Compassion "Medicine"

Dharmachari Seven (Buddhist advice to a very fearful young woman)

There are only four reasons why you have ever and will ever feel hurt, grief, psychological discomfort, or emotional distress. Only four. Whatever you feel in terms of unhappiness or suffering, it is only because it is rooted in one or some combination of these four. What four?

• Greed (grabbiness, yearning, craving, hankering, and pining)
• Hate (anger, unfriendliness, compassionlessness, resentment)
• Delusion (wrong views, mental distortions, thought aberrations)
• Fear (a kind of Hate, which is both the root of anger and cowardice)

The good thing is that each of these roots has an antidote, a "medicine." Interestingly -- and to get straight to the point of delivering this medicine right where it's needed at this moment -- both anger and Fear are in a way the same thing, because they have the same root.

Now, you see no Hate/anger in you, none that you're aware of anyway, none that you dare let express itself? You're like a fluttering fairy, a waif, a deva, a wispy...well you get the idea. That's not to say there is no Hate, no root of "anger," present. It's there all right! But its manifestation is the more socially acceptable, the more culturally feminine Fear. (Think about it, why are Fear and Hate said to be the same, what's their commonality? Revulsion).

For example, men are taught not to have Fear or certainly never to show it if they do. It's not masculine. So when they see a mouse, filled with revulsion, they attack it. Their revulsion is expressed as Hate (anger, fighting with, and attacking that "disgusting" mouse).

Women, however, are taught not to have Hate or certainly never to show it if they do. So when they see a mouse, filled with revulsion, they jump on a chair (and scream for someone to come help them, or just wait till the mouse goes away, alarmed by the screaming and shrieking). Women may even faint or enter a "fugue state," which is an odd response in the presence of a Fearful thing.

But it makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint (the instinctive and genetically-coded way humans have adapted and survived from the time of cavemen and cavewomen). We have three automatic reactions to Fear: fight, flight, or freeze. Guess which one your body is in the habit of exhibiting?

And wouldn't it be better, more beneficial, not to "react" automatically but to respond purposefully? That way we can be in control of our lives rather than Fear or circumstances being in control.

Seeing a mouse, knowing it only to be a mouse, a cute little critter with precious little whiskers and a dew drop of a nose, cousin-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks of the adorable hamster -- we can choose to tolerate it, shoo it away, give it some food to go outside, buy one of those silent high frequency repellers, spray cat urine scented mist near its cubbyhole, catch and release it in the woods with a mercy trap, or... Did you know there were so many other things you could do instead of fight, flight, or freeze?