Compassion Is For Everyone, Not Just Those We Agree With: Part 1

Alongside other covid cautious therapists, I commonly hear my clients and community express concerns about in-group fighting. When the L.A. fires of 2025 took place, covid cautious groups actively went to heavily affected sites to hand out masks to anyone, showing their care for all people regardless of beliefs or politics. So why the tension within the group? For one, there’s often a sense of evaluating, judging, and policing other covid-cautious individual’s precautions.  Unfortunately, I have seen this pattern extend beyond covid cautious space and in other Leftist, Social Activist and Liberatory spaces. It’s also something I’ve witnessed personally.

When someone’s politics are so atrocious that it seeks to validate removing rights, access, and causing violence towards others, it becomes understandable how unbearable it can feel being around such a person if your personal values are rooted in a more humanistic mindset. But somehow, we are struggling with sitting amongst our own community of shared values when  disagreement arises. Linda Thai LMSW, once said during a workshop on grief, that activist spaces are weighted down by white supremacy culture. You can see it in the urgency and the policing of each other. I believe we can also see it in the avoidance of discomfort, conflict and lack of compassion to others with seemingly disparate perspectives.

In the therapy and activist world, we talk a lot about “calling in” vs “calling out”, but in practice I have yet to see this in action. I have witnessed in professional group spaces where a colleague is sharing a perspective that appears in conflict with another, there’s an immediate hardening where all the holding of each other’s humanity seems to dissipate. It becomes who is more of a specialist, who has the most lived experience, or who is being oppressive. These areas are helpful in dialogue, but it is in the quality in which these topics are shared that shuts down our connection with each other because it’s more about being right than about growing together. It’s about proving the other person is wrong to feel more protected and valid about ourselves. However, as described in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this type of top down of disseminating knowledge or information recreates oppressive dynamics of separating the knowing vs the unknowing. Knowledge becomes stationary rather than co-created. Compassion to another who is misaligned is seen as too dangerous or not empowered. We fling therapy speak to validate our reaction by saying things like “I’m speaking my truth”, or “I’m being in integrity with my values”. If we choose to dispose of others we will say “I’m protecting my boundaries”, or “I’m protecting my peace”.

But what if I told you that compassion is not predicated on being in agreement with each other? Responding with compassion is simply willing to hold another person’s humanness, value, and journey regardless of how right or wrong they are (as well as our own humility). If we only find connection with those who are exactly like minded, how can liberation be for everyone? As a therapist, brave clients share with me their desire to break out of their echo chamber but feel anxious and afraid. When they feel threatened by other’s disagreement there is an immediate reaction to judge and distance.  This is a protective adaptation we have created because we have been increasingly dealing with a world that feels like is degrading. Ourselves, our communities are threatened. When we cannot find reflection in the people nearest to us, it is important to find spaces and groups where we can build an expansive attachment to those resonate with our believes and values. However, the journey does not stop there. If we chose to only be in a space with the like-minded than we lose what it means to be truly interconnected to all beings, including ones with differences. If you believe all people are valuable and sacred for existing, you need practice holding that when the muck appears. The security from our safe spaces provides us the strength needed to extend ourselves in other environments where fostering connection and compassion is more difficult, but so many of us chose not to practice this. Safety and secure provide an anchor in stretching in uncomfortable ways, while finding a path back to our sense of self. But we can also use safety and security as a way to avoid discomfort. It’s easy to be compassionate to those who agree with us but holding compassion to others when we disagree can offer great teachings. Disagreements with others we generally value can offer opportunities to pause and reflect if there are any pieces of that has been shared for me to consider. Disagreements can also offer opportunities to learn about our own unconscious believes or narratives by being curious of our own reactions. It’s not about if I am right or wrong, it’s more about what shows up for me when there is misalignment. Seeing disagreements as teachings doesn’t mean we then just hug it out and move on. Compassion does not remove accountability, rather accountability is an extension of compassion.

Compassion is the ability to hold complex realities without needing to flatten another into a binary category of good or bad. Holding the complex narrative allows space to also name feelings of anger, betrayal, and harm. Naming feelings of harm is different than needing to adjudicate, talk down, or reprimand another (I call this “schooling” another person). If you find yourself feeling like you are standing on a soap box to essentially scold someone, you are likely moving away from naming the feelings and experiences that are present. Trust there is another path to share your truth without breaking someone else down. Compassion also allows space to explore together what life conditionings are at play and ways we can imagine moving towards repair. Genuine compassion is starkly different than performative kindness. Performative kindness is part of white supremacy culture in that we have a binary of responses available when disagreement or harm occurs- I fake nice to avoid discomfort or I show my anger. Fake kindness avoids being genuine in our experiences and severs connection. It is important to distinguish between performative kindness as previously described and the trauma response to fawn. The distinction is that performative kindness is present even when there is no threat of harm to yourself and is often a choice in order to control the situation to steer away from discomfort. This is different than experiencing unsafety in regards to power or oppression and needing to shield one’s self by being overly agreeable.

Imagining yourself sharing softness and compassion in the face of strong disagreement can seem impossible but there are exemplary positive examples of this. The Black Panther’s free lunch program for the community was not only a big hit but also was seen as threatening to the government for showing a different way. Anyone in the community was welcomed to receive free lunch, there was no gatekeeping or limiting resources to those with similar values. The Black Panthers strive to put the needs of the people and community first, rather than their politic or views. That means serving the people even with disagreement. Another example is hearing the stories of Buddhist and Non-Violent Communication teacher, Kazu Haga. He shares stories of working within prisons including working with people convicted of violence (such as murder) and even prison guards. He talks about the connection and humanizing that occurs when we meet each other with compassion. As someone who doesn’t believe in punishment and is outwardly against the Prison Industrial Complex, he has had tremendous practice in holding community even those who act in harmful ways supporting systems of violence. 

It can seem that I’m writing this post in a place of great clarity and skill, but I want my readers to know I am no exception in finding this practice challenging. There are times in which I have felt unheard, threatened in spaces and my protective reaction feels like the only path. Schooling another person can make us, and has made me, feel powerful in a time I felt nearly helpless. But there is another way. As a person who is invested in critical thought and the decolonial journey, I find intellectual frameworks of Social Justice and even Liberation not enough to help me create that bridge between my conditioning and my embodied self. My spiritual practice of Buddhism is my home because the cosmology of the practice feels spacious enough to hold the messiness of being alive while providing real day to day practices that are accessible. 

For example, Shin Buddhism sheds light on the power of deep listening to ourselves and others. The teachings are meant to be for everyone in hopes of fostering compassion. Deep listening and compassion can be practiced in Dharma talks, learning about history, reflecting on our journey, chanting, and the everyday interactions. Our anger and desire to protect ourselves is important but let’s not forget our reactions make it impossible to engage deep listening with curiosity. Someone can be wrong and we can still hold care and reflect the value they have as a person. Someone can cause hurt and we can still hold compassion and protect our heart without disconnecting. Compassion is not only for everyone but can offer healing for anyone.

Namuamidabutsu