The dictionary defines “Sensibility” as ‘the capacity to feel.’ We can — if we are aware — observe that our society is largely bereft of “feeling,” these days. More and more people are concerned about money and power… not about others, not about curtailing suffering. Of course, there are some people who care, but society (as a whole) is generally headed in a disorderly direction. In regular public schools, they mostly focus on teaching you the 3 Rs. They do not, unfortunately, encourage students to probe deeply into such things as awareness, compassion, deep perception, self-understanding, mindfulness, wholeness, and transcending limitation. Public schools generally do not want students who would question society’s superficial values and norms. Public schools are generally designed to crank out followers and “robotic sameness.” This is why i’ve consistently donated to decent alternative schools such as the Brockwood Park School.
If you are (or were) educated in a run-of-the-mill public school, you will have to re-educate yourself. You will have to step out of the box. But you can’t easily step out of the box if your conditioning and brain are the box. Profound compassion requires going beyond superficial mental distance and numbing perceived space. Profound compassion is a real art (in a world full of sameness and secondhand imitation).
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