Empathy is Punk and it is the center of the Bodhisattva path
Grumpy and confused lurkers vs. good friends
Yesterday revealed again the difference between a grumpy lurker and actual good friends. Good friend means kalyāṇamitra — and kalyāṇamitrata is the whole of the holy life, the Buddha said. Good friends pay attention, listen deeply, engage. They ask questions. They connect dots.
The grumpy lurker? He just lobs weak nonsense, insults, and disdain. He makes weird assumptions about what I’m doing, and tries to derail the effort as it manifests in that less-than-ideal social media realm. That’s wrong speech — false, divisive, harsh, and idle all rolled together.
I’ve grown weary of the bad karma he drags into Buddhagang spaces. He wants to play the role of bad friend, a hindrance, instead of taking the bodhisattva way — the path to the end of all beings’ suffering first.
So yep. Empathy is punk AF. And this guy has to cry about it instead of asking questions to figure out what it means. The quote from Kirk wasn’t even included by me — it was already in the screenshot. I saw a good post, grabbed the description and the image, because the description carried that sad and potent quote from Charlie Kirk that helps to draw out the meaning of the imagery.
Kirk has been stoking the ugly, sad, and bad flames of the world — suffering — through his stupid, hateful, small-minded, racist, weird white nationalist speech karma. I don’t hate the guy.
And turns out what we already knew is true — it wasn’t some “evil leftist” who did this. It was a crazy extremist alt-right kid, duped by people like Kirk and Fuentes. But in that kid’s mind, Fuentes came off stronger — Kirk wasn’t evil enough for him, didn’t shout white supremacy loud enough. So dumb.
This is the unfolding of the law of karma. And as long as so many beings keep crying like this grumpy lurker did, it’ll be more and more hindrance to the actual manifesting of the healing fruit of bodhisattvayāna. In world-systems like this — dominated by prthagjana mindsets and old ugly habit-energies — the path of bodhisattvas is obstructed again and again. But still, we persist. This was never an “easy way”. This is engaged Buddhism. It is Buddhism for beings who care about other beings. Mahayana Buddhism has this great scope — save all other beings first.
So yeah… Kirk, Fuentes, and a long list of other disappointing failures of beings have been stacking up bad karma for a long time. So the present realities aren’t surprising. And this didn’t just start yesterday — these ugly habit-energies are old, entrenched deep over many generations of this long genocide we call American history and present moment.
I don’t hate! I never hate. I won’t hate. This is not the poison of anger as it is actually described by the Buddha. What I do know is that these beings (and this one guy, Kirk) did bad karma and that they also failed to do good karma. Not doing things can be just as much a fault as doing the wrong things. That’s how the law of karma unfolds in all worlds.
This is engaged Buddhist work — Buddhagang work. We use social media, but not only social media. We use words. We agree and disagree when it’s time, always pointing back to BuddhaDharma. Words are empty, yes, but they shape karma. They’re causes and conditions that matter.
The teaching point was simple: Charlie Kirk said empathy is “made up.” I said empathy is central to the Bodhisattva way. That’s not celebrating his death. No hate. That’s naming harm and pointing to the path so fewer beings get hurt by that view.
- The pinned comment isn’t some complex grifting scheme either. Facebook automatically adds it when I share a post. I barely think about it. The issue isn’t a link. The issue is empathy — and empathy matters.
Everywhere I appear online is a bodhisattva training ground, not a random comment pit. Friends help the field flourish. Lurkers poison it. That’s why boundaries matter. Fierce love clears space for Dharma to shine.
