We can’t possibly know what another person is feeling… exactly.  We just can’t.  We may try…  and try very well… especially if we have had a similar experience, or come from a similar existence.

It is called…..Empathy.  Empathy. And to describe it?  Well… here it is.  As the old dictionary puts words to it…. Empathy means to be capable of identifying and understanding another person’s feelings, without experiencing them for yourself at that particular moment.  You know how the old saying goes… Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes.

As I eluded to above…. here is the deal.  Surprisingly, the ability to empathize with others …. is very reliant on our OWN capacity to identify and understand OUR OWN feelings.  And, if we can do this….. we are able to project OUR feelings onto others. (And we’re walking….)

But wouldn’t you know.  Unless you have been through the things that person has BEEN through, it becomes complicated, even difficult…. to understand what the other person is  undergoing.  If we haven’t had similar feelings or experiences… we just don’t normally get it.

A lot of other things come into play…  but it is hard.  Like, I don’t know what it is like to be homeless.  I don’t know what it is like to be a dark-skinned person.  Or to be handicapped.

But I think it is important to try.  It helps with Life Compassion.  We should, quite possibly, make it an intention to respond with “understanding” instead of anger.

Truth be told… here it is.  People are just trying to be happy, for the most part.  When we see and feel life from somebody else’s point of view, I think we can realize that other people are simply trying find happiness in their own lives… and in their own ways.

AND…. Most folks aren’t on some life mission to “get” us… or cause us to be miserable.   That guy in the polyester baseball cap, probably didn’t mean to pull out in front of you and then drive very slowly in a 50 mph zone.  Truly.

There is a Buddhist practice called “exchanging oneself for others” that is intended to cultivate compassion and empathy.  It is called “tonglen.”

What happens is… as we breathe in…. we bring into ourselves that which is difficult, problematic and upsetting from the other person.  We think about all the things we wish we could get rid of.

And then…. as we breathe out, we send them every good quality — openness, clarity, affection, peace — everything we would like to hold onto.

If done with true-ness, it can be very liberating.

So believe me when I tell you, I am breathing in, and breathing out.  I work very hard at this… until some numb-know does something that confounds me.

Then the Zen goes out the  window, and I have to put those shoes back on… and walk.  It is all… just a journey after all.  One little step at a time.

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”   —  ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison