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Offline djoe

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Compassion
« on: 28 February 2013, 03:28:47 PM »
WHEN BANKEI HELD HIS SECLUSION-WEEKS OF MEDITATION, PUPILS FROM MANY PARTS OF JAPAN CAME TO ATTEND. DURING ONE OF THESE GATHERINGS A PUPIL WAS CAUGHT STEALING. THE MATTER WAS REPORTED TO BANKEI WITH THE REQUEST THAT THE
CULPRIT BE EXPELLED. BANKEI IGNORED THE CASE.

LATER THE PUPIL WAS CAUGHT IN A SIMILAR ACT, AND AGAIN BANKEI DISREGARDED THE MATTER. THIS ANGERED THE OTHER PUPILS, WHO DREW UP A PETITION ASKING FOR THE DISMISSAL OF THE THIEF, STATING THAT OTHERWISE THEY WOULD LEAVE IN A BODY.

WHEN BANKEI HAD READ THE PETITION HE CALLED EVERYONE BEFORE HIM. ’YOU ARE WISE BROTHERS,’ HE TOLD THEM. ’YOU KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS NOT RIGHT. YOU MAY GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO STUDY IF YOU WISH, BUT THIS POOR BROTHER DOES NOT EVEN KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG. WHO WILL TEACH HIM IF I DO NOT? I AM GOING TO KEEP HIM HERE EVEN IF ALL THE REST OF YOU LEAVE.’

A TORRENT OF TEARS CLEANSED THE FACE OF THE BROTHER WHO HAD STOLEN. ALL DESIRE TO STEAL HAD VANISHED.

Compassion is the ultimate flowering of consciousness. It is passion released of all darkness, it is passion freed from all bondage, it is passion purified of all poison. Passion becomes compassion. Passion is the seed, compassion is the flowering of it. But compassion is not kindness, kindness is not compassion. Kindness is an ego-attitude, it strengthens your ego. When you are kind to somebody, you feel the upper hand. When you are kind to somebody there is a deep insult – you are humiliating the other, you are feeling happy in his humiliation. That’s why kindness can never be forgiven. Whomsoever you have been kind to will remain somehow somewhere angry with you, is bound to take revenge. Because kindness is only on the surface as compassion, but deep in the depth it has nothing to do with compassion. It has other ulterior motives.

Compassion is unmotivated, it has not motive at all. It is simply because you have, you give – not that the other needs. The other is not a consideration at all in compassion. Because you have, you go on overflowing. Compassion is very spontaneous, natural, like breathing. Kindness is a cultivated
attitude. Kindness is a kind of cunningness; it is calculation, it is arithmetic. You have heard one of the most important sayings – it happens in almost all the scriptures of the world in one form or another: Do unto others as you would like to be done with you. This is a calculated attitude, this is not compassion. This has nothing to do with religion – it is a very lower kind of morality, a very worldly morality: Do unto others as you would like to be done with you. It is
very business-like, it is not religious at all. You are doing only because you would like exactly the same in return. It is selfish, it is self-centered, it is egoistic. You are not serving the other, you are not loving the other – in a roundabout way you are serving yourself. You are using the other.
It is very enlightened egoism, but it is egoism – very intelligent, but it is egoism. Compassion is a very uncalculated flowering, flowing. You simply go on giving because there is no other way to be.

So remember, the first thing: it is not kindness, in one sense – in the sense you use the word ’kindness’ it is not kindness. In another sense, compassion is the real kindness. You are not being kind to somebody, you are not bigger than the other, you are simply releasing the energy that you
are receiving from the whole. It comes from the whole, it goes to the whole – you don’t stand as an obstacle, that’s all.

When Alexander was coming to India he went to see one great mystic, Diogenes. And Diogenes was lying on a Riverbed, taking a sunbath. Alexander had always cherished the desire to see this man Diogenes, because he had heard that this man has nothing, yet there is no other man who is more rich than this man. He has something within him, he has a luminous being. He is a beggar, but he is really an emperor. So Alexander had become intrigued. While coming to India he heard that Diogenes was just nearby, so he went to see him.

Early morning, the sun is rising, Diogenes is Lying naked on the sand. Alexander says, ’I am happy to see you. Whatsoever I have heard seems to be true. I have never seen a happier man. Can I do something for you, sir?’ And Diogenes said, ’You just stand to the side – you are preventing the sun. And remember! never prevent the sun. You are dangerous, you can prevent the sun reaching many people. Just stand to the side.’

Compassion is not something that you give to others, it is simply not preventing the sun. See the point of it: It is simply not preventing God. It is becoming a vehicle of the divine, it is simply allowing the divine to flow through you. You become a hollow bamboo and God goes on flowing through you. You know? only the hollow bamboo can become a flute – because only a hollow bamboo is capable of allowing a song to flow through it.

Compassion is not from you, compassion is from ZEN; kindness is from you – the first thing to be understood. Kindness is something that you do, compassion is something that ZEN does. You simply don’t prevent, you don’t come in the way, you don’t stand in the way. You allow the sun to fall, to penetrate, to go wherever it wants. Kindness strengthens the ego – and compassion is possible only when the ego has disappeared utterly. So don’t be misguided I y your dictionaries, because in the dictionaries you will find compassion is synonymous with kindness. It is not so in the real dictionary of existence. And Zen has only one dictionary, the dictionary of the universe.

 

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