Tea with Linda - EMPATHY

Tea with Linda - EMPATHY

Linda Kavelin Popov, Co-Founder of TVP, May 2023.

Have you ever watched a toddler gently touch someone who was sad? Innate empathy and compassion are among the first virtues to shine in a child. A father saw his son go over and put his arms around a boy who had tripped and fallen. “I felt sorry for him even though it wasn’t happening to me,” he said. Ironically, it is the awareness of oneself as separate from others that gives space for our hearts to be moved by their experiences and feelings. If we are enmeshed with another, we assume what they are feeling without being truly present to them. Our emotions are tangled with theirs and it’s hard to sort out whose is what.  Rainer Maria Rilke, the Austrian poet wrote: “Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.” If we find ourselves taking responsibility for another’s feelings, we actually can’t see them fully. Taking a step away in respect for our separateness opens a space for genuine empathy. We no longer play “hector projector” assuming what they are feeling and confusing ours with theirs. When my brother John was in his last days, his pain was excruciating – for me. He said with a tender smile, “Lin, I have the pain, but you have the suffering. You and your damn empathy! Even in the pain, I can feel the hand of God.” That freed me to wed detachment and compassion, allowing me to truly companion him until he passed.

One of the wonders of today’s technology is that we are given an intimate glimpse into the suffering of other humans. Whether refugees fleeing with their children from war torn Syria or Ukraine, or children starving in Africa or New York, we cannot not see what is happening to others. A story I share in Sacred Moments and shared at the Dalai Lama’s conference on Seeds of Compassion is about my son Christopher Kavelin. At four years old, he was a little Midas -- obsessed with money. He gathered coins from his small allowance, hunted change under couch cushions, looked for fallen loot on the street and asked his uncles for money. He kept his booty in a blue velvet bag that had held a bottle of gift cologne. He went without ice cream or other treats he was meant to buy with his allowance, so that he could keep saving it. I was a bit concerned about him. One day we were watching television and an appeal came on about helping to supply food for children in Africa. He was mesmerized by the little ones, so thin except for their distended stomachs. I started to turn it off, and he said, “No, mommy, I want to see.” When it was over, he went running from the room and returned with his bulging bag of treasure. “Can I send money to those kids?” he asked. “Yes, Chris, you can.” “Then send it, mommy, send it all.” His empathy for suffering children ignited enormous generosity and even sacrifice in his soul. Empathy continues to be a core virtue in his life. He later obtained a Ph.D. in law, focusing on the protection of indigenous medical knowledge and transforming law to engage indigenous spiritual concerns.