Comments on: How to be Fearless: The Four Kinds of Friendliness (Part Two)

By: susan

susan — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:22:35 +0000

Betsy, these are fantastic points. And I really appreciate the suggestion to say more about “idiot compassion.” I will do so! Stay tuned…

By: Betsy

Betsy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:39:42 +0000

Hi Susan
In this post you mentioned “idiot compassion”. Could you say more about this? (I’d love to see an entire blog post dedicated to this).

I don’t know what your experience is, but it seems to me that “compassion” is often misunderstood, especially by those of us of the female gender. It is so easy for our hearts to go out immediately to others, while we forget ourselves completely. I see this a lot (after the fact) in myself, and in other women friends. I do not, however, see it as often in males.

While all of the Buddhist teachings I am learning have been very insightful, I sometimes think there is a particular bias towards a more “male” orientation, that can easily be misunderstood.

Curious to know your thoughts on this?

By: Wanda

Wanda — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:21:12 +0000

I have a question I hope someone can answer. I dated, for 2 months, a man whom adopts a certain degree of Buddhist principles – he is serene, thoughtful and truthful. I feel great love for him and hoped he’d reciprocate. There was a time in the beginning when I thought he did. Last evening, he told me he does not believe I am the right person for him and left swiftly – without apology, emotion, explanation, concern or emotion. He didn’t even have eye contact with me. He said nothing – not even goodbye. I think I am struggling less with what he said to me and more with how he said it – how he behaved – completely without emotion. I feel crushed; he clearly was not. Is this the typical behaviour pattern of a Buddhist? Detaching oneself from every possible emotion another might feel? Dismissing the possibility that his chosen method of revealing this to me may wound and humiliate in the most profound way?

By: How to be Fearless: The Four Kinds of Friendliness (Part Three) — Susan Piver

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:13:10 +0000

[...] here for Part One (Lovingkindness) and here for Part Two (Compassion). Stay tuned for Part Four [...]

By: susan

susan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:22:34 +0000

Hi Ben! Thanks for the comment. Agreed, it’s not intuitively obvious (the relationship of fearlessness and compassion), but when you think about it, it makes sense.

I think one of the reasons it’s not obvious/plausible is because of how much you have to slow down/open up to find that “profound conviction in basic goodness” that you mention.

By: Ben Tremblay

Ben Tremblay — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:27:14 +0000

I’m impressed at how you segued from compassion immediately to fearlessness. Existentially it’s ?what? choiceless, but at a conceptual level that might not seem plausible, let alone obvious.

What comes to mind here in the moment is how (how do we translate lungta?) an uplifted attitude concerning the present and its consequent moments is really in contrast to every flavour of neo-realism, where we compel / convince / conquer by imposing and projecting a pre-conceived fiction. To have such a profound conviction in ?what? basic goodness that we open to actualities … that’s pretty radical. And yaa, I mean that in the literal sense: it runs to the core of our relationship with phenomenal world and with other sentient beings.

Happy New Year!