The Bowels of Compassion

Compassion is that wonderful human capacity to share deeply with others in their pain and suffering. It is a feeling that emerges in the gut, the bowels, the ancient bodily location of love and pity. Today we tend to identify compassion and love more frequently with the heart. It was not always so.

One Greek word that is translated into compassion in the ancient stories of biblical healing is Splagchnizomai.

splangkh-nid'-zom-ahee to be moved as to one's bowels, hence to be moved with compassion, have compassion (for the bowels were thought to be the seat of love and pity). The New Testament Greek Lexicon

 This root of compassion speaks of a deep "visceral" yearning or moving in the very “bowels of our being” when confronted with the suffering of another. Compassion reminds us of the deep interconnection we have with all life. Compassion transcends all of the superficial divisions we set up to keep ourselves separate and isolated. It unites us in the most diverse and dire of situations.

Our capacity to experience compassion develops more deeply as we become aware of our own vulnerability and suffering. In the words of Sogyal Rinpoche… "when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.”

More than just a gut feeling, compassion motivates us to live and act in ways that alleviate the suffering of others. Even if it just means listening to someone’s story or holding someone in our laps in the midst of great trauma and chaos.

With Love… Rob; in Vancouver

“But it’s hard to explain, Mitch. Now that I am suffering, I feel closer to others who are suffering than I ever did before.”

Tuesdays with Morrie

Originally posted in July 2007