Drowning Compassion

The Dalai Lama believes, as I do, that the central issue of life is "compassion". It is the essence of religion - a view that seems odd to many in the West, who think of religion as being all about swallowing a bunch of implausible doctrine and accepting authority over evidence.

I believe that religion is about being serious about the choices you make about who you want to be and how you want to live your life. Not the "spooky stuff".

Compassion is like that. You are free not to be compassionate and that's the choice that most people make most of the time. Choosing compassion as the guiding principal of your life is a huge leap of faith. There is no particular reason to share in the suffering of others. In fact, Buddhism itself teaches that such sharing will lead directly to personal suffering. Compassion is often costly, painful and difficult.

Tragic end of 4-Year Old Alan Kurdi's flight from terror 

As the Dalia Lama says, the outpouring of sympathy for the drowned refugee boy is a natural response. Unfortunately, the "natural" response works on a gut level responding to one drowned child. Compassionate responses for millions of people in the same situation has been harder to come by. In fact, as I watch the struggle of people to make sense of the situation--to think of how to act--I find a notable lack of compassion, or even an understanding that compassion is the central issue and the best reason for action.

Many contributors to the debate point out that the refugee crisis is, in some way, "our fault". Whether this is true or not, the assumption is that we should act if and only if we have an obligation to pay for our prior sins. Compassion is a burden, a cost, not a way to be the best we can be. That's not compassion. That's Karma-lite.

There is no connection between us and that little boy except the fact that we are all in this together. No human being would turn away that child if they found him alive on their doorstep. At what point do we decide to turn our backs on our better nature and decide that the honour of helping will belong to someone else?