The following article is taken from the Ven. Robina Courtin's website
When we hear about compassion and helping others, it feels like we’re excluding ourselves. Helping others: great. But what about me?
When I first heard the teachings on compassion from the lamas, they seemed so lofty, almost unattainable. Then I heard His Holiness say, “If you want to help others, practice compassion. If you want to help yourself, practice compassion.” That’s really powerful!
Our assumption seems to be that when we give to others and care for them, we must also make sure we do something to care for ourselves, because helping others seems to drain us.
Remember, a bird needs two wings: wisdom and compassion. As His Holiness says, “Compassion is not enough; we need wisdom.” What does this mean? The wing of wisdom represents all the work we do on ourselves, specifically for our own good: respecting the laws of karma, understanding and reducing our attachment, anger, fears and the rest. And how does this benefit us? The result of working on our mind is that we become more content, happier, more satisfied, less selfish – and therefore more loving and compassionate. This is what we do for ourselves!
When we then practice the wing of compassion, we continue to work on our mind, but the emphasis is now on breaking down the barriers that the ego has built between itself and others: we further reduce our limited sense of self and actively develop even more love and compassion for others and the enthusiasm to help them.
Now, because we have reduced our neuroses and are more satisfied with ourselves, our love and compassion do not drag us down. They give us great joy!
That’s not how we see it in our culture. We think that the more we help others, the more we’ll burn out. It’s possible – but only because we haven’t reduced our neuroses: we haven’t practiced the wisdom wing.
In other words – and this is a difficult thing to understand – when our compassion, our patience, our kindness, our love and our forgiveness are contaminated by our attachment, our aversion and our fears – because we have not worked on our mind – naturally we will feel drained, tired, depressed.
The logic, in other words, is that the more we reduce our attachment and rest on the wing of wisdom, the more joyful and fulfilled we become, so that when we help others, it will be truly fulfilling, not exhausting.
And of course, when we become true bodhisattvas, when attachment and other nonsense are practically gone, we will have no choice but to help others, to give to others, to care for others. And then we will have no choice but to be joyful!
