Compassion Alone Isn’t Enough, We Must Act
Robert Thurman, “Wisdom”

The practice of compassion is central to almost every religion around the world. But I don’t think as individuals we seem to know what compassion truly is; we imagine that it means to feel pity for somebody, whereas the meaning of this word is "to feel with", realizing at a deeper level that we share the same human predicament. As the famous Robert Thurman once said, “One thing we mustn't think is that compassion makes you miserable. Compassion makes you happy. The first person who is happy when you get great compassion is yourself, even if you haven't done anything yet for anybody else”(Thurman 1). Robert Thurman is an internationally recognized scholar, translator and author, and the first Westerner to be ordained by the Dalai Lama as a Tibetan Buddhist monk (Thurman, 440). He is one of the most distinguished Tibetanists in the world.
In his short essay, “Wisdom” taken from Infinite Life Thurman explains the Buddhist concept of selflessness. He says the purpose of realizing your own selflessness is not to feel like you are nobody, but rather to become enlightened.
“After he became enlightened, the Buddha did not sit under a tree drooling, and saying ‘Oh wow! I’m nobody!’ Think about it: If he just became nobody, if he escaped from the world through self-obliteration, then he wouldn’t have been able to share so many teachings here on earth, to work for the good of all beings for years and years, long after he achieved nirvana. He would’ve just stayed in his nobody state and forgotten about all of us poor humans busy suffering through our miserable lives (Thurman 442).” In this quote, Thurman explains that selflessness does not mean that we are nobody and cease to exist, that there is no way you can ever not exist, just as you cannot become nothing. There is no way to become nobody; you will always be somebody, known by everybody else around you. He says selflessness is crucial because once we have freed ourselves from our constricting habits, we will experience our first taste boundless joy and compassion (Thurman 445).
Although I agree with Thurman, that selflessness develops compassion and compassion can change the world, I do not however, believe it is that simple. Compassion is an admirable quality to have but it alone is not enough to achieve Nirvana as Thurman is suggesting. We live in a world that isn’t just black and white, it’s a bit more complicated than that. There are problems such as poverty, diseases, global warming, war etc… that I don’t believe compassion can fix.
So to me what Thurman is suggesting sounds like an ideal world where it’s possible but not probable. But it is beneficial to be compassionate, it can make you more happy, and brings others around you to be more happy. If we agree that it is a common aim of each of us to strive to be happy, then compassion and selflessness is one of the main tools for achieving that happiness.

Works Cited
Thurman, Robert. "Wisdom." The New Humanities Reader: First-year Writing. By Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer. 5th ed. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2015. 440-54. Print.
"Expanding Your Circle of Compassion." Ted.com. N.p., n.d. Web.