Compassionate Choices

PART 2 of 2:
Living without Blame and Judgments

Learning to live without judgment is an extremely difficult task for anyone. I am reminded of an episode of W-Five I saw not too long ago, explaining the crisis of a community overcome with drugs. The exclusive, 'The Boys from Grand Manan", told the story of several well respected fishermen who, frustrated with a well-known drug dealer, decided to burn his crack house down. The court case was intriguing, especially since members of the community became very involved, protesting and refusing jury duty. Having to deal with the same fear and frustration, the community understood the fishermen and so they insisted the men were innocent. Citizens blamed the police who did nothing to stop the drug trafficking, but the police said they did their best. Their lawyer said that, "in the end their confessions did them in...they shouldn't have compromised their reputation, but they were frustrated and driven by fear". Throughout the show, blame and judgments were continually placed on others. It became easy to see how difficult it could be for an outsider, let alone someone directly involved in the situation, to avoid judgments and false perceptions.

Important to take from this, is that the fear and frustration felt within the community was shared by all. Even the drug dealer, who was himself an addict, felt frustrated with society and suffered deeply. We need to see that the suffering of one is the suffering of all. The only way to end this suffering is by practicing compassion. When we are afraid we cannot act with a clear mind. Our consciousness feeds off our fears and frustrations, and our actions reflect this consciousness. This is why we cannot war against terrorism. It is self-defeating as it only increases the fear and frustration in society - of course it is also devastating to all life.

We must learn to forgive ourselves and those who hurt us. The suffering one inflicts on another comes from their own deep suffering. I once thought harsher punishments should be enforced to deter crime, but if there were any truth to this, it would be for the wrong reasons. We must move away from our desire to punish, and learn to show compassion to those most difficult to share it with. Harsh words and judgments will not help addicts, criminals, or our children. Corporations and leader's of our nations will not learn to show compassion if they are not taught its nature. The best way we can teach is by example. By practicing mindfulness and compassion we give the gift of example to the world and generations to come.

So where do we start? We stop. We clear our mind of its busyness and we meditate. We take more time for ourselves and spend more time with our loved ones. We ensure our thoughts, our words, and our actions are driven by our compassionate heart.

Becoming mindful of our consumption and connectedness, we see how our ignorance has caused crises in the environment, society, and the self; and suffering all around the world. Realizing how our careless consumption has created a toxic world (reflecting the toxicity of the mind), we resolve to clean up the mess we've created. We commit ourselves to raising consciousness.

What we do, here and now, transcends the boundaries of space and time. Each string we weave into the web matters. Our choices matter. We need to wake up to the world of choice before us, and let our choices be our voice for the compassion we hunger to see in the world.