It’s Because Things Can’t Be Fixed…

Tonight some of you have dedicated the chanting to your departed relatives.

You did it voluntarily: there has been no instruction to do that. What makes it something so natural and spontaneous that you overcome whatever self-consciousness may be there to write down a dedication with your name on it and put it right up here? What gives you the authority to do that? Where does that come from?

When you really touch into what is very important, you can move forward with courage and faith. You are not doubting. You are not thinking, ‘I don’t want to disturb anybody by asking for a dedication. Is it right? Is it proper? I don’t want to take up your valuable time.’ Where is your strength? You see how much strength there is in us, in the quality of compassion – the great heart.

I don’t think anybody is expecting a dedication to bring their mother back from death. What is important is to bring forth one’s great heart, and other people help us to do that.

…Those dedications are the indication of how absolutely necessary it is for us to be able to find a way to express our compassion. And it’s not just for the other person, although that’s certainly the aim, but in your compassion you become grand, big, large, rich, fruitful, skilful.

Suddenly, everything starts to click. It’s not panic. It’s not even trying to make things better. There’s nothing we could do that would bring these people back from death. We may delay it, but there’s nothing we could do that would prevent each other dying. Compassion is not to ‘fix’ things. It’s because things can’t be fixed that we experience compassion.

Of course, we may very well act upon that to cherish, to nourish, to support, to do what we can. But the most important thing is to experience compassion and to be able to present it. Then we are finding ourselves in a relationship that is really worthy of us and brings forth our strength, our grandeur, our beauty. When you are filled with that, there are things that you would do that you would not do from any other basis, efforts you would make that you would not make on another account, things you would give up that you would not give up otherwise: you would give up your time, you would give up your precious sleep!

That’s a very powerful quality for us.

This reflection by Ajahn Sucitto is from the book, The Most Precious Gift, (pdf) pp. 406, 408.