Courageous Compassion

Courageous Compassion 

There was this Hindu who saw a drowning scorpion in the water. He decided to save it and stretched out his fingers, but the scorpion stung him. He tried again, and was stung again. 

So, if you were the man, would you still insist on saving the scorpion? Indeed, few of us would choose to save it and get stung. The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs also provide justification for this, that we, ordinary people, would rather ensure our own interest and safety first than pursuing the highest level of need of self-actualisation or, sublimation in morality. However, today I want to share with you about the power of courageous compassion in your life, and our life. 

I remember I was still in China then, one day when I was walking home from school, I saw an old woman walking in the direction of me. It was quite a horrid sight as the woman was so old that her back bent till it almost touched her knees, and every shaky step she took seemed to require all her energy. In the next instant, the woman was knocked down by a group of children who ran past her. I was rooted to the ground. Back till then, there had been explosive news in China about old people pretending to be knocked down or collapse on the streets to extort passers-by who went to rescue them. My mother had also warned me many times that ‘If you encounter this, just quickly walk away!” So at that moment, my strong inner fear conquered my compassion for the pathetic state of the woman and I hastened past the woman. 

History always repeats itself in a surprising way. There was another day when grandma came to pick me up after school, I noticed that the bracelet she always wore was broken. I anxiously asked her what happened, and she said that she fell over en route to school, but 3 teenagers quickly went to her and helped her stand up, one of them even gave her some warm water. She jokingly commented that “Thanks God they don't think I was going to extort them!”  

I could not describe the extent of remorse and shame I felt at that moment, and dare not to imagine the sight of my grandma

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lying on the streets with people around turning a blind eye, just like what I did to the old woman. I realized that in most cases where we are willfully blind to the suffering of others, is not we don't feel sympathetic for them, but that we don't have the courage to exercise our compassion.  

So well did psychologist Dave Hood say that:”Not taking actions in the suffering of others will lead to a state of war, and compassionate actions will lead to a more caring society”. If not for those teenagers’ courageous acts of compassion, my grandma would possibly be still in hospital and grew hateful to this world; also, the teenagers may not be convinced that most of the old people in our country are still kind and deserve our love.  

In the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, you can see these words: 

 “ …They came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. 

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. 

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.” 

By conquering our inner fear to exercise our compassion, we are going beyond social conventionality, moral scruples, economic and religious barriers, to achieve the level of self-actualisation, and persuade others to still believe in the good of society. Only in this way, can prejudice be eliminated, society cohesive and people appreciative. Yet, the process may be hard; but just as the Hindu at the end of the story says that 

“It is the nature of the scorpion to sting. It is my nature to love. Why should I give up my nature to love just because it is the nature of the scorpion to sting?"