FAFO and the Compassion Muscle

Hello everyone. Thank you for joining today. Before we get into the topic today, I want to take a moment to address the current war in the Middle East. Like many of you, I became so very angry about this. And anger is a completely justified, rational and natural response to war and those who start war.

But, in Buddhism, anger is a destructive emotion in all of its forms. I say this without any judgement of people who remain angry and use their anger to engage in action be it protest or any other action of opposition to war. We all have our own way to channel our opposition to war and violence and our desire for peace. So for me, I’m working to transmute my anger into something positive, like an emotional alchemist. And for me, as a Shinnyo Buddhist, that means action — not just thinking and meditating and praying. It requires action. So that’s where I’m at, still in process, still digesting but trying to find the actions I can take to tip the scales even just a little more toward peace. I hope you too, are working with your anger and frustration about the current war. Please don’t let it stew because it will only lead to more anger and even depression. Please use it or convert it in some way to go forward and make positive change around you, in your life and world.

I have a feeling we’ll need to cycle back on this — war and its aftermath are always disastrous and disturbing…

But let’s turn to today’s topic — Expanding our capacities for kindness and compassion. I think you’ll find it actually has direct relevance to transmuting anger into something positive.

It occurred to me the other day while looking through some social media that these days it seems that there is a lot of celebration around FAFO — Eff around and find out. It is the “You deserve it” response directed toward people who encounter hardship or difficulties as a result — directly or indirectly - of choices they’ve made in their lives. Especially political choices, opinions and views. One example comes to mind — the Mexican man who was an ardent MAGA supporter and influencer who subsequently got deported. The online response? FAFO.

And I confess. While I’ve not pushed LIKE on any of those FAFO posts - at least I don’t recall doing so - I admit, I felt yeah. WHAT DID YOU EXPECT? YOU DESERVE IT! FAFO!

And a further confession. I’ve not been able to overcome this urge, these feelings of “you got yours.”

FAFO is basically, I think, the modern equivalent of schadenfreude — the German word that means “pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune.” Specifically, it’s the personal experience of satisfaction, amusement, or gratification at someone else’s setback, failure, embarrassment, or suffering.

There is a psychological element operating here. FAFO is driven by the ego, that old friend we’re working on taming. The psychological aspect is this: FAFO or schadenfreude is “emotion often linked to rivalry, envy, status comparison, resentment, or perceived justice.” Think comeuppance. These days on social media, I think FAFO and the abundance of FAFO posts are tied directly to that framing of perceived justice. Comeuppance. You got yours. Eff around and find out.

And none of this FAFO or schadenfreude comes from compassion does it. Pretty obviously no. There is no kindness in FAFO. In fact I think it is underpinned by a sense of moral superiority. Eff around and find out. Ha ha you deserved it. Told ya so.

Laid out like this, it actually sounds like cruelty doesn’t it? If not explicit cruelty, then cruelty’s cousin.

And as I sit here and unwind this feeling, this experience of FAFO that I have and feel, I start to see and bump up against the limits of my own kindness. The limits of my compassion. And now I feel kind of ugly inside. Small. Yeah. Ick.

Yuck right? Does any of this sound familiar to you? Relatable?

Let’s check in on our method - our Buddhist approach to living a Resonant Life. Step one: step back from the emotion or response or feeling. Check, I’ve done that just now. Step two: look at it objectively. What is it, where did it come from, is it desirable, does it help me move forward toward being a kinder person living a life of abiding happiness. Answer: No. Check Step three: Take a deep breath and in quiet and grace, feel grateful. Wait, find gratitude? For what? For being able to do this whole process! For asserting my heart over my ego. For letting my Buddha Nature out and be in control instead of my selfishness and self-centeredness. Check!

Let’s pause here for a moment… In Buddhism — particularly Mahayana traditions - there is a focus on recognizing what is referred to in English as “the precious human life.” This basically encourages us to look at the fact that we have a life in which we can experience and express kindness and compassion. Many lives — be they insect, fish or animal — do not have the conditions, capacity or biology to experience kindness and compassion - at least to cultivate it in a sustained and abiding way. As humans, we do have those opportunities and capacities. And since we do have this precious human life, NOW is the time to act to make the most of the opportunity. Life can be short. It can be over in a blink and without seeing the end come. So now is the time to really work on cultivating kindness, compassion and abiding happiness. That’s the Mahayana view. It is a spiritual urgency.

Ok, let’s look at step three again, finding gratitude for being able to look at the source of our FAFO and find a way to cure it, to purify it.

Sorry. Another pause. My character is to be very hard on myself, Like when I do something mean or heartless or selfish and I recognize it, I tend to scold myself, feel disappointed, frustrated that I didn’t live up to my ideals or my intended way of being. I feel like I failed. I’m especially self-critical and hard on myself. I think lots of people have a tendency to feel this way as well.

But I’ve learned, and I hope you can agree, that self-criticism has no value whatsoever. Beating up oneself for making a mistake is not the path toward positive change. So this is why it is so important - Step three — to find gratitude in that moment that we recognize our failures, shortcoming and mistakes. That we call out our heart and mind for not being altruistic, kind or compassionate. Grateful because we CAN do it. We CAN step back. We are not a slave to our negative emotions.

There is a popular analogy: A rough surface cannot be smooth without being sanded. Finding gratitude for noticing our mistakes, our shortcomings polishes the accumulation of negativities that cover and cloud our pure hearts of compassion and kindness — our Buddha natures. Self-criticism is just a doom loop.

So step three: cultivate and find gratitude in the moment.

Step four: With that gratitude sitting there, so to speak — let’s sort of think of it as a glowing ball of light we can hold in your hands, in your heart, it doesn’t matter — Think of it as a material thing. Now look again at the person you had those FAFO feelings toward. Think about the person, picture them as clearly as you can. Now imagine that you are in their position, in their shoes, experiencing the hardship or suffering they are experiencing. How would you feel? How would you react? Focus on THOSE feelings. When we do we awaken compassion toward that person and their situation.

What have we done just now? What wizardry is this? Basically we’re not giving our competitive, judgmental ego a pathway to getting between us — who we are at our cores — and our true care and concern for others. Even if there is no real relationship with the other person — who is maybe someone who just posted on social media and has no idea you exist — we’ve made a positive step toward taming our egos and letting our true natures — Japanese Shinnyo Buddhism calls it “true self” — emerge and shine forth.

Step Five: Hold on to this feeling and experience as much as possible. This is a Buddha moment. And while it’s fleeting, ephemeral and as temporary as a soap bubble, it is what we are aspiring to make abiding as we engage in creating a Resonant Life. Our practice, our efforts are all geared toward making these Buddha moments last longer and be more frequent. More abiding.

And in this step a new type of gratitude arises, gratitude for insight. Gratitude for wisdom. Gratitude for having the power and ability to be kind and compassionate and express that to those around us.

We live in a world of turmoil, violence, exploitation, anger, strife, greed, materialism — the adjectives are endless. But we also live in a world where compassion and kindness exist.

Please let me repeat: We live in a hard world, but compassion and kindness also exist in this world. And my choice is to do everything I can to be kind, to be compassionate, rather than be ruled by greed, anger and all the other negative emotions and states of being.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the Buddhist aspects of what we’ve gone over today. When we choose to call out our own feelings and experiences of FAFO and schadenfreude, and actually work on doing it as we just did earlier, we are doing something really important. We are expanding our capacity to express and feel kindness and compassion. It is like building muscles. It requires exercise. So these practices exercise our compassion muscle. Our kindness muscle. And as we continue to do it, our capacity to experience and extend kindness and compassion grows and deepens. From a tea cup size, to a beer mug size, to a giant salad bowl size to eventually a capacity that has no limits, that is infinite.

Another way of looking at this from a Buddhist perspective is that the exercise purifies our negative karma and the actions of kindness and compassion create positive karma or merit. And accumulating, uncovering, learning, acquiring wisdom requires both — purification and accumulating merit. That’s the Buddhist project! But I think we’ve broken it down here in ways that are easy to understand and do without getting buried in traditional Buddhist terminology, philosophy or concepts. It is the difference between learning about, and doing. We’re doing the doing! We are doing the doing!

In the last episode, I mentioned that this season would have a special focus on life’s purpose. We started today talking about understanding the idea of our precious human life — how we are blessed to live a life with the capacity to practice and express kindness and compassion. How does this all tie into Life’s Purpose, capital L and capital P?

When I was growing up and in my early adult years, I had dreams of being important! Of being someone at the center of big change, big things. Some days I thought it would be politics. Others I thought it would be as a writer. I never succeeded at either. It wasn’t until fairly recently that I realized living a big life was never actually my calling. Rather, living a GOOD life was the path I felt most at home with and was actually what I had been trying to do all along. This was a really liberating realization for me. It freed me up from comparing myself and my life to others. It liberated me from feeling like I might be failing, all those things that come with not living up to a dream.

Living a GOOD life, that resonated. And I realized for me, that was MY life’s purpose, well at least an aspect of it. So now I’m working on living a good life and exploring all the things that means and what its impact is.

I want to make a subtle distinction… Living a good life does not preclude also living a big life! It is just that for me, living a big life was something tied to my identity and sense of self that was holding me back. Everyone has something that holds them back. Mine was wanting a big life. It’s another expression of ego, isn’t it?

So I think part of finding life’s purpose, is doing the internal work, the emotional and psychological self-examination required to identify what kind of life we’ve been trying to live, and then identifying it, evaluating how useful that endeavor is and whether it is in line with living a GOOD life. Does this make sense? Let’s keep exploring this as we also work on ourselves to create a resonant life.

Finally, before we go… current events again and some final thoughts. The world is never without war, but the current aggressions radically expand the impacts of war to billions of people. Let’s be clear: War is a manifestation of power, greed and anger. And, as I mentioned, after experiencing some despair at this, and feeling angry, I realized that if I respond with equal anger I only feed the problem. I decided I can oppose war and support peace without anger being my fuel. Rather my fuel is compassion. And not just compassion for those whose lives are upended or lost. But feeling compassion for the war makers as well. Yes you heard that right. Feeling compassion for the war-makers also. Not easy!!! But I’m trying!

I also realized, that if I let anger fuel my opposition, then I will want retribution against the war makers. And that is another form of FAFO… This doesn’t meant that I don’t want that long arc of justice to bend toward righteousness — I DO! — but I’m not going to focus my energy there. Rather I’m going to focus on extending compassion to all. And of course I’ll protest too! There is nothing better than exercising the right to protest to make our voices heard! But I will try to do so without anger, but with compassion and kindness. This might be an unpopular take, but… there it is.

Thank you for today.