“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama
Once when asked to explain his religious beliefs, the Dalai Lama simply replied, “My religion is kindness.”
I have always found this to be a brilliant answer, both for its simplicity and its depth. We live in a time when many proclaim their religion as the centerpiece of their lives, yet among many of the most vocal and vehement, we can find no kindness, no mercy or compassion in their preaching and actions. And so, is it not important to ask what is the proper understanding of religion? Ought it not be what we live “religiously?” And is it not true that the fountainheads for the great religions all taught love, compassion, forgiveness and tolerance? That there have been many religious movements that grew up in their names that practice much the opposite is among the great shames of humanity.
Buddhism, at least as it has transferred into the West, seems to remain very dedicated to the original spiritual and ethical teachings of The Buddha, and If one claims to be a Buddhist, the ongoing meditation, the basic religious instruction, remains how to alleviate suffering wherever one finds it, and that would include in ourselves. To act with kindness seems then to be an excellent instruction towards that fulfillment, something to live religiously. Yet do we really have a sense of the depth of this instruction?
What is it to be kind? Certainly, it is to be gentle and helpful, to care for the well-being of all, doing what we can to support and protect those who need our support and protection. Buddhism, in its call to look deeply into the causes of suffering and to offer remedy leaves no room for moralistic or sectarian persecution or self-aggrandizement at the expense of others. “Be kind,” says the living patriarch of Tibetan Buddhism. There is no room for equivocation. Kindness – all-inclusive kindness. Love – all-inclusive love. Tolerance – all-inclusive tolerance. Forgiveness – all-inclusive forgiveness. Mercy – all-inclusive mercy. Truthfulness and honesty – all-inclusive truthfulness and honesty. Compassion – all-inclusive compassion. These are the spiritual and ethical underpinnings of any true religion and are what the Dalai Lama sums up in his call to kindness. Can a person authentically call themself religious if these virtues are not the cornerstone of their life, what they live by religiously and look to foster in their society? Unfortunately, it often seems that many of those who make the biggest issue of identifying as religious are not bringing these seeds of kindness into the world – rather, just the reverse.
The Dalai Lama’s call to kindness is based in the important Buddhist instruction called The Four Noble Truths which expounds on the existence of unnatural human suffering caused by attachment to ego for identity. Ego grasps after identity in specialness and chases after happiness in such forms as materialism, status, competition, relationships, religious and political affiliation, judgment, and exciting stimulation and entertainment. Ego does not know how to be kind, not really. Kindness comes from what is authentic, the heart of a human being. The remedy offered in the Noble Truths teaching begins with “right view,” developing understanding of the fundamental nature of existence based in interconnection, interdependence, and impermanence leading to a healthy sense of selflessness and care for all and the need for cultivating wisdom and compassion. This selflessness is not the kind of martyr-complex so many raised in “religious” cultures suffer from, it is a joyous weightlessness which realizes, as The Dalai Lama taught, our own happiness can be fostered through the practice of compassion which brings happiness to others. Is it not your experience that you feel best when acting kindly, generously, compassionately expecting nothing in return?
Further, The Noble Truths teaches us to practice kindness in our intentions, our speech, our actions, our livelihood, and in all our efforts. It then advises us to develop our mind through meditation, which fosters mindfulness, concentration, mental stability, wisdom, and the awakening of our deepest sense of Being. It allows us to know the essence of ourselves that is free of the need for external validation or conditions for our well-being. It is quite a realization to discover that these “religious” practices which focus into bringing kindness to others are what can bring the happiness we chase after yet find so elusive and are thus kindnesses to ourselves.
Buddhism teaches that looking outside ourselves to fulfill our sense of well-being and happiness can never bring us what we are truly looking for – the sense of fulfillment which can be called peace and joy in being alive. Likewise, all our attempts to satisfy ego’s need to be significant to others and to live up to expectations imposed through our family and societal influences (which we then often internalize as our own) leave us unable to find ease in life. Kindness is in allowing ourselves to be liberated from these judgmental attitudes. It is written that Jesus instructed, “judge not, lest ye be judged,” and I have long seen this as an instruction not only against hypocrisy, but that to engage in the mind of judgment towards others ensnares us in vulnerability to the judgment of others and to those judgments we have internalized upon ourselves.
What I have found to be true is that a life based in religious dedication to kindness can lead to unshakable satisfaction with being alive. On the other hand, ego-pursuits when accomplished, while temporarily generating a kind of shallow happiness, lead always to returned dissatisfaction, for what is really sought cannot be found there. Our society, built around the “pursuit of happiness,” has us anxiously looking to something or someone to quell this thirst only to have our attention pulled to the next object of “happiness.” So – kindness is living in such a manner as to free us of this unease. Importantly, there is a paradoxical effect to this kind of unselfish generosity of virtuous action in that it is the surest way to find peace and happiness for ourselves. This is not about the kind of sense of religious obligation to care for others at the expense of oneself that fosters an attitude of resentment. The generosity of kindness is joyful, emanating from a soul that knows itself and how to nourish itself through the celebration of goodness that envelops others.
The instruction to kindness must begin with ourselves, and we cannot be kind to ourselves if we do not know ourselves, so Buddhism’s instruction to meditation is the practice of coming to know our true selves, finding within ourselves an immeasurable well of stability, goodness, wisdom, and compassion that is our true self. In the practice of meditation, we realize we are the intelligent, compassionate, wise mind of awareness prior to ego, and we can engage in a therapeutic relationship to our egoic mind that calms and corrects our fears and mistaken insecurities. Our acts of kindness then arise from this inexhaustible well, and our own happiness is the result of that unshakable goodness radiating generously into the world, enveloping ourselves along with others.
This teaching, this emphasis on ethical, emotional goodness for our religious commitment, is not limited to Buddhism. When Jesus was asked what the most important commandment is, his instruction was concise and directive – to love. Likewise, all the major world religions are permeated with instructions to kindness, love, mercy, charity, forgiveness, truthfulness, and honesty, yet we find so many throughout history and today who act in the name of their religion lacking these virtues. On the contrary, great cruelty and harm have been perpetrated throughout history and continue today in the name of religion. Therefore, we are left to ask, can we, in fact, be considered truly religious if we ignore the central ethical teachings of our religion to focus on narrow interpretations of morality as excuse to persecute those we see to be “other” than acceptable to our particular sectarian interpretation of a religious life? Is this persecution not a violation of the call to be virtuous and kind, loving and tolerant in our conduct toward others that all the original religious sources call us to? How much better our society would be if instead of parading and legislating moralistic religiosity we were truly religious, if we religiously sought to embody and bring into public policy the teachings of Jesus, of Buddha, of the many great original religious sources who encapsulated their religion in instructions to love, to kindness, to mercy, honesty, modesty, charity, and tolerance, to wonder at and protect the natural world. Nor does one need to identify with a religion to know and live these truths. These virtues are also honored by those who hold to a philosophy called secular humanism, believers in shedding religious identifications to embody the essence of the great religious teachers as the core of what it is to be human. We need human mercy, compassion, and kindness. As both Buddha and Jesus instructed and lived, there is no room for hatred or persecution in a life religiously dedicated to kindness. The Dalai Lama truly understands and lives his religion. It would be a great step forward for humanity if all who call themselves religious would also.