Compassion

Compassion is an action. Compassion as multi-faceted idea has been evolving for millenia with each culture borrowing, morphing, and creating a symbol for the actual action. By the present day the American English word compassion has so many connotations that some in depth attention is required to understand it.

The word compassion's etymology stems from Latin: "co-suffering" and Wiktionary's definition is: Deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it. Wikipedia's article provides information about compassion from many religious systems.

Compassion is often associated with the heart. Why is that? Is the heart the root of passion? Does compassion mean "with passion?" How to synthesize this with the standard idea of awareness of the suffering of another and the desire to relieve it? Awareness of suffering invokes feelings, these feelings can be very passionate. If our passion is not repressed then when we witness suffering passionate feelings overcome us. The desire to relieve, to become as one with the sufferer, to show the sufferer is not alone in feeling strongly. Sharing this feeling as a team can lead to solutions to the source of the suffering.

Gurdjieff's concept of intentional suffering is a very practical application of compassion. We live in a world filled with people's conscious and unconscious manifestations hurting each other willy-nilly. To act rightly, with compassion one must not let others hurts toward you continue the cycle of hurt by taking revenge. Intentional suffering is to accept that people will hurt you and cause you to suffer but you will not respond an eye for an eye. To intentionally suffer in this way is to have compassion and break the cycle of hurt.

Do we feel what someone else is feeling through sensory connotations or do we actually sense their feeling?