Most of us are shrinking in the face of psycho-social and physical poisons, of the toxins of our world. But compassion, the generation of compassion, actually mobilizes our immunity.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Many of us think that compassion drains us, but I promise you it is something that truly enlivens us.
This idea of compassion comes to us because we're made in the image of God, who is ultimately the compassionate one.
Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.
No deep and strong feeling, such as we may come across here and there in the world, is unmixed with compassion. The more we love, the more the object of our love seems to us to be a victim.
Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves.
Compassion is contempt with a human face.
We live in a time when science is validating what humans have known throughout the ages: that compassion is not a luxury; it is a necessity for our well-being, resilience, and survival.
Compassion has enemies, and those enemies are things like pity, moral outrage, fear.
We all, I think, believe in compassion. If you look at all the world religions, all the main world religions, you'll find within them some teaching concerning compassion.
When compassion wakes up in us, we find ourselves more willing to become vulnerable, to take the risk of entering the pain of others.