Compassion, Empathy, and Altruism

Compassion:  Emphasizing with someone who is suffering while feeling compelled to reduce the suffering.

While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose.  This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the “bonding hormone” oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, caregiving, and feelings of plearsure light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people.                                Berkeley School of Medicine

Empathy is one thing, a good thing, but it doesn't have the oomph that compassion does.  When I'm empathetic I feel for the misfortune of others but when I'm compassionate I'm often moved to do something about it.  Altruism is more along the lines of helping someone without an emotional component.  Compassion is harder.  It means I have to combine my emotions with actions.

There are three integral factors in Buddhist meditation - morality, concentration, and wisdom.  Each one influences the other, so you cultivate the three of them together, not one at a time.  When you have the wisdom to truly understand a situation, compassion towards all the parties involved is automatic, and compassion means that you automatically restrain yourself from any thought, word, or deed that might harm yourself or others.  Thus your behavior is atutomatically moral.

This is a lifelong process, no doubt.  There are a few people in A.A. that I run into from time to time who invariably provoke feelings of dislike.  I've met people who are racist, sexist, homophobic, prone to violent imagery or words, paranoid about the intent of the government, and the like.  I have a hard time switching off my judgement gene.  I think they should change.  I think they're wrong and, even if they are, I'm not put on this earth to be the judge of anyone.  If I criticize them or talk about them behind their backs I'm not showing much compassion and I'm certainly not being spiritual.  The stories about Jeebus Christ that have really stuck with me are the ones where he defends and ministers to the weak, the Fallen, sinners and criminals.  I can't remember any Bible stories where he's talking up the rich and the powerful

One, Two, Three, There Goes My So-Bry-Ih-Tee

 I can remember three instances in my sobriety where I've knowingly taken alcohol into my mouth or body, or at least I think I did:

1.  Big swig of a glass of "water with ice" that my closet-alcoholic, secret-drinker father left on the back of the sink.  Pure vodka.  Spit that one out.

2. A couple of sips of an odd tasting "fruit drink" that we were given gratis at a restaurant in Buenos Aires.  I had confirmed with the waiter - in my shitty Spanish - that the drink was alcohol free.  "Totally alcohol free," he said confidently.  Pause a beat . . . wait for it . . . "just a little champagne."

3.  A mouthful of "rum" raisin ice cream that I bought in a little town in France.  The small store had chocolate, vanilla, and rum raisin, and I was sick of the chocolate so I bought what I assumed was a non-alcoholic ice cream that might have a faint taste of synthetic flavoring in it.  "Are you crazy?" SuperK asked when she saw the purchase.  I tried a mouthful and spit it out immediately.  I looked at the ingredients on the carton: 40% alcohol.  The ice cream wouldn't even freeze, sloshing around in a semi-gelid state.  Only in France can you buy 80 proof ice cream.  It reminded me of the vending machines in Japan that had cans of beer available.  I didn't even want the ice cream in our freezer so I tried to melt it with hot water in the sink.  Fumes of alcohol, clouds of it, were choking me as I tried to clear the drain that was clogged with raisins.  That was quite the scene.

Meditation and Why I Suck at It

 "My friend, take my hand and walk with me until you can walk alone."  Native American Proverb

I've been working assiduously on my meditation practice for a good 30 years.  I've been sober for 36 so clearly I wasn't working on meditation early on and I wasn't in any rush to get started, either, since six or so years passed before I got going.  Not in a rush to begin the healing.  Eager to hang onto my aberrant behavior for as long as I could.  Everything I've ever released has claw marks on it.  Anyway, as I've mentioned repeatedly, I kind of still suck at it.  I've shown tremendous improvement but I have a long, long way to go.

Here's the yogi again: "Vipassana meditation is a development of awareness.  Properly done, meditation is a very gentle and gradual process.  Take it slow and easy, and the development of your practice will occured very naturally.  Nothing should be forced.  Work gently and everything will be fine.  If voices and visions pop up, just notice them and let them go.  Don't get involved."

Don't get involved?  Don't get involved!?  Goddamn right I'm going to get involved.  It's me against the voices and visions and I mean to come out on top.  I'm going to control those bitches.

I was meditating on the beach yesterday.  I find the sound of the waves to be soothing.  I find the technique of paying attention to ambient noises to be a good meditation technique, especially if I'm in a place where the sounds come from the natural world.  It was high tide yesterday so all of the benches along the beach were wet, courtesy of waves hitting the shore with some force.  The one that was reasonably dry was in a congested area so when I sat to meditate there were a lot of distracting noises: music from a nearby hotel patio, customers congregating around a coffee stand, a couple of guys chatting loudly to make themselves heard over the waves.  My initial response to distractions to my meditation is to get pissed off which is the exact opposite of what I'm trying to accomplish.  But what I've learned to do is to look and listen mindfully and without judgment.  Don't try to silence the voices or control them, just listen to them.  They're just noises, not bad or good, just noises.

I had an okay meditation.

Snag The Zagnut

 Just when you think you've heard every joke ever told in Alcoholics Anonymous . . . 

An alcoholic is driving to work when he gets a flat tire.  He knows he has a jack and a spare tire in  the trunk and the ability to change a tire.  He knows he has a solution.  He pulls the car to the side of the road, safely out of the flow of traffic; gets out; opens the trunk; and takes out a case of beer . . . .. 

I've always liked this Buddhist interpretation of morality and how we can strive to be better.

First, we obey "The Rules" because we don't want to be punished if we get caught breaking the rules.  We don't shoplift because we don't want to go to jail for shoplifting.  Not because shoplifting is wrong or that we don't enjoy shoplifting or that we aren't good at it.

Secondly, we begin to obey "The Rules" even in the absence of a punishing force.  When we know we can shoplift a Zagnut bar and not get caught we still don't snag the Zag because it's the right thing to do.

Finally, we begin to live a life based on mindfulness, wisdom, and compassion.  We know what good living is, right living.  We've internalized it.  We've dug ourselves out of our own personal viewpoint.  We can see beyond our own wants and desires.  We don't think about shoplifting, even if we know that no one has ever bought a Zagnut bar, ever.  Just because that Zagnut has been in that store since Christ walked on the face of the earth we don't snag it.

The Internet Is NEVER Wrong

When I was a kid there was a subset of us humans who thought that the moon landing was faked and that there were aliens being housed in a quonset hut in the Arizona desert and that Communists had successfully asserted control in all areas of the U.S. government . . . and then there were the rest of us, the overwhelming majority of us, who lived in a world of verifiable facts.  I'm not suggesting that people who hold unpopular opinions are always wrong but rather that people seem to have gotten really lazy intellectually.  If I believe something unpopular I can pop onto the internet and find sources that confirm what I already believe.  But that doesn't mean that what I believe is actually true.  I think it's irresponsible to limit my curiosity to sites or people who believe what I already believe.  That's called Confirmation Bias and is roughly what I did when I sat in bars with other alcoholics and we all agreed that we were getting screwed and that everyone was against us and that nothing was our fault.  One of the great gifts of my recovery is having to listen to someone else explain why the results of my life were not often attributable to outside factors and were, in fact, the result of my own baleful behavior.  I didn't like to hear this stuff so Drinking Seaweed made sure that disagreeable people and their disagreable opinions were kept at arm's bay.  The fact that I couldn't hear what they were saying didn't make it any less true.  I'd use the metaphor of an ostrich sticking its head into the sand to avoid problems except that ostrich's aren't stupid and they don't stick their heads in the sand to avoid problems.  Adult ostriches weigh 300 pounds so they can kick the shit out of a lot of other animals.  Plus, there's the sharp beak and massive claws and the high-velocity running to contend with.

One  of the most important lessons I learned in my grinding high school was not to trust information that was filtered through someone else, to always go back to source materials and figure shit out on my own.  I think that's so ingrained in me that I forgot it was ingrained in me.  Another of the psychological biases that always startles me is the one where an individual who holds an opposing view against an overwhelming majority will almost always capitulate and go with the majority opinion.  I think how often I find myself swimming against the tide, especially in A.A. matters.  I am not lying when I say that I've been in the majority opinion only rarely when there are group consciences about internal matters in my regular meetings. 

 Eh, maybe I'm just stupid or willfully stubborn.  That's very possible.

Slow Down A Little? Why?

 Sometimes old memories come swooping in from strange places . . . 

When I was in Chicago I often rode my bike on a repurposed rail line.  I rode West - into the famous Chicago wind for an hour - and then I turned around and came home, the wind at my back.  Every now and then the wind would be particularly fearsome and I'd have a miserable time for the westward bound leg of the trip.  I mentioned to the counselor I was seeing - who had inquired after my well-being - that I was exhausted because of the effort I had to expend trying to make sure that the trip out was an hour.  It was an hour most days so it was going to be an hour every fucking time I was on the trail.  That was my flawed thinking.

"What are you training for?" she asked.  A reasonable question that totally confused me.

"Training for?  I'm not training for anything."

"Well, why don't you slow down a little?" she suggested.

I really had never thought of that.  I was on a two hour bike ride which normally took two hours.  I made no exception for a stiff wind.  The next time the wind was howling I backed off my pace a bit.  It took me a whole ten or fifteen minutes longer to complete my circuit and it was a lot more enjoyable.  Huh.  I honestly had never considered it.  I would have chalked it up to weakness or laziness or some other kind of moral failure to slow down.

I have two speeds - maximum velocity or the car's in the garage with the engine off.  If I can't go really, really fast I'm not interested in going anywhere.

You Have To Do It

"Meditation deals with levels of consciousness which lie deeper than symbolic thought.  There are deeper ways to understand things than by the use of words.  You understand how to walk.  You probably can't describe the exact order in which your never fibers and your muscles contract during that process.  But you can do it.  Meditation needs to be understood that same way, by doing it.  It is not something that you can learn in abstract terms.  It is not something to be talked about.  It is something to be experienced."                 Venerable Henepola Gunaratana

During my Quiet Time today I was thinking about the guy who I don't like who keeps glomming onto me for my beach walks and fucking everything up.  It's not even that I don't like him - it's that I don't find him very interesting.  He is a typical extrovert - way too excited about things that don't seem to warrant much excitement.  He likes to stop and explain something that he finds fascinating but holds no interest for me.  He likes to stop and point things out that I don't find interesting.  Again, I'm not saying they're not interesting but just that they're not interesting to me.  And it's alllllllllll about me.

If I was a touch braver I'd tell him: "Look.  These walks are my exercise time.  I don't want to stop and look at stuff or chat.  And I'm obsessed with music so it'a great time for me to explore new music or to call friends who live back East.  Sometimes I just walk and count in my breaths in a walking meditation."  What's wrong with that?  Well, for one thing I'm pretty sure he knows that he's not my cup of tea.  And being an extrovert he doesn't spend any time wondering why this is so or - better yet - why he feels compelled to spend any time with me at all.  It's not unusual for me to talk to someone and think: "This dude is not even remotely interested in the things that interest me."  Fair enough.  Walk away.  Quit banging your head against the wall.  My hesitation is in part because he would take this information as a personal criticism when the fact of the matter is there are very few people I'd want joining me on my daily walks.

The things I have to think about . . .  As you can see I'm not exactly top shelf when it comes to meditating quietly.