The Dalai Lama once said, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” 

So what is compassion?  Is it the answer to happiness? It seems so obvious; everyone knows what compassion is, right?  Maybe we do know but either don’t see the value of happiness or don’t believe the answer to happiness could be so simple.

Or possibly it is just more important to be ‘justified’ in our anger and resentments.  Maybe we actually like feeling angry and bitter.  Far be it from me to impose my ideas of happiness upon another.

So what is compassion?  Is it that feeling of caring that stirs us to run out and rescue creatures from their pain and suffering?  Possibly, that may be one definition; compassionate sympathy.  I incline to call that ‘sympathy’ and as high and altruistic as the motives may be it is often the cruelest action we can take. In the act of rescuing others we are negating their choices.  We are negating the power within them to make right decisions and find for themselves right action.

Yet having said that; sometimes compassion will call us to take action, sometimes we will see within ourselves a way to promote global shift.  In most cases compassion calls on us to feel intensely the individual discomfort and act globally to create comfort. 

In rare situations actions of compassion may appear from the outside to be callous and dispassionate.  Sometimes true compassion can appear to be courageous, even heroic yet the motive is never such and when we celebrate heroics we throw away the true gift of compassion.

In the oxford dictionary compassion is compared to an act of pity, seeking to alleviate pain related to from a sympathetic feeling.  This is a very western view of compassion; it is not the only view.  In the east compassion is viewed more as a product of empathy.

Where sympathy relates to understanding from ‘same’ experience, empathy is the act of seeking to embrace another’s experience from a place of not understanding, nor even being able to understand.  The compassion of empathy comes from truly understanding the feelings from a foundation of common needs, without ever needing to understand the circumstances.  The differences are subtle but the results and actions can be worlds apart. So clearly, if two people speak of compassion they may well have completely different views.

There is another level of compassion that is often spoken of in spiritual philosophies, it is a kind of global compassion coming from a sense of the suffering of humanity.  It is similar to empathic compassion, but does not respond to individual needs and desires. Rather it responds to a sense of hunger within the species.  This is the compassion that I believe the Dalai Lama spoke of.  This is the compassion I believe all spiritual masters have spoken of.