Compassion

It was the Christmas holiday season; kids were home from school. On one such day, a mother decides to take her 5 year old to the shopping mall as a fun activity. Once there, they roam about the different stores. The mother tries to keep her son engaged all the while. But nothing she does or says makes him happy; he just remains very restless. Finally at one point he starts to cry. This causes the mother loose her calm and she starts yelling at him for being a cranky kid. He says that his laces have come untied. On hearing this the mother scolds him all the more for crying over silly matters, and bends down to tie his laces. At one point when she is down on her knees, angrily tying her son's laces, something causes her to look around. That was the moment of her enlightenment. She was able to see the world as her son saw it. All she could see clearly from that low was the legs of people walking around, it felt scary; the counters were too high, the shelves were too high, the view seemed intimidating. It was then that she was able to understand her son's feelings and they left the shopping mall right away.

What does it mean then to feel compassion?

It is to have an exchange of hearts, for however short the while. For in the instant that this happens, we get a glimpse of what goes on in the world of the other.