This morning as I was driving, I saw a driver cut another one off in traffic. My first thought was what a jerk. Of course if I had been the one cut off, I would have had more colorful names for that driver. It just so happens that I had that experience just a couple of days ago. As I was driving, someone cut in front of me and I felt some anger start to arise.

Image by altoburgo

Driving is definitely one area that I need to increase my compassion. Since I have been focusing on developing more compassion, as I felt the anger start, I thought about what I could do to express compassion. It dawned on me that I should pray for the driver that he or she could get to wherever they were going safely. As I did, I felt myself calm down and relax.

It is interesting that even though the driver wasn’t aware of the compassion that was expressed (unless the universe somehow delivers the message), expressing compassion helped me. I had never really thought of the benefits of expressing compassion, just receiving it. While it’s probably not true compassion if we do it for selfish reasons, it is nice to know that when it is given, it helps the sender.