The Force of Compassion

Massive cold raindrops pelted me from above at 2am. My eyes squinted, trying to adjust to the brightness of my headlamp while my shirt became soaked with frigid rain, cooled by a stormy wind that blew through the river canyon in the night. The family and I were sleeping under the stars that night. Half because it was 100 degrees when we went to bed and half because they were so beautiful. But in the middle of the night a storm blew in. 

I was outside the tent sleeping in the sand as the first drops fell. My wife and son were next to me in the tent without a rainfly. As the drops increased in size and regularity I realized this would not pass. It was time for action. I jumped up, wearing nothing but boxers and t-shirt, wet in seconds, scrambling for the rain fly left in the tent bag. I ripped it out, threw it on the tent and started frantically searching for the clips. My headlamp pierced through the darkness and reflected off the tent poles blinding me. At first I thought my headlamp was broken, then I realized someone was standing next to me in the dark.  

It was a close friend, and our guide, next to me clipping on the fly. I didn’t even see him approach. Bobby had gotten up, as quickly as I, and rushed over to help me with the rain fly. With the speed of hard earned experience he corrected the fly I hastily put on, showed me how to attach the clips and the additional pole I had hadn’t seen. In seconds our fly was up, I was in the tent, and Bobby was off to the next family to help. In and out like a camping ninja I watched in awe as he meticulously went around to each tent, ensuring everyone else was buttoned up. The other guides asleep under their own shelter. The other families, warm and dry in their tents. 

I’ve been spending the last few weeks with meta meditation. And it’s got me thinking about empathy and compassion. I’ve rewritten this post probably 5 times, and another 20 in my mind. Proof, I’m working through new ideas, and new versions of old feelings. 

Bobby’s presence in that moment felt so genuine to me. So honorable, thoughtful, appreciated. He was unexpected in my mental construct of that moment. I was there, alone, cold, wet, protecting my family from the strom, and then, all of the sudden, I was no longer alone. I didn’t see it coming, visually or emotionally. 

I’ve felt this way before in my life. I can think of at least one other powerful, but similar felt experience. It was midway through my brother's funeral. I was giving a short speech, looking out into the crowd, telling stories, when I saw my best friend walk in. I was confused at first, his face in a sea of faces from a different life. He lived in another state, had never met my brother, and I didn’t know he was coming. All at once the notion hit me that he was there only for me. Not for my brother, not for himself. Just me. 

Thinking back on these memories, and sitting with the chest centered sensations of metta meditation, I’m struck by the differences between empathy and compassion. And I’m taken aback by the realization that I have been half doing it for years. 

First let’s start with definitions of empathy and compassion and then break down their differences. 

Empathy is the capacity to feel with another person, to sense their emotional state in your own body and nervous system. Empathy connects us energetically and is thus extremely important in our sense of connection with life and consciousness on the whole. Empathy makes us feel more human. More Connected. More real. 

Compassion starts with empathy, but takes it a step further. Compassion is empathy grounded in action. A rooted movement of your own being toward the intention or action of relieving suffering. Compassion is empathy that has matured and learned to stand on steady ground so it can truly help. The harnessing of that empathetic energy toward some stated goal. 

Empathy is sitting in your tent feeling and imagining the suffering of others in the rain. Empathy is tapping into your friend’s felt sense of loss because their brother died. Empathy is a real and important human emotion recognizing the suffering of others. But compassion is the completion of that energy toward the reliving of that suffering. Compassion is putting up a rainfly. Compassion is showing up when you’re not expected. 

I have felt no greater force in life than the realization of another’s compassion. No greater warmth and dryness in the storm. 

As I work through these memories, I realize my own experiences where I was in the place of offering compassion but was too caught up in my own empathetic experiences of another's suffering to mold that energy into a meaningful compassion. 

Truthfully, there is no greater honor than to hold an umbrella for someone experiencing a storm. To stand next to them as they are pelted, shielding them from the onslaught. A quiet acknowledgement of our shared human experience. It seems so natural in our culture to avoid suffering. To offer condolences and move on. Avoiding the topic, perpetuating our own denial of the quiet shadows lurking in our lives. 

But a question keeps coming up in my mind. Is there any greater purpose than to reduce human suffering? Could it be that the life long quest for compassion is in all of our hearts? That we are all searching for the same thing, and that it has been within us this whole time? We may find it through different means. Likely through our own experiences of suffering. But deep within each of us there is a capacity. A desire. A force of compassion that has no choice but to be released once acknowledged.