My Personal Commitment to the Call of Compassion: 100 Posts On...

This is the 100th entry I’m posting on the ZoneMind. To be honest when I first started writing entries with my first simply called Beginnings I posted on that Saturday of May 2011, I wasn’t sure what I would be getting into. Moreover, I had no idea on how this blog would develop and whether I’ll continue updating it and not, like on some occasions before in real life, simply left it to undergo an eventual death of its own.

I am, at one level, satisfied that I have managed to keep this blog up for as long as I did. Indeed, I hope to continue updating it as I grow older. Of course, my outlook on life and my engagement with Buddhism and Buddhist practice will remain an essential part of the inspiration for my posts here. I must admit that I found a home in the Buddhist dharma or teachings of the Buddha. A feeling that I cannot fully express but which, I feel, has given me a lot and a state of refuge.

However, in spite of the fact that this journey of self-discovery has enriched my appreciation of life and brought me closer to other human beings, For sure, it  hasn’t made me impassive to the human situation. Indeed, as I write this I am happy but I am still pained when I hear of the natural disasters currently taking place. I am saddened to hear of the horror of war and conflict happening in the world. I am angered when I hear of injustice and corruption that seem to tarnish all trust in human nature.

I feel helpless because I know that there is little I can really do and all I can do is to contribute to the happiness of those around me and try to change all our lives for the better. I cannot say that I have succeeded. aFter all, throughout my life, I have taken up so many identities that may be conflicting. As a child, I took the identity of a member of an elite group for the alternative was undesirable. Later on in life, I felt like a victim as I got into grips with an additional visual impairment. This led me to adopting an identity of disability activist. Throughout my life I have been defined as a “Christ figure” bearing the cross of my impairment or as a “less fortunate” person.

Yet, no matter how I defined myself or any way others tended to define me failed to acknowledge me as a full human being. I always defined myself in terms of restrictive labels. Others defined me on their own terms. I was never free from imposed identities placed by others and those I chose myself. These last ones  appeared more liberating. But was I denying the most important thing of all, the value of being human?

Have I really stopped and asked myself why people thought I was different and not fully human? I now approach the same feelings and thoughts that emerge in my daily life with compassion. I, myself, feel the need to be treated with compassion and not with pity. For compassion treats others as equals, it doesn’t patronise or take up from an assumed higher position.

Some may say that in affirming a commitment to compassion, I am somewhat too soft and unrealistic. But I dare to be different. For here I am simply affirming my humanity. I am no different than other human being, I am no different, biologically, to any other primate and I am not different, materially, than other particle mass. At the same time, I am self-aware and in this sense, I have additional responsibility over the welfare of the world and those around me. These express the three main fundamentals of Buddhist teachings which I have dealt with extensively throughout this blog.

The fact that who we are arises dependently (dependent arising) which expresses the truth that without our relation to the world and others, we would never achieve our full human potential.
The fact that we are co-dependent (or inter-dependent) on the world and others. Apart from taking up the qualities of being human, we sustain who we are thanks to a close relationship between the world and others.
We are impermanent. The third teaching also affirms how we are inseparable from the world and others. It makes us aware of the fact that, like other things, we are not permanent and will one day be no more in our present forms.

Of course, even if they appear simple, these teachings offer much space for thought and further meditation for  future posts.

I’m not denying that I remain respectful of other spiritual traditions which I was brought up with, such as Roman Catholicism, or have become a secularist with its multiple   connotations. What I have discovered was that I feel what the world needs now is the promotion of an environment of compassion and the cultivation of inner peace and self-awareness. In this, I confess I have been greatly inspired by His Holiness the Dalai Lama whom I respect greatly .

Finally, I also wish to thank everyone who, directly and indirectly, helped me go on writing new entries to add to this blog. Thus, I thank my family, friends, even my enemies and all living beings for, unknowingly, helping me to write these first 100 entries!