Transforming fear into compassion.

[Co****]

I strived during my life to be compassionate. As a physician always took all the time a patient needed to be listened to and for that reason my practice remained small, this was my choice to be empathetic /almost too much/. I was told by my Buddhist monk patient that I have earned merit. I still do not feel the rewards of being compassionate. I am fearful about my wife’s health condition, I am stressed, anxious and fearful. The Buddha teaches that fear can be transformed into compassion. How ?? How come that I am compassionate and still feel fear, anxiety. Please explain this and enlighten me. I am grateful for any comment.

[Cu****]

Hello!

I don't know you or your life at all, but based on what you've written I think it might be best to ask yourself if you're truly being compassionate towards others or if you're just giving your energy away to them without regard for how much you should keep for yourself. In order to develop the ability to feel unconditional love for your fellow humans it's imperative that you learn to love yourself unconditionally first—perhaps even MORE than you love others, because you need a solid foundation of love to start from before you try to build on top of it. Take care of yourself. Forgive yourself. Treat your body and mind with the same kind of love that you'd like to give to others.

As far as how to transform fear into love, I'm afraid (no pun intended) that I don't know. I'm still looking for the answer to that as well, but if I find any interesting resources I'll be sure to post them here. <3

[Ma****]

Compassion  ?   This is a very interesting topic. I also want to develop compassion for myself and also for others. I learned from situations and life experiences. Compassion does not just happen, many values support it. From my experience, the foundation of that is a number of virtue values such as patience, openness and accepting things as they really are. Including also forgiving our shortcomings we have not been able to forgive. When I grab hold of something whether it is a situation, property, or relationship I usually suffer. Life is always changing, and letting go is another wisdom for the next step. I write a journal to experience and pick up values that emerge from it. Then, I found many positive things. May the best come to us all.

[Berta]

Roshi Joan Halifax has a great Ted talk on compassion:

https://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax_compassion_and_the_true_meaning_of_empathy/up-next

[Berta]

Also her book "Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet" seems to be written for our conversation here. 

@Compassionate I am sure there's manyothers out there asking very similar questions.

[Berta]

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[wa****]

When I started to join Buddhist societies in my adulthood, I realized compassion is always been one of the "top priorities" in our practice or objectives. Not that I'm short of compassion, I always noticed something amiss about the "compassion" promoted by my fellow practitioners. They tend to unknowingly tied their compassion to a "hoped" outcome. And probably because of our Eastern culture , everyone hoped to gain good merits through the process. But I never buy into that, nor I coached myself to have a compassionate heart.

To me, compassion has no string attached and is very pure by itself. To have it coming naturally to my mind and fused into my body would be the greatest reward. How about the other receiving party? Why worry? If you are so pure, their heart would have received it warmly, no matter what would be the outcome.

We don't have to be "forever" compassionate; just one solid heartfelt compassion would be enough to melt your heart for your entire life! And once you felt it, there's no turning back. ?

 

[of****]

This is a very powerful practice. I find my attempts not always successful in this, but if you know how to do it, then you have really reached a high level.

[ch****]

On 2/4/2020 at 5:01 PM, Berta said:

Roshi Joan Halifax has a great Ted talk on compassion:

https://www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax_compassion_and_the_true_meaning_of_empathy/up-next

This is just insightful!!