Perhaps the highest, and certainly the most difficult, form of compassion is compassion toward someone who has hurt us personally. We call this forgiveness: the ability to see with compassion those who have trespassed against us.
Even those whom we hate have an individuality, a soul. As long as we hate them we cannot see it; their destructive behavior has gotten in the way. They may in fact have many unloving qualities; however, it is not their possession of such qualities that prevents us from loving them but rather our own sense of having been personally violated. We can love - or at the very least not hate - if we can see beyond the limits of our own self-concern. This does not mean that we abandon ourselves, condone others' destructive behavior, or do nothing to prevent it. Sometimes we cannot remain passive in situations that call for a corrective response, but we can make such responses out of awareness and even love, rather than out of hatred.
As a form of love, forgiveness cannot be willed. It is far better to admit we cannot forgive than to try to force forgiveness that is not real. As we have seen, love, even toward one's enemies, is the awareness of others' individuality. Forgiveness is simply the expression of love toward someone who has wronged us.
Seeing others in the context of their complete individuality frees us from the burden of our own hatred. We need do nothing more; indeed, we cannot. It is not within our power to forgive as only God can forgive; that is, to annul the karmic debt that others incur through their harmful actions. The misconception that forgiveness means "letting someone off" has put forgiveness out of the reach of many people. Forgiveness does not mean that we relieve others of the responsibility for what they have done - even thinking we could do so is hubris; the matter is between that person and God. Only God can cancel a person's debt, because only God sees truly into the heart.
Forgiveness does not mean we must feel good about a person who has wronged us or about what that person did. It does not even mean that we take no action to defend ourselves, if indeed we must. Forgiveness means that we try to see the individuality of that person, and as the person's individuality comes more clearly into focus our resentment will naturally diminish.
Compassion, inconceivable without suffering, is the one quality that can redeem suffering and restore our faith in spite of it. Developing the capacity for compassion makes us stronger and better human beings, even spiritual beings who find fulfillment in reaching out to others in love. Compassion is not easy to acquire. It comes as the fruit of our own inner struggle, the battle we fight with our suffering, and our efforts to endure it. This process is well illustrated in the life of another biblical figure, the prophet Jonah.
It was Jonah's task to warn the citizens of Nineveh, capital of Assyria, to reform in order to avoid destroying themselves through their own corruption. Now the Assyrians were enemies of Israel, and Jonah hated them. And so when God called Jonah to help the Assyrians, he tried to run away. In the course of his escape he was shipwrecked and nearly drowned, but a "great fish" rescued him and swallowed him alive. Jonah prayed to God from within the belly of the fish, and this prayer describes his struggle for faith:
I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol [the grave] I cried, and you heard my voice.
You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,
and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows passed over me.
Then I said, "I am driven away from your sight;
how shall I look again upon your holy temple?"
The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.
Jonah 2:2-6
These words express profound loneliness, a fear of death, and a loss of faith. Through his experience of being rescued, Jonah's faith was renewed: "As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple" (Jonah 2:7). He went on to preach to Nineveh, and his preaching saved the city.
But anger burned within Jonah when he saw that the people were saved. Watching the city miss its chance to be destroyed so overwhelmed him with resentment that he wanted to die. He poured out his feelings to God, but God answers him only with a question: "Is it right for you to be angry?" (Jonah 4:4). So Jonah goes out to see what will become of the city.
Now it is very hot that day, so God makes a broad leafy plant grow to provide Jonah with shade and comfort. During the night, while Jonah sleeps, a worm attacks the plant, which withers and dies.
The next day, having lost his protection and feeling faint from the hot, pounding desert sun, Jonah once again becomes angry, and expresses his wish to die. This time when God questions him ("Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?") Jonah repeats his wish with emphasis: "Yes, angry enough to die" (Jonah 4:9). This time when God questions him Jonah insists that his anger is justified. But God does not allow him to hold that position:
Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"
Jonah 4:10-11
The book ends here, with a question. How does Jonah answer it? Can he see that beyond his personal hatred there are people looking to him for compassion? We are not told. We know only that Jonah hears the question, and perhaps that is enough.
God asks Jonah to learn compassion by facing his own pain and seeing it in a new way. Jonah felt pain for himself; he suffered from the heat, and he suffered from his rage. To take him beyond his self-pity God shows him a bush, whose only function in its brief life was to shelter Jonah and comfort him. At first Jonah took this service for granted, but now, looking at the plant a second time, can he see something in it that touches his heart? (The Hebrew word translated as "concern" really means kind, heartfelt love.) If Jonah can be touched by the frailty of such a humble form of life, can he then not respond with compassion to a city of one hundred and twenty thousand confused souls who are struggling to find their way and who need to be healed?
God challenges Jonah to see beyond himself, to see even people whom he hates not in reference to himself but as individuals in their own right, who are seeking God in their own way, even if many of their past actions were in fact hateful. God wants to teach Jonah how to love.
God does not teach Jonah to love by lecturing him. God does not sit him down and patiently try to explain to him what love is. Jonah starts out so full of his own concerns and prejudices that he cannot listen to explanations. He can learn about love only through working out his own life experience, specifically his own struggles and suffering. Without having been shipwrecked, without having almost died from the heat, Jonah would have learned nothing. Only one's own pain is powerful enough to create radical change, in Jonah and in ourselves as well, as we struggle to survive our own shipwreck.
God probably did not speak to Jonah in words he could hear with his ears. God speaks to us through perceptions of the soul that can be given words. Jonah's blessing was his ability to see God's purpose working itself out even in all the painful experiences that befell him, and so he hears God speaking even in moments when he is most angry and lacking in faith. Jonah knows God is present with him even in his suffering, because the question he hears, which his own experience asks him, has opened something in his heart.