The Dalai Lama was once asked to explain his religion. In response, he said that his entire religious belief system could be summed up in one word: compassion. Compassion is not the same as pity. Pity allows us to stand apart from suffering and to commiserate over one another’s pain. Compassion, on the other hand, becomes possible when we create a space in our hearts for another person to enter. Compassion requires that we give up the dividing lines and distinctions we create between “us” and “them.”
Of all the major problems that threaten the future of our existence on this planet – war and hatred, poverty and greed, environmental degradation and disease – the greatest crisis we face is a spiritual one. The most urgent task of our age is to move beyond the boundaries of race, gender, religion and ideology to contemplate the human face of the “other.” It is the task of allowing ourselves to be touched and transformed by those we onsider “outsiders,” “unclean” and “enemies.” It is the task of making ourselves vulnerable enough to hear their stories, feel their pain and understand their hopes and dreams.
It is easy to fear and hate an abstraction or stereotype. The temptation to demagoguery is easy and scapegoats are plentiful in a world where 30-second sound bites pass for in-depth analysis and screaming headlines substitute for news.
It is easy to divide people into warring tribes when most of us are already so cut off from one another. In our daily routines, many of us rarely encounter anyone of a different race, class or religion.
And because we know so little about the world outside of our comfort zones, we are easy targets for purveyors of fear and hatred. We are easily tempted by those who offer us black-and-white choices – us versus them, good verses evil.
But this path can only lead to disintegration, fragmentation and ultimately to death. None of the great challenges facing our planet and our species can be adequately addressed until we can reach across the great human-made divides and recognize ourselves in the faces of those we think of as “strangers,” “competitors” and “enemies.”
Compassion is the one religious impulse that can unite the human family. It is the one creed that can bridge the divide and make it possible for people of all faiths and no faith to create unity out of all the glorious diversity that God and the human spirit have created.
Tom Cordaro is the Justice and Outreach Minister at St. Margaret Mary
Catholic Church in Naperville.
