might feel to be hurt, but from those who actually do feel it. Can you feel hunger? Can you feel poverty? Can you feel homelessness? Can you feel disease? Can you feel injustice? Can you feel desperation?
If you felt any of these in your own life, you would surely do whatever was in your power to alleviate it. Similarly, if you meet others who are suffering and you have it within your power to help them, you will — if you can truly feel what they feel.
The masters lecture us over and over to be compassionate, so much so that even the least pious student would have to try. But just to try to be compassionate still makes it seem like an exercise or moral obligation. Those who are truly kind are not so because of theory or ethics, but because they feel the suffering of others as directly as they would their own.
That ability to feel human need can develop your sensitivity to feel Tao.
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Is it possible that the real reason Clinton won his first election as president wasn’t “It’s the economy, stupid” but “I feel your pain?” When Clinton spoke those words, people believed he really understood how they felt. Who thinks Dubya really understands how anyone else feels? Kerry may, but doesn’t really show it that much, He needs to project more of his understanding about how people feel into his presentations.
Many of the problems I’ve had in life have been interactions with people who do not understand other people’s pain, because they choose to limit pain in their own lives. They shut themselves off from their own feelings and deny the feelings of others. They become cynical about life, thinking others are all just out for their own gain. They have no children, because that would add another person’s burden to their life. They cut off people they don’t want to have to deal with, thinking this is helpful, instead of working out problems and finding answers to getting along.
I tihnk this lack of kindness is the real problem in America right now. So many people have stopped simply being kind to each other. They take care of themselves and perhaps their family, and forget everyone else. They are rude to checkout clerks and waiters and carwash attendants, who they treat as their servants. They cut people off in traffic, and drive SUVs that use too much gas, even though they never take them off road. They take big tax cuts while leaving the huge debt of the country to other’s children and grandchildren. Then they dare to call themselves compassionate and Christian. These are not the actions of compassionate people.
But there is no real reward for kindness, other than it simply being the right thing to do. It is only in being kind to others that we begin to experience real kindness in ourselves. For me, to see the glow in someone else’s eyes when they have been treated fairly and appreciated, when they have been cared for or loved or touched in some way, is worth everything.
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