I think in addition to the “specific individual people I’ve personally hurt” case, there’s the case of people (or animals) who were probably hurt structurally downstream of choices I’ve made (e.g. animals hurt by my consuming animal products, or perhaps, like, people in coerced labor situations who made products I bought, or something), or possibly also people I chose not to help (e.g. homeless people who asked me for money I didn’t give them)? I think in these cases (but also some ~interpersonal-conflict-type cases) I have a kind of conflicting mix of (a) an urge towards compassion (b) something like a block on compassion, a flinching away from letting myself feel it (c) sometimes something like anger for ~putting me in a situation where I feel this way?
I think in these situations one case for prioritizing & making space for compassion on purpose is that in fact it’s often already there but I am fighting it and tying myself up in painful and useless internal conflict, whereas if I can find a stance where I am allowing myself to feel it and still make tradeoffs about it, I do not get stuck in this way. But it can be hard given the ~block on thinking about it.
Whereas I guess in the Hitler case (or, personally my default example of person-who-I-find-it-unusually-easy-to-hate is Stalin) my default stance doesn’t have all that much compassion in it so rather than removing a block I have to cultivate the compassion in the first place? But if I’m going ahead and thinking about it there’s not necessarily the same kind of mental block involved. So I guess it’s harder in some ways, easier in others.
I think in addition to the “specific individual people I’ve personally hurt” case, there’s the case of people (or animals) who were probably hurt structurally downstream of choices I’ve made (e.g. animals hurt by my consuming animal products, or perhaps, like, people in coerced labor situations who made products I bought, or something), or possibly also people I chose not to help (e.g. homeless people who asked me for money I didn’t give them)? I think in these cases (but also some ~interpersonal-conflict-type cases) I have a kind of conflicting mix of (a) an urge towards compassion (b) something like a block on compassion, a flinching away from letting myself feel it (c) sometimes something like anger for ~putting me in a situation where I feel this way?
I think in these situations one case for prioritizing & making space for compassion on purpose is that in fact it’s often already there but I am fighting it and tying myself up in painful and useless internal conflict, whereas if I can find a stance where I am allowing myself to feel it and still make tradeoffs about it, I do not get stuck in this way. But it can be hard given the ~block on thinking about it.
Whereas I guess in the Hitler case (or, personally my default example of person-who-I-find-it-unusually-easy-to-hate is Stalin) my default stance doesn’t have all that much compassion in it so rather than removing a block I have to cultivate the compassion in the first place? But if I’m going ahead and thinking about it there’s not necessarily the same kind of mental block involved. So I guess it’s harder in some ways, easier in others.