PRACTICING MERCY?
The Non-Dual Perspective of the Enneagram
By Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson

     One of the most important statements about mercy is Shakespeare’s inspiring plea to Shylock made by Portia in The Merchant of Venice (1600). Perhaps it is more than a little obvious to begin this article about “practicing mercy” with this quotation, yet Shakespeare’s genius, with its profound insight into human nature, raises some of the most important issues about mercy and the paradoxical nature of this virtue. The passage in Act IV, Scene I, goes as follows—

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

      We have noticed that mercy seems to be a virtue that is directed primarily at the guilty: the innocent do not need mercy, whereas the guilty have no hope except to be treated mercifully. The need for mercy assumes the fact of guilt and justifiable—even the punishment that justice itself demands. We could even say that forgiveness and mercy go together: forgiveness repairs the past by letting go of it, whereas mercy makes possible a better future by not seeking the consequences of applying strict justice.
     We have also noticed that mercy frequently appears when it is least expected, much less justified. Mercy has a “superabundant” quality about it, and is an expression of the soul’s largess and the heart’s magnanimity. Mercy is often surprising especially to the merciful themselves since it usually arises unexpectedly, and is acted on by persons who, even a moment before, were not predisposed to showing anyone mercy. There is, in fact, a touch of the miraculous to it—so contradictory is mercy to our ego self, to our ordinary sense of justice, and to our past conditioning.
      Yet, rather than be an expression of some sort of “giving in” or of weakness of will, true mercy is among the most muscular of virtues, an activity of the soul operating at a very high state. It takes enormous inner strength for anyone to be merciful—an inner strength necessary to go against common sense, the obvious guilt at hand, and the rush to see justice applied. However, for those who can be merciful, the act not only is a blessing to those to whom it is given, but it enobles the one who has the magnanimity of heart to practice it. As Shakespeare says at the end of the above passage,

It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

     Indeed, mercy goes against the grain of human nature itself: we usually feel more than a little pleasure in seeing the guilty punished, the wrongdoer paying for his actions, the liar, the murderer, and the thief getting their just desserts. Mercy seems to be a foolish, even softheaded, option—an option that is usually never even considered until one is living at a high Level of functioning. (Perhaps this is why we do not see true mercy being practiced very often….) The ego is only too ready to distort this virtue into some self-satisfied nourishment for itself—the impulse to act mercifully very easily can become a condescending gesture that is yet another way to show off and feel superior, as in the condescending mercy and “forgiveness” of the Commandant in Schindler’s List. As the Commandant’s character shows us, this kind of ego-based “mercy” can quickly turn into its opposite since it does not come from a true seeing of the other and is only a temporary posture of the ego. Condescension can quickly turn into contempt, and contempt into hatred and the desire to destroy the very person who moments before was the object of the ego’s “mercy.”
      But, the miracle of mercy can and does arise when we move beyond our ego and its traps. At the highest Levels of Development, all of the virtues are a web of grace and are mutually supportive of each other, and each can be acted on as it is needed in the moment. The Enneagram itself points to this profound lesson: all of the types of the Enneagram are interconnected, which is the meaning of the internal lines of the diagram itself. No type exists in isolation, just as no person and no thing exist by itself: everything in the universe is interconnected. In short, the Enneagram points to this fundamental truth, the Oneness of reality. . .

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Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson are leading teachers and authors in the Enneagram field today.  They have shown how the Enneagram is consistent with modern Psychology and the deeper understandings of traditional Christianity, Buddhism, and other faith traditions.  They are co-founders of the Enneagram Institute, and can be reached through their website at www.EnneagramInstitute.com.

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