This came by way of my friend Alx, a post originally written by Jayne Sorrels, who runs a homeless shelter in Idaho:
Idiot Compassion « Communion & Community
I have been working in an intentional way to understand compassion and learn how to apply it in my work and life for the past several years. Recently, however, I’ve been looking at compassion from a different perspective. When does compassion not really look like compassion – or how we have been led to believe compassion should look like? When is it more compassionate to be fierce? To say No? To hold another accountable for their actions? And how can we use true compassion to effectively serve another?Idiot compassion is a term that was introduced by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and refers to the tendency of spiritual practitioners to give people what they want as opposed to what they need, all in the name of being nice and compassionate.
"Complimenting someone’s poor artwork in order not to hurt their feelings, rather than expressing your true opinion and helping them grow, would be an example of idiot compassion. In this case, the truly compassionate action is to help the other person understand what they did right, and what they need to improve – even though this may leave them feeling hurt and dejected for days or even weeks. However, application of this form of compassion should be carefully evaluated and calibrated given each circumstance, and should not be applied to inflict damage indirectly. (emphasis in original) An example of Idiot compassion could include those who would enable an individual or group with a temporary solution to their problem, in order to give them what they want instead of having the courage, insight, or other, to do what is necessary to help the individual or group in the long run." – Wikipedia on Idiot Compassion.
Idiot compassion is the highly conceptualized idea that you want to do good to somebody. At this point, good is purely related with pleasure. Idiot compassion also stems from not have enough courage to say no. – Chogyam Trungpa
(The rest of this insightful post at the link. I highly recommend the read.)
The reason I like the post so much is because it articulates not just the fact there is a difference between "helping" and "enabling" to use the AlAnon terms, but also that constantly giving way, constantly yielding is not always best. In other words, being a compassionate spiritual person does not necessarily equal turning oneself into a doormat.
Compassion can also be found in saying "no" and in fierceness. Sometimes it’s necessary to be unkind.
Or to put it another way, I was told of a Tai Chi master who liked to joke that he never hurt anybody — he let the ground, the wall, or the tree hurt them. This, referring to the general practice in Tai Chi (and other martial arts) to use an opponent’s energy against him. Yet notice what it does not say: It doesn’t suggest that one ought to simply stand there and take the blows, and then look skyward for the divine lesson in being beaten to a pulp.
Sometimes action is required, and passive acceptance is the coward’s way out. That might just be the angle to help one judge whether a given situation is one way or the other. To ask, "Am I doing this because I’m afraid this person will get angry with me, or won’t like me? Or do I genuinely want to help? And given that, is helping here truly the best thing to do, or am I simply enabling them to avoid the consequences of their own ill choices and wrong actions?"
Anyway, the full post is well worth checking out.
cheers,
Becca
