in the end, there's love

I got an A minus in Compassionate Teacher. This was a course I took at Naropa University as part of a Master's in Contemplative Education. Last night as I was clearing out drawers and files - purging and putting and placing has always been a comfort to me - and came across my transcript from that time. An A minus. I mean, it's a great grade, of course it is. But does that mean that I am not 100% successful at understanding or even being a compassionate teacher? I'm sure that on some hard drive somewhere are all of the assignments for that course. Did I get an answer wrong? There were no tests, only papers requiring analysis and contemplation of our own experience in relation to the material. All of the 'marking' was on our subjective experience. How could I not get 100% every time ?

What is compassion anyway? And is it anyway or anyways? I could ask AI but for some reason I won't. Which is not to say that I haven't asked Gemini a truck load full of questions, because I certainly have, but I don't want Gemini's answer to my grammar woes or even a diatribe on compassion. Because isn't that a distinctly human trait? AI can tell me things about compassion but can it feel it itself. Is it a self? Jesus. This was supposed to be a post about compassion and now I am in realms of AI that are not only foreign but a wee bit terrifying for me. I think I will shelve the AI investigation until another time. But I will conclude it by saying that I makes me fucking angry that there is a little Gemini icon following each of these sentences as I write them. NO I DO NOT WANT YOU TO WRITE MY BLOG FOR ME. FUCK RIGHT OFF.

So, where was I? Ah yes, compassion and failing at it. I am coming to understand that I will always continue failing at it. Because one can never have something be 100% ironclad all the time because things are impermanent. And that striving to be something other than you are is pretty much beside the entire fucking point. Point of what? Life I suppose. I don't actually know what the point is, but the Buddhist aspiration to be of benefit to others seems very sound to me. Or as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, founder of Naropa University, once said, "You might not change the world but you may stop being a nuisance to others." That feels like a good North star for the compass of life.

So where was I? Ah yes, compassion and failing at it. Let's see...

Compassion is one of the Four Immeasurables - limitless qualities - in Buddhism. Or not just in Buddhism, in life actually, only Buddhists are helpful and like to innumerate and explicate things that are inherently so. (Sympathetic Joy, Loving Kindness and Equanimity are the others.) What I am also coming to understand is that compassion is not the squishy-all-accepting-love-all-beings-and-generally-just-be-nice quality that all of the influences and ridiculous memes may say it is. Compassion can be fierce. It can cut through bullshit. It has a capacity to hold all that is happening in any given moment that is greater than what we think we can hold ourselves. It knows what to do. If we can open to this beyond our own limited minds, we can access a deeper sense of what needs to be said, done, not said in any particular situation. Or so I am told.

I'm talking about Buddhism a lot today. Likely because I am examining things from this perspective lately. One of the great things the Buddha said is not to believe what he says, but to investigate it for ourselves. I dig this.

In the end, I suppose, compassion does have a connection to love. Or perhaps it is love? Or Love with an upper case L. I know that at its core, it is about wanting to alleviate suffering. There is an action to it. An energy to act. To...ah yes...to be of benefit to all beings. Full circle. Or enso.

I recall freaking loving he movie, Hardcore Logo - which may be Canadian (not asking Gemini!) - though I remember basically nothing of it now. What does remain is the suggestion one of the characters makes for a band name: Sled Dog Afterbirth. (I see now that it was likely a Canadian movie.) And the ending where, (I think) the drummer is walking around in his underwear in a drug and big feelings induced haze and daze muttering what has become, for me, a pretty helpful mantra sometimes:

In the end, there's love...

In the end, there's love...

In the end, there's love...