Compassion is threatening to the ego. We might think of it as something warm and soothing, but actually it's very raw. When we set out to support other beings, when we go so far as to stand in their shoes, when we aspire to never close down to anyone, we quickly find ourselves in the uncomfortable territory of "life not on my terms." The second commitment, traditionally known as the Bodhisattva Vow, or warrior vow, challenges us to dive into these noncozy waters and swim out beyond our comfort zone.
Our willingness to make the first commitment is our initial step toward relaxing completely with uncertainty and change. The commitment is to refrain from speech and action that would be harmful to ourselves and others and then to make friends with the underlying feelings that motivate us to do harm in the first place. The second commitment builds on this foundation: we vow to move consciously into the pain of the world in order to help alleviate it. It is, in essence, a vow to take care of one another, even if it sometimes means not liking how that feels.
The second commitment is connected deeply and unshakably with bodhicitta, traditionally defined as a longing to awaken so that we can help others do the same, a longing to go beyond the limits of conventional happiness, beyond enslavement to success and failure, praise and blame. Bodhicitta is also a true in our innate ability to go beyond bias, beyond prejudice and fixed opinions, and open our hearts to everyone: those we like, those we don't like, those we don't even notice, those we may never meet. Bodhicitta counteracts our tendency to stay stuck in very narrow thinking. It counteracts our resistance to change.
This degree of openness arises from the trust that we all have basic goodness and that we can interact with one another in ways that bring that out. Instead of reacting aggressively when we're provoked, endlessly perpetuating the cycle of pain, we trust that we can engage with others from a place of curiosity and caring and in that way contact their innate decency and wisdom...
Committing to benefit others is traditionally called the path of the bodhisattva, the path of the hero and heroine, the path of the spiritual warrior whose weapons are gentleness, clarity of mind, and an open heart. The Tibetan word for warrior, pawo for male warrior or pawmo for a female warrior, means "the one who cultivates bravery." As warriors in training, we cultivate the courage and flexibility to live with uncertainty - with the shaky, tender feeling of anxiety, or nothing to hold on to - and to dedicate our lives to making ourselves available to every person, in every situation...
Opening the door reflects our intention to remove our armor, to take off our mask, to face our fears. It is only to the degree that we become willing to face our own feelings that we can really help others. So we make a commitment that for the rest of our lives, we'll train in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of our own reactivity, our own survival mechanisms, our own propensities to be hooked...
It's the troublemakers in your life who cause you to see that you've shut down, that you've armored yourself, that you've hidden your head in the sand. If you didn't get angry at them, if you didn't get fed up with them, you would never be able to cultivate patience. If you didn't envy them, if you weren't jealous of them, you would never think to stretch beyond your mean-spiritedness and try to rejoice in their good fortune. If you never met your match, you might think you were better than everybody else and arrogantly criticize their neurotic behavior rather than do something about your own...
When we make this commitment, we begin an ongoing training in loving-kindness and compassion. One way to do this is to continuously ask ourselves: How can I be of service? We can make this an everyday practice...
The warrior's cry is: "We are needed." We make this journey for the sake of ourselves, our loved ones, our enemies, and everybody else. Since we all share the same planet, it's crazy to continue acting in ways that will destroy it.
May we all learn that pain is not the end of the journey, and neither is delight. We can hold them both - indeed hold it all - at the same time, remembering that everything in these quixotic, unpredictable, unsettled and unsettling, exhilarating and heart-stirring times is a doorway to awakening in sacred world.
- Pema Chödrön,
from Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change
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