"Many years ago, during the Vietnam War," the Buddhist master Thích Nhá̂t Hạnh (1926-2022) sat in "a vacant airfield in the highlands of Vietnam waiting for a plane to travel north," in order to help "victims of a great flood." He recalls looking at a young officer from the United States with compassion but admits that he made a mistake during their conversation. Remarking upon his own lack of skill, he inadvertently "watered the seed of fear in him," when Nhá̂t Hạnh told the officer: "You must be very afraid of the Vietcong." The frightened officer touched his gun and asked, "Are you Vietcong?" Later, when he conversed with him using what he referred to as a "stored reservoir of peace," the officer removed his hand from the gun (Thích 2005, 40).

Thích Nhá̂t Hạnh's explanation of this transformative conversation provides a lesson for educators. Just as we must get in touch with ourselves in order to teach with compassion, students too can benefit from our examples and explore their own feelings and needs as they take in historical events and move forward in society and the world.

In the same way, we can teach spiritual understandings while doing so. Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi (369-286 BCE) believed "that emotions are natural phenomena like wind, rain, and thunder," and that since we cannot change these, likewise, "we cannot avoid naturally arising feelings" (Seok 2021). Thus, Daoists encourage feeling without judgment. As we cannot change wind, rain, and thunder, we cannot avoid naturally arising feelings, and to allow oneself to feel, is to have compassion for self. By doing so, the teacher can be a model of compassion and acceptance of feelings to students.

Invoking tenets of Mayahana Buddhism, Thích Nhá̂t Hạnh explained that he breathed in and out and then said, very calmly, "I am not Vietcong. I am waiting for my plane to go to Da Nang and help the people hurt by the flooding there." By sitting very still and speaking calmly, I could express the sympathy I had for him, and the soldier was able to feel it. He took his hand off his gun. "If someone is affected by the poisons of violence, anger, and despair, and we want to help" them "heal, we have to bring" them "out of the situation where" they continue to take in these toxins (Thích 2005, 40).

Indeed, "the quality and the happiness of a human being depend on the quality of the seeds they have in their "store" of "consciousness." Consequently, "we should organize our life in such a way that the wholesome seeds in us have a chance to be watered every day" (2005, 39). As educators, we are indeed waterers of seeds of compassion. Many spiritual traditions have compassion at their root. Daoists, for example, value compassion first, expressed without the expectation of anything in return, and then frugality and humility (Culham 2014).