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Triumph of the Heart

Joseph Goldstein teaches that we can improve the way we relate to others—strangers and friends alike.
By Joseph Goldstein

Part 2 of 2

WHAT LEADS TO TRIUMPH OF THE HEART?

There is an important lesson here about the sustaining power of lovingkindness. Because it does not depend on any particular quality in the other person, this kind of love does not transform easily into ill will, anger, or irritation, as love with desire or attachment so often does. Such unconditional love comes only from our own generosity of heart. Although we may recognize the purity and power of this feeling, we may fear or imagine that this kind of love lies beyond our capacity. But metta is not a power that belongs only to the Dalai Lama or Mother Teresa or some extraordinary being categorically different from ourselves. We can all practice it and learn to love in this way. The question for us is, how can we do it? What makes this inclusiveness possible?

A number of years ago, the Harvard Medical Journal included an article about a Tibetan doctor named Tenzin Chodak, who had been a personal physician to the Dalai Lama. In 1959, Dr. Chodak was imprisoned by the Chinese. For seventeen of the twenty-one years he remained in prison, he was beaten and tortured daily—physically and psychologically—and his life was continually threatened. Astonishingly, he emerged from this horror virtually free from signs of post-traumatic stress.

In the article, Dr. Chodak distills the wisdom we need to understand into four points of understanding, which made possible not only his survival—people survive horrendous conditions in many ways—but also the great triumph of his heart. A short biographical sketch of him by Claude Levenson describes him in this way: “Dr. Chodak could easily pass unnoticed, until you meet his gaze—a gaze filled with the perception of one who has seen so much that he has seen everything, seeing beyond the suffering he has experienced, beyond all the evil and the abuses he has witnessed, yet expressing boundless compassion for his fellow human beings.”

FOUR INSIGHTS IN TIMES OF DISTRESS

First, we must endeavor to see every situation in a larger context. Like the Dalai Lama—who often speaks of how one’s enemy teaches one patience—Dr. Chodak saw his enemy as his spiritual teacher, who led him to the wisest and most compassionate place in himself. Accordingly, he felt that even in the most dreadful and deplorable circumstances some human greatness, some greatness of heart could be accomplished. Of course, thinking this is easy; the challenge is to remember and apply this understanding in times of difficulty.

Second, we must see our enemies, or the difficult people in our lives, as human beings like ourselves. Dr. Chodak never forgot the commonality of the human condition. The “law of karma” means that all our actions have consequences: actions bear fruit based on the intentions behind them. People who act cruelly toward us are actually in adverse circumstances, just as we are, creating unwholesome karma that will bring about their own future suffering.

But we mustn’t fall into thinking of karma as “they’ll get theirs,” as a kind of vehicle for cosmic revenge. Rather, seeing the universal human condition can become a wellspring of compassion. The Dalai Lama said, “Your enemies may disagree with you, may be harming you, but in another aspect, they are still human beings like you. They also have the right not to suffer and to find happiness. If your empathy can extend out like that, it is unbiased, genuine compassion.” Understanding karma—that we all reap the fruit of our actions—as a vehicle for compassion is the wisdom we could now integrate into our lives. We’re all in the same situation with regard to the great law of karmic cause and effect.

Lovingkindness is a feeling that blesses others and oneself with the simple wish, “Be happy.”

Words of the Buddha

Daily teachings of Buddha Dharma

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