Reflection on CompassionWritten by Kamyar Saturday, 10 January 2009 11:01 I was just listening to Zencast, episode 189 about compassion by Jack Cornfield. In the middle of the session, he invites the audience to reflect on moments in their lives when they have been touched by someone through a compassionate act. So I pausesed the audio and decided to find 3 names that instantly come to my mind from my childhood. Beleive me, it took less than 10 seconds, and I was shocked by the results. Three people that I might have not thought about for years. Then I decided to write down the three little stories. Here they go: 1. I was probably 5 years old. The story happened in the kindergarden. My teacher for that year was a lady named Shaheen, and we used to call her Shaheen Joon. People who have known me in those years, friends and family, they always tell me that I have been the most hyper-active child they have seen. It's like a myth in our family. If a new child is hyper-active, people say his actions reminds us of Kamyar. Anyway, oneday Shaheen Joon brought a painting in a frame to the class to show us. She was an artist. What I remember is that when she was busy, I went close to see the painting and I don't know how it slipt from my hands and the frame broke. This is what used to happen to all the things around me, TVs, chairs, toys, windows, and whatever you think of. So, I felt ashamed and I really wanted to cry, as I liked Shaheen Joon alot. She came to me and sat in front of me, held my arms, kissed my forehead and said: "you don't need to worry, this is just a painting, I can draw it again." After almost 28 years, I remember the moment as if I am standing right there. 2. It was the 8th grade in Falagh school, we had a mathematics teacher called Mr. Kanaani. He was famous of being tough. It was not easy to achieve high marks on his exams. Usually I used to score high in maths. When Mr. Kanaani wanted to mark the papers he used to do it in the class. He sorted the papers and he used to call the student to stand beside him when he was marking the paper. I was called, it was the moment of truth. 10 questions of 2 marks each. On one of them there was a very silly mistake in calculations, and he wrote down 1.75. He went on and the rest of the markes where 2, 2, and 2 ... When the paper was finished, he turned his head to me and looked into my eyes, roled back the paper and replaced the 1.75 with 2. I was the only student to score 100% in that exam, and it remained as a secret between me and Mr. Kanaani. I wish I can find him again and give him a visit, although I don't think he will remember me. 3. At the same school, grade 7. It happened in the school yard. I was playing basketball alone. A student who I didn't have much interactions with, named Yashar Ghavami, came to me and said "do you want to bet on a basketball game?", and I accepted. The bet was on 10 Tomans (which was all the money I had in my pockets), but I was pretty confident that I will win. We played and Yashar won. So I went to him and handed the money, while thinking that "how will I go home now?" There was no money left for paying the taxi. Yashar looked at me and said "it's OK, keep the money." I insisted, and he didn't accept. I was feeling shameful as I knew if I was the winner, I would have accepted the money. Right now I googled "Yashar Ghavami" and the only thing I found was a Digg profile, without contact details. It says "A 33 year-old male from New York, NY (IR) who joined Digg on September 22nd, 2008". The age suggests that he is the same Yashar, and I have sent a request for friendship. Will he remember my name? Download Zencast 189 - compassion
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