Understanding and Compassion

Today a story that some of you may be familiar with is in my mind (explained under picture). And I will let you know that the 3 “gunas” spoken about extensively through ancient Eastern scripture are also in my Awareness. The 3 gunas are known as Rajas, Tamas and Sattva (these are Sanskrit words).

Rajas is the innate tendency or quality that drives motion, energy and activity. Rajas is sometimes translated as passion, where it is used in the sense of activity, without any particular value and it can contextually be either good or bad. Rajas helps actualize the other two gunas.

Tamas is  the quality of imbalance, disorder, chaos, anxiety, impurity.

Sattva is the quality of balance, harmony, goodness, purity, universalizing, holistic, constructive, creative, building, positive attitude, luminous, serenity. This is a space that also encourages no attachment to the outcome (good or not good).

The story is this: A young monk is on a journey with his old teacher. As they got to a river, a beautiful woman was sitting there wanting to cross the river, but unable to swim. The old teacher offered his help, which she accepted. He took her in his arms, waded through the river with her and put her back down on the other side. Very appreciative the woman thanked him, then said good-bye and they all walked on. During the time it took to walk back to the monastery, the young monk was stewing and very upset at his teacher, because as monks they took an oath of not ever touching a woman. He was internally totally distressed. Just before they arrived at the monastery, he mustered the courage of confronting his teacher with his inner turmoil. The old monk burst out laughing and said: “The difference between you and me is that I left the woman at the river’s bank, while you are still carrying her around!”

Now we can understand that the old monk is depicted as acting from both a Rajas and a Sattvic space. The Rajas was needed to take action and the Sattvic to do good work and let it go.

The young monk may be interpreted as thinking from both a Rajas and Tamas perspective as his mind is active with anxiety and then expresses as judgement to the older monk.

The woman may be seen as working from a Sattvic perspective as she received the help gratefully.

Yet… if we look deeper, we can see that the same action by the old monk could have come from any of the 3 gunas. We can see the Sattvic space explained, yet there may have been a Rajasic space in his mind, stemming from wanting to show his bravery and courage to his young monk and/or to the woman herself. From a Rajasic/Tamasic space he may have even touched her inappropriately in the action and only he and she would know this. And he may now be excited about looking for her in the future for a similar opportunity from both a Rajasic and Tamasic space.

The young monk may be seen as Sattvic in his non-reaction initially for the help he was watching the older monk give. From the same space he may have also noticed the beautiful woman and held himself back from helping upon assessing she was safe and wanting to stay true to his vows, and he may have consciously held back his judgement of the old monk through some of the walk. We know he was Rajasic when he was internally frustrated and when he judged the old monk later. And he may have been thinking from the lazy and non-helpful space of Tamas when he first saw the woman that did not want to help the woman at all because of the effort needed or because it would pull him away from his intended walk.

Finally, the woman could be in a pure Sattvic space as it seems. Or she may be in a Rajasic space as she is lonely and wants to have some interaction with anyone that may come by. The Rajasic space may even lead to her dreaming/wishing for this monk to come by again in the future, especially if she had never been helped like this before. And she may have even feigned needing help to receive the help she did, from a Tamasic perspective. The Tamasic space can also make a person feel like one is entitled to use people as needed and not care about the experience or effects on the other.

Now each of these gunas continues to operate in each of us (and we all have all 3, all the time). Moment to moment, they are playing in our minds and experiences. Each of us will predominantly be in one for our general life experience unless we consciously choose to be aware of how we are thinking and helping to shape it as we choose.

Can you see that although the story seems so simple and clear, we can expand our own awareness to know that only the individuals will know their own full perspective? Now I know I like to contemplate such things and many may not take the time to do so. Understanding gunas is really for the purpose of understanding ourselves so that we may be compassionate and non-judgmental to ourselves and to those around us too.

If we have a hope to improve ourselves, we must first try to understand ourselves – many people hope to improve others without fully understanding themselves! I wish us all the courage to honestly work on ourselves first.

And since this is on my mind, a meaningful poem written by Thich Nhat Hanh also came to mind that can further help to raise our own awareness and compassion for all. I will share it below and if you are ready to understand, heal, and re-train your own thought patterns, I welcome you to reach out to me by email: hanifahelps@gmail.com or by text/phone at (416)920-8975.

Please Call Me by My True Names – Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

May our doors of understanding and compassion remain open.

Kindly,

Hanifa