A miseducated mind, a run-of-the-mill mind that was educated from a background of primitive conditioning, likely will not perceive with great order and clarity. Such a mind will likely be afraid to venture deeply into the unknown. Such a mind will likely not transcend beyond a limited ego (i.e., a limited, “learned” sense of self). Such a mind would prefer to remain in (and “as”) what it was programmed to consider as being safe and “known.” However, what is known is always very limited; limitation is not conducive to vast (boundless) love and compassion.
Without deep and great clarity, a mind cannot have profound, holistic love and compassion. A mind that has great fields of separation, fragmentation, conflict, and division, in (and “as”) itself, is incapable of loving in deep and immeasurable ways. The concept of a separative self is an obtrusion from the known. To look with (and “as”) distortion puts one in a false, illusory, separative distance that supports indifference, but not compassion. Unfortunately, a stale, run-of-the-mill, ordinary, miseducated, conditioned mind is not likely to love in a very deep and true sense. Mindlessly belonging to separative organizations and groups that directly or indirectly divide man from man is indicative of cognitive reactions that do not reflect deep intelligence and order. (This is the case no matter how much “better” and spiritual these organizations may seem.) Care and understanding emanate from (and “as”) order, not disorder. A highly conditioned mind is a mind of disorder. The profoundly sacred has little relationship with what is fragmentary, divisive, dead, and illusory.
Tom, I am confused here. For me compassion is not about intellect but a quality that springs from the heart, when a person can FEEL the pain of another. Intellect and feeling seem to me to be parts of the whole and in order to be whole we must have access to feeling.
Sara, please read my posting again. It doesn’t mention that the intellect or intellectual people are wonderfully compassionate… not at all. The heart is a pump that circulates an important substance throughout the body. But i understand what you mean when you say “from the heart.” Feeling is immensely valuable in this. But one cannot have great feeling if one’s perspective and perception are askew. It’s not only feeling the pain of another. It’s that you are that so-called “other.” The borders that we see between each other are illusory lies. Transcend those “learned and inherited borders” and compassion and wisdom are (then) immense.
Yes, self and other are part of the whole and compassion is that part of us that creates the bridge to self and other…
Yes, except there is no bridge. Self is “other.”
That then, leaves most of us out of the equation of being able to be ‘truly’ compassionate. 🙂
It only leaves you out if you don’t have the immense passion to change and to transcend mediocrity.
I will have to agree to disagree Tom and that’s fine. It’s within your definition of what ‘true compassion’ is that I believe is impossible and impractical for most people. But I still believe we can be compassionate towards others and other things. Perhaps aiming to be compassionate is enough and the ‘true’ part us up for debate 🧐
In place of Mindfulness, perhaps Presence would be a more accurate way to describe this state of being. Thanks and blessings of Peace to you!
Please don’t try to rewrite my posting with what you think are better words. Personally, i don’t see presence (in a capitalized form) as being all that significant. Peace to you too!
Am free to comment as I wish. It’s an open forum.
Well, when i visit other people’s blogs, i (in courtesy) don’t suggest words for them to use that would be “more accurate.”
So beautiful, amazing macro Tom!
Thank you, Marcela. Keep taking your wonderful photographs like you do! 😊
The paradox you’re pointing at is striking: clarity as the ground of compassion rather than sentiment. That the borders between self and other are illusory, and that recognizing this is compassion, not feeling about separation. It demands something harder than empathy, it asks for a kind of seeing that dissolves the very framework that creates the “other” to feel for. I’m sitting with the challenge of it: not divided clarity that stands apart and judges, but a clarity that is whole, undivided, that recognizes itself in all things. That’s the clarity you mean, isn’t it?
Your comment is very pleasantly insightful; i am very impressed! Please read my postings as time goes by and perhaps even previous postings if you have the time. You seem to see things deeply, which is impressive!
Regarding that second-to-last sentence in your comment… Except this goes way deeper than positive recognition. Recognition is always immersed in (or from) the past in some way or other. Rather, it’s when the learned (and inherited) patterns do not manifest. Then the divisive borders are naturally nonexistent. Then there is real poise, compassion, and order (but not as separate things).
Tom, for some reason this post did not show up in my Reader yesterday as usual. You are insightful as usual and you have picked an almost-identical photo as I did for my Wednesday post … that is the second time we have done that and before I believe it was a Swallowtail butterfly and a Purple Coneflower … great minds think alike!
Thank you for complimenting on the post, Linda. And, yes, great minds think alike. One might also add that: really great minds — thank goodness — often transcend the thinking (i.e., reacting) process.
I’ve been watching monarchs filling-up on nectar in the garden for their migration south. Lovely. Thanks for your thoughts. I wrote in 21st Century Science and Health: A modern version of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health, “Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels and unfolds these thoughts, even as Love opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear.” https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F5NT6KJ6