I’ve really been enjoying the Winter Gatherings at the Buddhist Centre here in Glasgow. Every Tuesday over the Christmas and New Year period, the sangha is gathering in this particularly bleak winter and enjoying the light of the Dharma. 
Tonight’s Dharma talk was given by Parami and, surprisingly perhaps, was on a Christmas Carol – ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ – which Parami sang beautifully in alto before beginning her talk. A talk which was, in true Bodhisattva style, rooted in compassion, and which touched on issues that were pertinent to everyone in the room.
She spoke of a dream she once had in her early days of Buddhist practice that I wanted to share. Rather than awkwardly tell it in third person, I’ll tell it in first, but please remember I’m paraphrasing.
“I dreamed I was in Nicaragua in the 1980s during the civil war and I was helping the souls of the dying pass beyond into peace by singing to them. But when a soul approached I would ask, ‘Are you Contra or Sandinista?!’ and if they answered ‘Sandinista’ I would sing them on their way to peace, but if they said ‘Contra’ I would refuse and leave them stranded on Earth..”
From the dream, Parami realised that she was making her compassion dependent on her judgment of the recipient.
I can definitely relate – I’m sure we all can. It’s easy to feel compassion for those we love, or with whose goals and ideals we sympathise. But what about those in areas where our prejudices are ruffled?
But how easy to I find it to feel compassion toward Orangeman – a member of an order I despise? Or a Tory – or Thatcher herself for that matter? It’s easy for a lefty comedian to cheekily wish her a speedy journey to the grave and it’s easy for those of us who oppose everything she did politically to laugh along.
But when she looks death in the face, won’t she feel the same fear as the rest of us? When she suffers, don’t her family and those who love her suffer? When she dies, won’t they feel pain and grieve?
As Parami reminded us tonight, the Metta Bhavana (the meditation practice that we in the Triratna tradition to help cultivate compassion) helps us to break through that by encouraging the development of compassion, not only for our friends, but for people to whom we’re indifferent, or even people that we just don’t like.
We don’t have to like them, but if our goal – the Bodhisattva ideal – really is to end suffering, we’re going to need more than a truckload of compassion.
I once heard a great quote about how we should be trying to shrink our carbon footprint and “expand our compassion footprint”.
I’m working on expanding mine to include people like Orangemen and Thatcher.
That’s the practice right there, I think.
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