There Go I: A Compassion Meditation
If you hope that when we all stumble out of our homes and into the light on the other side of this pandemic, we find ourselves in a more compassionate world, then this practice might be for you. It’s a simple mantra meant to interrupt habitual thought. I’ve tried it over the last few days, and I’m hoping a few others will be inclined to join in.
As we’re bombarded with pandemic news and stories, we have the choice to let them roll past us, wreck us, or change us. I’m hoping for change: a greater capacity for compassion, where our future actions flow naturally from a sense of intimate “belongingness” to each other. I’m hopeful we’ll be drawn to order our lives and communities to serve the whole rather than the self. If this virus has shown us anything, it’s that we are boundaryless yet connected.
Yoga speaks of seva, or selfless service, but I don’t know if I’ve ever been truly selfless. When encountering another’s misfortune, I’d think, “There but for the grace of God go I.” I care, because I know I could easily be in that situation. I might be moved to act but from a place of unconscious pity mixed with power. Disguised as compassion, my thoughts and actions create a false distance between me and others, even if I mean to unite. I might try to love my neighbor as much as myself, when I’m really called to love my neighbor as myself. As one.
I don’t actually know how to embody these concepts - it’s a narrow gate. I know that within Christian and Yogic traditions, attachment to our false identity, or what Paul would call “flesh,” stands in the way of clear seeing. This talk on compassion by Cynthia Bourgeault is illuminating.
Here, Bourgeault offers a quote by Gerald May of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation from his book Will and Spirit, “As attachment ceases to be your motivation, your actions will become reflections of compassion absolute.” She says that our attachments are blind spots, like a thumb over the camera lens. Can we begin to “see” with our hearts, with fewer attachments of the mind? This is really hard stuff.
My sin, perhaps our sin, is ignorance of our unity, so tight our attachment to our sense of singularity. In yoga sutras, this forgetting is Avidya, or spiritual ignorance, one of the 5 root causes of suffering. Our root sin is in the forgetting of our own creation story.
I love this particular creation story, “Becoming me,” by Martin Boronson. I used these words in photo books for each of my children’s first communions, so they’d never forget who they are. Here, God speaks of playing by Himself for ages, then wanting someone to play with. So He becomes all kinds of things, and eventually, He become “you!” Towards the end of the poem, God says:
“As soon as I become you, you forget that you are me.
In time you forget all about me.
Every so often, you wonder who you are.
And I’m right here reminding you.
I like it best when you discover me.
And then we play together, you and I.
Sometimes, you even realize you are me..
And everything else is me too.
This makes me happy.
But even if you forget all about me,
I will always love you, little me.”
Humans forget. But everyone once in a while, Grace opens a narrow gate and we peek through. And God is there helping us, to see the world wholly connected.
My “There Go I” practice
Throughout the day as I hear or see another’s story, I pause to say, “There Go I.” Just a few breaths allow a brief withdrawal from the intellect, so I can “see with my heart” life as the other, or as Bourgeault says, “to put the mind in the heart.” I seek out that interior landscape, like a room where we connect with the human being and image of God within these stories. I seek a certain silence.
Here are a few examples of all the stories we’ve each encountered; with each day, each hour, we welcome a new wave, and can choose to pause and to say, “There Go I.”
The woman stuck at home, devouring every news source and sharing ideas and data and charts and live updates with friends, feeling at once both completely powerless and utterly responsible. There Go I.
The young mother with a life threatening autoimmune disease in remission, desperately pleading with others to see that she is the old and sick they so easily dismiss. There Go I.
The college student on spring break whose quote went viral. "If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying” There Go I.
The exhausted Michigan ER nurse once secure in the knowledge that she did all she could to save lives. The shortage of supplies, medicines and equipment has changed that security. There Go I.
The 5th grade honors student living in a homeless shelter, told it’s no longer safe to go to her school, and to prepare to take her classes from home. There Go I.
The nanny abruptly dismissed from her full-time job without notice or severance pay. There Go I.
The governor responsible for the lives and livelihoods of her citizens. There Go I.
Two working-from-home parents arguing over who gets to take their important 10:00am conference call while the other homeschools their kids. There Go I.
The man who lives alone. There Go I.
The doctor recommending criteria for who will get a lifesaving ventilator. There Go I.
The college student back home with parents after barely a taste of studying abroad. There Go I.
The young store clerk without a mask ringing up groceries for 8 hours a day. There Go I.
The man dying in the hospital from the virus, without family by his side. There Go I.
A family in mourning, separated by social distancing, waiting for a funeral. There Go I.
The mother and the father infected with the virus, quarantined at home with their two year old daughter. There Go I.
The Dad making crazy kitchen videos with his daughter. There Go I.
After a time, however brief, I sometimes find myself moved to say a silent “Hail Mary” both for the other and for myself. This prayer lies in wait within my heart. The most important part is our connection through the phrase “us” sinners, our sin simply forgetting.
I have no idea if this will change how I see or perceive the world. But I know there are so many opportunities at hand to practice this mantra. Will you practice with me?
Practice Steps
Read or see a story
Pause and say, inwardly, “There Go I.”
Breathe into your heart as you Imagine yourself as the other.
Finish with a brief prayer for unity and understanding.
When we train the intellect to slow down while the heart rises or expands to meet it, we “put the mind in the heart.” This practice, while silent and personal, might change us. We can only trust that we are doing our small part for, or of, the whole.
Closing
And finally, at the end of the day, this old friend of a Rumi poem helps me process it all. I sometimes read it in the evening, or recite it to myself as my head hits the pillow. “The Guest House” is an invitation to love, honor and be with each fleshy, raw bit of us that sweeps through each day. It’s treating our shared humanity the same way I’d treat a beloved visitor: with presence.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jellaludin Rumi,
