Passion and Compassion

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When Howard Bad Hand told me that my cancer was connected to deep rage, I intuitively knew he was right. Rage is a passionate emotion, and Howard had said that Hexagram 43 was about the polarity of passion versus reason, so I decided to do a little research into the meaning of passion. According to Webster's, passion is "intense, driving, or overpowering feeling or emotion, especially any violent or intense emotion that prevents reflection." So passion can block reason, and when the intensity of passion overpowers reason, we all know that can be dangerous. Here's more on passion - "the state of mind when it is powerfully acted upon by something external that causes an extreme or inordinate desire, as the passions of love, hate, jealousy, wrath, ambition, avarice, fear, a passion for war, or for drink." Extreme passion is like an out of control fire.

On the other hand, who wants to live a passionless, dry, dull life? I began to wonder if the balance point between the heat of passion and the coolness of reason lies in the cultivation of compassion. In my session with Scott, my rage transformed into compassion. Passion feels red, and compassion feels pink. So does that mean if we add a cup of white light to passion that we get compassion? And what does that little prefix com- mean, anyway? Turns out, the prefix com- means "together." So, compassion is the ability to experience our own intense, alive feelings as well as everyone else's. In red energy, we're stuck in our own "I, me, mine" world, and in pink energy, we feel everyone's desires, needs and drives, our own included. The experience of other beings' needs and passions moves us into a unified field of awareness. We feel intuitively connected to others, so we resource the cool-minded influence of reason to check our destructive impulses before we harm others. When we're guided by compassion, our heart opens like a flower in full bloom, we radiate loving warmth, and we live for "we" instead of "me."

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