I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

Last night, I went to my Buddhist group meeting. Buddhism is probably the closest of all the world spiritual systems to my own personal beliefs.

Well, I picked up some Hinduism in there with Shiva dancing the world into being, and Ganesha whispering great epics into my ear, longing to be penned. Christian forgiveness certainly resonates, as do the Gnostic gospels, certain parts of the Kabalah system, and I am attracted to Voudou.....well, darn it, I guess I can't settle on just one system.

But I require a regular practice, and Buddhism, along with daily yoga and meditation, and a once yearly shot in the arm of African American Baptist evangelistic Christianity works for me at this time.

My Buddhist group likes to have dialogues on certain topics, and I greatly enjoy these. Last night the topic was compassion.

One issue I see with this particular sect of Buddhism is that it is largely action-oriented, and a bit short on philosophy. This should be a good balance for me since I tend to dwell in the mists of philosophy and forget to actually leave my desk. I mean, it's fun to dwell the 10 realms, the 7 levels of enlightenment, understand the 16 jewels, etc. But you have to get out and DO something once in a while.

So several definitions of compassion were put out there in our group - compassion is action, it's like Einstein's theory and I don't know how, it's the force that compels you to move....

And none of this was resonating for me.

So I put what I thought out there.

Compassion is feeling with - these are the origins of the word in Latin. It's also the suspension of judgment (pulling from Christianity here) so we can see through the surface situation to what is really happening. If I watch you erupt, and I judge you an asshole, then I have cut off access to understanding what is really making you suffer and erupt in the first place.

But if I stand back, and take nothing you do personally, I can sometimes see past what you are doing to the real root cause. That cause invariably works out to be fear, and I can forgive anyone on the spot for that.

Acting training has helped me a lot with this. We are always being forced to ask what do I want, why do I want it, and why do I have to have it now, in approaching our characters. Everytime you answer the last question, why do I have to have it now, it leads you to probe the next level of the situation by asking the first question again. A little example:

An actor erupts at me on the film set. I think he's an asshole. But whoah, that's a judgment, so I probe a little. What  does he want? Recognition that he is important somehow. Why does he want it? Because he doesn't feel he is important, worthy of our admiration. Why does he want recogntion right now? Because he is afraid...

Next level: Why is he afraid? Because, despite a lot of puffing up the ego here, this is really his first feature film and he might botch it. So what does he want? To believe he can do it. Why does he want it? Because he doesn't believe he can pull this off - he's never actually done this before in front of a crew and other talent with a camera rolling. Why does he have to have it right now? Because we are calling for him on the set....

So what can I do? I can stop myself from being blown away in his hurricaine of fear and be calm. I can reach through to him and say, 'You can do this. You were born for this. Now get on with it.'

I have immediately forgiven him (reaching past Buddhism and straight over into Christianity for another moment) for biting my head off because I see this actually had nothing to do with me. It was his fear running him. How could I not have compassion for this? Aren't we all suffering in some way? Aren't we all done in by our fears at some point? Aren't we all jewels in Indra's net, sparkling and reflecting off one another?

Take this way of looking at compassion, and contrast it with our government's view, which ghttofreak and scaryfairy have been doing a fine job of tackling this morning. The government view seems to run more along the lines of, "If you need help in some way, something is wrong with you. You should not look to your government, but hope some charity will come to your aid.

Hopefully, there's one out there that will. But we won't fund it regardless."

I am not sure there is a whole lot of compassion in this view. Compassion entails a view more along the lines of "we should do whatever we can to alleviate human suffering." Not by inventing a new product to sell you, but by gently leading others to water they can drink. Read gettofreak's blog, and he's right - you can't force someone starving for food to sit through a sermon before you serve them, and call that compassion. But you can feed them, and be with them, and open your heart to them. You can understand that they might be a bit lost, and you might know the way....or you might not. But just having compassion helps put their feet on a path to ending their suffering.

There are an inifinte number of paths - they but require our decision to make the first step upon them.

It's just love. That's all it is. Compassion is part of love. Not the icky, sexy romantic love, for those of you who shy away from that word. Real love - the kind that dissolves the illusion of barriers between us.

One man in my group, who I think a lot of, said we should try to convert as many people as possible to the faith - not so we can swell our numbers arbitrarily - but so that the US could, from the grassroots level, someday become the major exporter of humanitarianism and spiritual wisdom in the world. Wouldn't this be better than being thrilled over our current cash crop of death and arms?

I am indifferent as to which particular religion achieves this goal, if one ever does. I'd like to see ALL  of them work together in this regard.

I just want to be part of achieving that goal.