Is Your Child Ready to Face the World?
After reading the chapter compassion
in the book called Is Your Child Ready to Face the World? by Doctor Anupam
Sibal, my reflection on compassion.
Compassion means understanding others' suffering and
helping them just like Princess Diana and Mother Teresa did.
I learned the word compassion in the lockdown when
I was reading a book called Planting Seeds by Thich Nhat Hanh. There is a
chapter in the book called understanding and compassion. The chapter starts with
a promise "I vow to develop compassion to protect the lives of people,
animals, plants and minerals. The chapter says people like doing different
things; suppose you want to read a book and your friend wants to play tennis, you
can just read the book later and go out to play tennis with your friend. This
small act of understanding and compassion will give your friend joy and make
him happy, and you will become satisfied.
After reading that chapter, I realized that everyone was practising compassion and helping each other in the lockdown. We used to
practice compassion by helping in household and office work and supporting each
other as everything was closed. I also showed compassion and
helped my parents in work by cleaning the house and helping in cooking. My
parents understood that I couldn't meet my friends, so they played games like cricket, badminton and chess, which I play with my friends. Also, the
vendors were very understanding and compassionate, and they used to deliver things
quickly and also arranged if they didn't have that thing. Teachers practised
compassion by rapidly adapting to online learning and making it fun for us, and
being patient in teaching us.
We don't need to do something big to show compassion.
Small acts of kindness will show compassion and make a big difference. Everyone
can be compassionate; we don't need a superpower to be compassionate. If we do
a small act of compassion, we can make a big difference in the person's life
which we don't realize. As rightly said by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
Name: Arav Agarwal
Grade: 5C
Billabong High International School, Thane
