Harden not your heart...

This last week has been quite an interesting personal journey, in many ways. During an impromptu visit to the Green Gulch, the dharma talk theme was compassion, and we did a 10-verse chant to Kanzeon (Japanese), or in Chinese-Kuanyin (I used to know the translation to be “the Goddess of Mercy”). What never occurred to me was that the Boddhisadva “Guan-shi-yin” literally means “observe/perceive all of the world’s sounds”, that is the capacity to see, hear, experience the voices and suffering of all beings, the true meaning of compassion. Rather than chanting or praying to some particular being outside of ourselves, in invoking the name of Kanseon, we are evoking our own inner capacity to be open-minded and compassionate. It’s interesting that I learn the meanings of these obvious Chinese words through English!

I have been reflecting on this idea for the last week. And yesterday, at the seminar, this (“modern-Schweitzer”) orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Richard Gosselin, came to talk to us about his work in Africa, in particular, currently in Sierra Leone, a war-torn country with literally two surgeons left as all those with means had fled. His primary focus is on injuries (road crashes) in the developing countries, which turned out to be not only the #1 cause of death in children, tremendous all-around impact due to the lack of treatment and surgeries, but the number of crashes is growing exponentially due to the increase in vehicles and roads. He showed pictures of 60+ men cramming inside and climbing on top of a van which has no break and a flat tire, traveling hundreds of miles to get work that pays them less than $1 a day. He showed graphic pictures of trauma, at which point all the non-doctors in the room turned our heads away from the screen. I simply couldn’t look at raw flesh and lost limbs left untreated.

Dr. Gosselin talked about both the global burden of disease and his years of personal experience working in Africa. He retired very early and has been spending 3-4 months in SF with his wife while spending the other 8 months in Sub-Saharan Africa doing surgeries and working to convince the WHO and foundations the importance of injury prevention in developing countries—though most of them, upon hearing the words “injury” or “surgery” turned away thinking it’s just too expensive when in fact it’s not more than vaccines and other interventions when you do a cost-effectiveness analysis. In spite of the gross underlying emotions during the talk, our discussion stayed on a very scientific level, showing data, problems, potential solutions, etc.

In my mind, this phrase from the Bible kept surfacing: Harden not your heart. How do we keep a soft and compassionate heart and while functioning as a scientist or politician or whatever we do? When physicians are told to detach themselves from their patients, researchers from their object, when soldiers sense that the civilians in the enemy countries are not “like us”, do their hearts harden? Sometimes it may be necessary. Nevertheless, personally, this phrase rings powerfully.