I recently read a great article in elephant journal about whether psychopaths also have the "basic goodness" that Buddhist perspective claims we all share.
I was really grateful for this
article as it addressed a question I have had in my mind for some time. The
whole idea of psychopathology seemed to challenge the spiritual tenets that I
have been learning and adopting over the recent years. The idea that a person
can be “hard-wired to be evil,” as some of the comments on this article alluded
to, doesn't fit within the spiritual framework of a world where everything
changes and everyone has equal access to enlightenment.
I struggled with this one for
years but have had no opportunity to voice the question (or perhaps no desire
to bring up such an uncomfortable topic), but when I read this article the
pieces seemed to come together to show me the picture of how we might come to
know a psychopath from the perspective of love.
As Rinzler’s article states, when
we decide to practice compassion there is no half way. Compassion is absolute,
just as love is. When we have true compassion for one, we must feel true
compassion for all. Or as Rinzler puts it, “We cannot choose who we invite to
our compassion party…We have to offer them all the guacamole dip and invite
them to take a seat.”
How can this be?
We can easily fathom “love
thy neighbour”. In our better moments we can even fathom “love thy enemy”. But
a deranged mass-murderer (or some other manifestation of psychopath)? Surely
they don’t deserve it. They will never change and they are beyond help. Well…
Doesn't that just make you feel
sorry for their suffering, right then and there?
To intellectualize this just a
little bit, here is how my mind seems to have broken it down.
If when we practice compassion we have
compassion for everyone, what is the trait or the hook in them that can call us
to the feeling of compassion in our hearts? In order to have compassion we must
be able to see a part of ourselves in them, relate, feel for their struggle and
therefore wish them real peace.
In a psychopath we can find no
empathy, no willingness to change and, some may say, no goodness. Yet we can
still have a very real and meaningful compassion for them. (We have to find
this compassion in order to work out our own salvation). How can we have compassion for someone seemingly so utterly removed from the "basic goodness" within all humans?
The answer is that compassion doesn't look at a personality or a physical body. It doesn't say, “I don’t like
this about you, but I do like this and this and therefore I find I can have compassion
for you” (that would be judgement, not compassion). Compassion doesn't need to
find ‘goodness’ in anybody for them to be worthy of our love. We don't need to
be reassured that goodness is there or attempt to see it (whether evident or
buried deeply under some layers of animosity, pain, psychological hardwiring, etc).
That is because compassion isn't about a personality or a person's actions or
even a person.
Compassion operates on the level
of the soul. When, somehow, you can look into another's eyes and see that there
is a soul ‘in there’ THAT is the hook. That is the part which is the same as
you.
When you see or sense the soul in another then you can understand that the suffering
of this person, and the suffering of the people that this person has victimized
by their actions, is not even as great as the suffering of the soul.
The soul knows. The soul
remembers. But the soul cannot come through this body. In its physical expression
something has occurred that has created a separation.
As it drops one incarnation and
becomes one with all that is, the soul unites again with its higher purpose
(which is to shatter illusion in this physical dimension) and it vows to do better
next time.
And then, I guess, depending on
your beliefs about the after-life and reincarnation, karma, sankharas, etc., the soul re-enters the physical dimension to
grow again this awareness of reality through the birth canal of illusion.
You might say that someone who
was a psychopath in one lifetime has some very deep sankharas as a result of
very negative karma (doing ‘bad things’) in that lifetime. You could say that
their next incarnation will provide them with circumstances that are particularly
conducive to working off this karma. Like every other soul, it is moving through the
process of purification towards enlightenment. In that way, we are the same.
You could interpret the process in many
ways, but personally, I don’t think it matters much to this discussion. The
reality is that the person in their physical manifestation as a psychopath is
doing something their soul does not agree with. In their body and their mind
they might not feel remorse or regret or empathy, but the soul always yearns
for unity and it suffers as it exits the body, knowing it was fooled by separation once
again.
The suffering of a psychopath may
or may not be on a body-level, but it is certainly on a soul-level. And that is
the place where we feel compassion.
This soul. My brother soul. It is so
separate it has forgotten entirely. I wish this soul freedom. I wish this soul
peace. May some part of this soul experience my peace, my happiness, my love. May
it come to know itself again. May it break the cycle of suffering so that we
can all come to know an even greater peace in the oneness that we are.
So yes, I think compassion is for
everyone, even if “Basic Goodness” is only comprehensible on the level of the soul.
As one of the greatest Buddhas said, “Forgive them, for they know not
what they do.”
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