Finding Compassion in the Midst of Conflict

Yesterday, I got into an argument.

The argument was with a guy who was effusively proud of his ownership of several racehorses, his choice to send them to crocodile farms as crocodile food when their racing lives were over, his adamant belief that horses did not really feel the whip during a race and that race horses had ‘wonderful’ lives, his defence of eating both dog and horse meat and finding it quite tasty, his fervour to see the return of the whip to its full use during horse races, and his disgust at horses that had become “glorified lawnmowers”.

Those of you who know me will probably guess rightly that it wasn’t very pleasant for the three other people sitting at the dinner table while this argument raged on.

I struggled to contain my irate emotions, wanted to unleash hours of personal testament as to the brutality of horse racing, tried at least twice to tactfully extricate myself from the argument, but refused to be shouted down, at the same time being sensitive to the fact that I was in someone else’s house, and it was my mother’s birthday and we had just cut the cake.

Truly, I find this sort of thing very difficult.

Only hours before this, I had spent two delightful hours with Eileen, drinking herbal tea and planning our combined business activities for 2010. I had then gone to the chiropractor, where I’d had a lovely chat about the great work Charlie’s Angels Horse Rescue was doing. The next thing, I had unexpectedly run into this argument, with someone who neither knew me very well, nor cared that I ran a charity that saw horrifying numbers of ex race horses in trouble once they had ‘fallen’ from their ‘glamorous’ lifestyle.

As a Reiki Master, I spend a lot of time in my courses discussing the concept of compassion and affirming the worthiness of living a compassionate life. I talk of the fact that we have no idea what is going on in someone else’s life, nor of the spiritual contracts they may or may not have entered into in this life that underpin their actions.

It is easy for us to find compassion… at a distance. It is far more difficult to find it in the midst of a raging conflict, especially when we are convinced that our viewpoint is correct.

Since then, I have replayed the night over in my head, trying to find a better, more compassionate outcome. I have imagined myself as a maroon-robed Buddhist monk, smiling, and calming yet powerfully diffusing the situation the way I imagine the Dalai Lama himself might do.

But it’s difficult. This argument is too raw for me right now to authentically feel compassion.

And I realise that this is exactly the path of compassion. Compassion, particularly towards those who have wounded us or our loved ones so deeply, may not be easy. And it might not happen in an instant. But our attempts to find it–to allow it–is the path of compassion. To at least acknowledge that we want to feel compassion puts a small chink in our energetic intentions and spiritual selves that lets the breeze of compassion enter, swirl around, and ripple some surfaces.

Most of all, we need to remember that compassion extends to ourselves as much as to others.

Louise Hay has an affirmation that goes something like, “I now release that part of me, which angers, when I think of you.” So, while I don’t quite feel ready to forgive, forget, let go, and move on, I am choosing to create and hold the space into which compassion, and forgiveness, might yet flow.