For many people this is a very hard lesson to learn.
Right Mindful compassion is more like: "Teach a person to fish and they fish for their whole life where as giving someone a fish could be construed as more like idiot compassion because it doesn't really solve the problem permanently of starvation.
However, most people learn compassion slowly.
I have an example of idiot compassion of myself at age 8.
A boy walked home with me who was very distressed. He was a head shorter than me but also was 8 years old like me. He told me his sad story about how his mother entertained many men and he didn't have any toys or a bicycle and they didn't have a car and he didn't even get much food or good clothes to wear either and he was scared most of the time in his life because men might hit him or hurt him that visited his mother.
At the time I was only 8 years old and I told him I had two parents and a good place to live and that I owned a bicycle and that we owned a car and that we were pretty happy because I didn't understand things like this about survival yet.
So, the boy cried in a scream of rage and started trying to hit me. However, I felt very sorry for this boy and so I could easily fend off his blows and I didn't want to hurt him because he was already hurt enough by his life ongoing. And I don't even know if this boy survived his life at all because this likely was the last time I saw him in my life. Not sure why.
While he was trying to pummel me and had thrown me to the grown and I was fending off his blows without hurting him my father drove up in a car. The boy ran away crying because he was afraid my father might hurt him for hitting me or at least trying to hit me.
My father asked me why I wasn't hitting him back and I told him I felt sorry for the boy and that I was much taller and stronger than him and he couldn't really hurt me because of this. My father respected me a lot after this and we bonded over this because of my kindness to this boy even though he was trying to hit me out of a jealous rage.
The idiot compassion in this case was saying the wrong thing to this boy even though I meant no harm to him at all.
However, out of this situation my father always respected me and thought I was a good person after that. Because my parents at this time were mystical Christian ministers in Los Angeles I was growing up to be a very good and kind son worthy of them by this action.
So, out of this crazy situation and my immaturity actually came life long respect from both my parents that I was a truly good and kind person like they wanted me to be in life.
Right mindful compassion is about not you getting injured in helping others or raped or killed by trying to help people that often cannot be helped.
For example, in India and Nepal I learned to give something even if it was a penny or a nickel or a quarter in 1985 and 1986 when I was in India and Nepal to beggars. Mostly people then believed in karma so it wasn't dangerous to give "Bhakshish" which is what they said when they were begging for food so they wouldn't literally die that day from starvation in India and Nepal. About 50 cents of Rice could keep them alive for another day then so they wouldn't starve and die so if you gave someone a quarter they were halfway to another meal so they wouldn't die that day or the next.
Also, I learned that giving money to people often gave them enough self respect not to kill themselves that day when they are begging like that. Somehow being a beggar is a kind of job I guess and if they didn't beg (a job) then they would die soon.
I learned a lot regarding starving beggars and people with leprosy with fingers, noses gone from the disease while maybe 4 dollars of medicine (at that time might have cured them).
So, India and Nepal things were very "IN YOUR FACE" regarding life and death on any given day. So, learning to live with this was very hard for me and for my children and wife while we were there.
So, Right mindful compassion I think would be not giving alms to the poor if they are too dangerous for you to survive giving this money (whatever amount it was) to them.
So, this gives you a little idea of what Right Mindful Compassion (the right way to go) and what idiot compassion (what might kill you or your family) is all about.
Think before you give so that both you and the people you are trying to help can survive the interaction some way in a good way for both people.
By God's Grace
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