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When asked about his
religion, the Dalai Lama is quoted as saying: ‘My religion
is kindness.’ He suggests that is not what we believe in
that matters so much as how we actually act in the world.
This is not in any way to denigrate formal religion but to
point up that familiar caution about not mistaking the map
for the territory; not thinking that mentally allying
ourselves to a particular set of values is a substitute for
actually living them and demonstrating them in a practical
way.
We might ask
ourselves for a moment what we think kindness actually
means. I think of it as a gesture of support initiated by
the recognition of another who is of the same kind and who
we therefore intuitively know feels the same as us; in other
words the empathic recognition of another human being that
signifies a basic understanding of our shared humanity. One
thing I am learning from my time in Nepal is that whilst it
is indeed a gift to receive kindness it is also a great gift
to be inspired to be kind.
When I first came to
Nepal nearly 4 years ago I met a trekking guide called Tika.
He told me he had been born in the Solu Khumbu to a lowly
family living in deprived circumstances. He described his
mother as a particularly generous and hospitable woman who,
despite the family’s circumstances, always shared whatever
food there was in the home when guests arrived at her door.
One day a group of relatives and their children arrived and
the only food she had was a single orange. The orange was
duly peeled and broken into segments and even the segments
were divided up so that each person had a small piece. After
the guests left my friend was perplexed and asked his mother
why she had bothered to serve the guests such tiny pieces of
food when she might just as well have eaten the orange
herself. His mother’s reply was ‘If I had eaten that orange
it would simply have been a bit of food that went in one end
and came out the other. But by sharing it with others it
becomes a little piece of kindness.’
This story had a
strong impact on me; that someone from one of the poorest
countries of the world, and who had so little, should be
inspired to be so generous. It demonstrates how temporary
self gratification can be put aside in favour of an act of
mutual enhancement. By contrast, Western cultures that have
so much material wealth tend to hold on to it tightly as if
in constant fear of it being taken away. It is not a climate
that inspires much kindness a lot of the time and reveals
the underlying emotional and spiritual poverty that consumer
societies so frantically attempt to fill.
Since my original
visit to Nepal in 2002 after recovering from breast cancer I
have become involved with a remarkable group of physically
disabled children in Kathmandu. Having to face up to my own
physical limitations and the reality of my mortality was
perhaps the necessary pre condition for this meeting. Being
treated for cancer was an experience that totally stripped
me down physically and emotionally. It was this dramatic
experience that later made me determined to follow a dream
to visit Nepal.
I thought I was
coming to Nepal trek in the mountains but my lasting
impressions of the country were of the people I had met and
an experience of warmth and hospitality unknown in most
western countries. Struck by my experiences I returned soon
after and it was then that my friend Tika took me to visit a
centre for handicapped children he had helped found in 1997.
After that first visit to Kathmandu’s New Life Centre for
Disabled Children 3 years ago, I left in tears and didn’t
believe I would be able to face working alongside such
seemingly deprived and physically deformed children. But
gradually I saw past the amputations and withered limbs, the
tattered clothes and small, unwashed bodies to a group of
children hungry for attention and full of charm, humour and
affection. It was both a painful and wonderful process in
which I felt initiated into an experience of extreme
tenderness and humility. I came to understand what an
incredible gift it is to be inspired to feel profound
compassion.
Disability often
frightens and disturbs us; we may prefer to turn away from
it rather than engage with the discomfort we experience.
Many of us live in a consumer world where fear of
imperfection, in whatever form, is manifest in the secret
belief most of us harbour that with a perfect body and
indeed some kind of perfect physical environment we will
find happiness and fulfilment e.g. if we have the right
diet, the latest fashion accessories, the right car or the
most modern domestic gadgets all will be well. The reality
is that we are satisfied for 5 minutes before the craving
starts again, as those in the advertising world are so well
aware of. This hidden and largely unacknowledged addiction
demonstrates a form of collective disability. Those who can
never hide their misshapen, less than perfect bodies,
challenge the vulnerability that lies behind this cultural
craving. In other words a disabled child can act as a mirror
to the hidden insecurities we have about ourselves and the
often disabling fear we have of our own imperfections.
These days I find
myself complaining more and more often about the symptoms of
ageing – my painful joints and wrinkling skin, having less
energy and a spreading waist. This change in body image and
the accompanying feelings of unattractiveness and
inferiority is often distressing to me; even shameful. Shame
makes us want to hide and turn away from others; we feel
humiliated and diminished. We can also project that distress
onto others by belittling them in our own eyes so as to
preserve a less painful and more acceptable image of
ourselves. The children teach me to try and look beyond my
neurotic insecurities. I feel enhanced by them as again and
again they remind me of how my narcissistic preoccupations
can actually be transformed into a source of kindness,
generosity and compassion.
For this reason we
do not use promotional material that either exploits the
bodies of the children or manipulates the emotions of
potential donors and well wishers. It diminishes the
children to pity them and it also diminishes us to feel
guilt about their circumstances. Guilt breeds resentment
whereas a sense of social responsibility born out of genuine
compassion nurtures a feeling of human connection and well
being for everyone. The children’s physical limitations have
not disabled their spirit. This is a lesson for all of us in
aspiring to be more accepting of ourselves and to not be
handicapped by our own emotional or physical fears.
How then can we
bring more compassion and kindness into our world? Perhaps
we can start by reminding ourselves how we feel when we
receive or offer genuine kindness. We can also notice how we
respond to our limitations and to the limitations of others.
Do we give ourselves and others a hard time for being less
than perfect, however that may manifest? Do we promote an
image of ourselves as infallible and then project
imperfection onto others? Do we see others as faultless and
then make ourselves the victim of our own perceived
inadequacies? Or can we soften our hearts and see that we
are all human and all struggling with our limitations; that
it is indeed this very struggle which makes us human and
allows us to understand how others feel when they are
suffering. This shared understanding that underlies the
meaning of empathy, relieves us and others of the burden of
feeling different, stigmatised and inferior.
In Nepal it is
perhaps not only time to disarm militarily, but a time for
everyone to start being less defensive. We can gently lean
into the soft spots we all have that generate self
consciousness, loneliness or shame and a longing to somehow
be more acceptable than we feel we are. The minute we do
that we remember how it feels to be disabled in its myriad
of forms; there is no them and us, there is only tenderness,
understanding and a compassionate desire to reach out in
recognition of our shared human experience. We start to
disarm; we begin to ask ‘How can I help?’, and we begin to
engage in the mutually transforming process that kindness
inspires.
Fran McGowan
Chairperson of The
Nepali Children’s Trust.
Honorary board member of the New Life Centre, Kathmandu.
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