Just like many young children, my favourite game when I was a kid was the game of pretend. I was the teacher, the doctor, the flight attendant, the salesperson, and many other professions. Perhaps that have equipped me with some skills to switch roles instantaneously without changing into any Halloween costumes.
Cultivating compassion is very similar, but with one extra step - feeling for others. Regardless of one's religious beliefs, a compassionate person would at the very least has a concern for the suffering of others and wishing them to be happy. The most vital ingredient for compassion is empathy, that is, to understand and share the feelings of others. But it is always easier to be empathetic towards people you love and care about, and not so when you are neutral to or dislike them. How about stretching your imagination a little and try out this shortcut: Visualise that you were that person suffering and feel how it would be like if you were going through what he or she is experiencing. Is your judgement towards that person or issue any different? Can you sort of see where he or she comes from and thus have a slightly different perspective?
Spiritual idealisation is not about reading books and borrowing concepts from others, but realising from the mundane and practicing from day to day life. More so, it's not about fixing and finding solution. Often what is involved is simply understanding and accepting with pure awareness, and that is the same whether it is for others or ourselves. Isn't this something that we were already doing when we were young but again have chosen to forget with the deep conditioning that comes with maturing?
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