How can I accept the suffering of others?

by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

The suffering you feel when experiencing another’s pain does have to do with the root causes of ignorance, attachment, or anger. Suffering is always connected to a sense of self and to attachment. However, the pain that you feel for others can be transformed into the path of liberation. In fact, experiencing the pain of another’s suffering is necessary for the development of compassion, and compassion is necessary for liberation. The cultivation of compassion is based on empathy, or the ability to feel the suffering of others. If you cannot feel the suffering of others, you cannot cultivate compassion.

Rather than simply feeling helpless when you experience the suffering of others, let that moment be an opportunity to cultivate bodhichitta, to rouse the sincere desire to attain liberation from the three poisons in order to truly benefit others. This motivation is no small thing. Even though you may not see how compassion directly affects another’s suffering in an immediate or obvious way, it is always possible that because of compassion something shifts energetically toward the situation. Clearly something shifts in oneself.

Sometimes we are overwhelmed with the amount of suffering we perceive in the world around us and we shut down, contract, or turn away. But it is important to stay openhearted in connection to the suffering we experience. When we allow ourselves to fully experience the sensations and emotions that are present within us when we are touched by others, these very feelings become the doorway to compassion.

Compassion arises spontaneously from our open awareness. Feeling our pain directly releases the bondage of helplessness and reveals the pure and open space of being, which is the very source of compassion within us. In this way, instead of perpetuating suffering we become part of the solution. Thinking “I cannot do anything” is a way of solidifying or reinforcing the sense of “I” and “other,” which perpetuates the illusion of duality. We must understand the value and power of compassion and know that feeling pain is itself a great practice. Staying open and aware in the presence of suffering is necessary to the development of compassion.

What begins as pain can arise as compassion and become the path to liberation. Just as a bird needs two wings for flight, the practitioner needs wisdom and compassion for liberation. Wisdom is the fearless recognition of openness in the presence of suffering; compassion is the result of one’s suffering releasing into the clear and open expanse of mind, the mind of this very moment.