Page 20 - Living Aloha Magazine March/April 2017 Issue

vegAn Aloha by Dr. Will Tuttle

comPaSSion • TruTh • HealinG

Can you remember times in your life when you’ve been blessed by someone’s compassion?
I remember times when I’ve been under the weather or stressed out, and received the compassion of
a loving touch, when I’ve been on stage in front of a large crowd and received the compassion of an
encouraging, smiling face, and I think we all know we would never survive our early months and years
without the loving compassion of our mothers.

what is compassion? to others as independent beings. So sphere of our compassion and moral
Compassion is an inherent potential it is in our early years that we develop concern. In our daily food rituals,
within us all. It is not simply a sense the foundation for compassion beings are systematically reduced to
of caring and kindness toward the through the models we see around things, and these rituals instill in all
being before us. It isn’t merely a us, and learning to imagine and of us the mentality of exclusion and
warm-hearted feeling of empathy understand the perspective of others. reductionism that is the antithesis
for the suffering of others. It is also This is basic moral development. of compassion. This is the hidden
the determined and practical resolve This natural development of root of disease, the underlying
to do whatever is possible to relieve compassion is unfortunately short- disaster churning at the core of our
their suffering, the sustained urge to circuited, though, by forcing young culture that causes so much of the
reduce and eliminate the suffering children to participate in meat- physical, social, psychological, and
they are experiencing. based meals. What we don’t realize environmental illness that we see
For this reason, compassion is often as a culture is that we desensitize proliferating around us.
referred to as the highest form of children and all of us through our Compassion brings healing, because
love, and flows out of the truth of daily meals. The subtext of these whenever we wake up from this
our felt interconnectedness with meals is one of systematically acculturated consensus trance that
others. Not confined merely to the excluding certain animals from the sees beings merely as things to be
realm of feeling, compassion rouses
us to action, in much the same way
we are instinctively roused to action
to defend our own lives, well-being,
and interests. What a blessed miracle
compassion is, and though it’s
virtually unexplainable by our culture’s
materialistic orientation, it is a vital and
unrecognized key to social harmony,
to spiritual growth, to fulfilling
relationships, to living a meaningful
life, and to healing of all kinds.
As newborn infants, we are deeply
identified with our mothers, and as
we develop, we gradually become
aware of ourselves as separate from
her, and go through a stage of being
quite self-absorbed, and then we
gradually develop to be able to relate

20 VEGAN ALOHA Living Aloha | MARCH–APRIL 2017