Transpassion and Servant Leadership

By Zeus Yiamouyiannis (9/27/06)

We are suffering from a “passion� problem. The root of passion means, “to suffer.� Our uncertain age offers a perplexing mix of suffering and alleviation of suffering. Terrorism coexists with the virtual eradication of many deadly diseases. In so-called “developed� countries like the U.S. we have eliminated hunger yet ushered in widespread obesity, the cause of our suffering changing from want to excess. Even as we have eliminated many other physical causes of suffering (disease, unhealthy work conditions, etc.) through scientific and social advance, we have yet to develop effective responses to even the most simple causes of emotional and spiritual suffering.

Instead of offering empathy or compassion (“to suffer with�) we create more suffering for ourselves in the peculiarly self-violent practices of shame and guilt, as if causing our suffering some how allows us to identify with the suffering of others. (Some Opus Dei (conservative Catholic sect) members, even tighten a barbed band around their thighs to supposedly identify with Jesus’ suffering.) But this is manipulation of spirit. The intentional creation of more suffering (for yourself or others) is a violation of spiritual responsibility and does nothing to redeem or help the suffering of others. To feel another’s pain from a spiritual perspective is to recognize your togetherness with them and to step forward committed to helping relieve their ills. To create your own pain in response to the pain of others impedes your ability to attend to them, for how can one help another from suffering when one is creating suffering? Be with suffering and address it; do not offset or deny it through shame or guilt.

This attending to the suffering of others may require social justice, if the cause of their ills resides in larger systems of inequity, oppression, or violence. Many New Agers could stand to take this responsibility seriously. I get more than a little concerned when I see people explain away suffering merely as a “choice� someone has made to “learn� something on a spiritual level. Child sweatshop labor? Just a choice. Torture. Just a choice through which they and humanity will eventually learn not to torture. Apparently your responsibility is only to learn from observing suffering. Compassion, however, asks us to intervene to relieve that suffering.

These are not our only “passion� problems. Instead of learning from constructive Buddhist precepts of “dispassion� (that is that ability to calmly tease apart our inflamed or reactive emotional responses from the matter which presents itself), we strive for “ex-passion�, the denial, the stripping away of the recognition of suffering and the important messages suffering sends us. This can be viewed in the dysfunctional desire to take pills to assuage every lifestyle ill from erectile dysfunction to sleeplessness. Pills can and should supply legitimate medical need, for instance chronic depression, but many times we seek pills too quickly and conveniently, masking symptoms that reveal a root spiritual or emotional cause which is not medical. Seeking technological Utopia, we instead only create a mechanistic dystopia, shorn of awareness, devoid of mindful presence to life’s challenges.

Progressive political movements and even many progressive churches have a big passion problem; they pursue “un-passion.� Actually so do political movements and churches of all stripes, some are just better at hiding it then others. The so-called political and religious Left are somewhat suspicious of passion as the fount of prejudice and bigotry, and so seek to ameliorate it through things like policy lists, therapy, discussion, and sensitivity training. Inclusion has unfortunately come to mean the suspension of conviction, reinforced with preemptive strikes against the challenge of strong beliefs in a pluralistic community. The ostensibly religious Right inflames and manipulates the emotional side of passion, to cause more judgment, suffering, and bigotry (against gay people, immigrants, Muslims, feminists, you name it) preventing deeper spiritual compassion for the persecuted among us.

Neither Left nor Right has faith in the deeper potential of passion, the inspired infusion of spirit through a person, controlled by no ideology, brought into the world to be shared and linked with all others whose roots are also in the spirit. This is what I would call “transpassion� (“suffering across�). For the other side of suffering passion (and the challenges of this world) is abiding joy, as when one has a passion for music, or dance, or public service. In passionate joy, one experiences the challenges and separations of this world as opportunities to know God and evoke from one another, in solidarity, the unique droplets of spirit we call our “selves.�

If we are to accept this new understanding, much changes. Leadership is no longer about people merely following, adhering to tenets, and vicariously realizing their hopes and dreams through a charismatic figure. Transpassion relies upon the actuation of spiritual leadership in each person. The transpassionate leader “leads out� that leadership in persons, evoking and helping to liberate and develop their talents, their inflections of spirit. Interestingly, the root of “educate� (educare) means “to lead out�. No wonder Jesus was called a great teacher. Was there anyone better at evoking and “leading out� the spirit of others into the world? Can you imagine it, God arising from every pore of the body spiritual and politic instead of through the pinhole of an appointed representative, or book, or ideology? In this, art is a preeminent medium. For it is the individual and/or collective creative act that best expresses passion of this sort, best shares both recognition of suffering (and the limited materials of paint and canvas, for instance) and the joyful and unlimited possibilities of spirit (that which can be painted).

There is no spirit in the world without expression and creation. There is no spirit in the world without art.

So let us not rally people around a vision of our small making, in books or sermons or doctrines or institutions. Let these instruments instead serve God not as an end but as an aid. Let them facilitate the arising and understanding of spirit through each point of existence. I say existence because this arising can come up through any creation of God, organic, inorganic, energy, or intention. Let us supply and serve. Let us dedicate ourselves beyond our own designs, to the infinite designs of God. Let us affirm and embrace the mystery of our origin, purpose, and existence by letting the Creator come through us to create and help others to create great spiritual works of arts.

Let us not colonize our minds with fantasies of greatness. For who are we without the Great Creator, and indeed one another, the creations of spirit? Greatness and excellence attend the faithful and genuine expression of the spirit. This is true both ethereally and practically. Mother Teresa did not pursue “greatness�. She attended the suffering of others compassionately, unveiling the greatness of God through her deeds. “Good� and “evil� as labels do not suffice. When the person serves the spirit, he or she does good. When we serve our egos (our small god-in-the-head) we will fail to do good. Let us embark on the uncertain but joyful adventure of service. Let us unveil our underlying spiritual common roots with our words, thoughts, and deeds. Let us embrace the diversity of our existence, secure in our common spiritual ancestry. Let us transform the frontiers of our imagination. Let us affirm the dignity of our persons. Let us create together and give thanks to God.