Quotes About Empathy

The painful thing is that when we buy into disapproval, we are practicing disapproval. When we buy into harshness, we are practicing harshness. The more we do it, the stronger these qualities become. How sad it is that we become so expert at causing harm to ourselves and others. The trick then is to practice gentleness and letting go.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals.

Practicing loving-kindness toward ourselves seems as good a way as any to start illuminating the darkness of difficult times.

I realized that it is these two things that staying with regrets offers: It can become the seed of compassion and empathy so that you can stand in the shoes of other people because you're feeling exactly what they feel. And it spurs you on to help people in the future rather than hurt them.

Right now, can you make an unconditional relationship with yourself? Just at the height you are, the weight you are, with the intelligence that you have, and your current burden of pain? Can you enter into an unconditional relationship with that?

Protecting ourselves from pain—our own and that of others—has never worked. Everybody wants to be free from their suffering, but the majority of us go about it in ways that only make things worse.

we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.

We can use our difficulties and problems to awaken our hearts.

Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right into somebody's eyes because you feel you haven't got anything to lose—you're just there.

The formal practice of loving-kindness or maitri has seven stages. We begin by engendering loving-kindness for ourselves and then expand it at out own pace to include loved ones, friends, neutral persons, those who irritate us, all of the above as a group, and finally, all beings throughout time and space. We gradually widen the circle of loving-kindness.

The reason we're often not there for others - whether for our child or our mother or someone who is insulting us or someone who frightens us - is that we're not there for ourselves.

We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in, let it touch our hearts, and turn it into compassion.

The concepts of problem and solution can keep us stuck in thinking that there is an enemy and a saint or a right way and a wrong way.

When you connect with your own suffering, reflect that countless beings at this very moment are feeling exactly what you feel. Their story line is different, but the feeling of pain is the same. When

It's painful to face how we harm others, and it takes a while. It's a journey that happens because of our commitment to gentleness and honesty, our commitment to staying awake, to being mindful. Because of mindfulness, we see our desires and our aggression, our jealousy and our ignorance. We don't act on them; we just see them. Without mindfulness

Strive at first to meditate Upon the sameness of yourself and others. In joy and sorrow all are equal. Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself. We

When our main goals are to gain comfort and avoid discomfort, we begin to feel disconnected from, and even threatened by, others.

Just like me, this person doesn't want to feel uncomfortable. Just like me, this person loses it sometimes. Just like me, this person doesn't want to be disliked. Just like me, this person wants to have friends and intimacy.

Bodhichitta is a Sanskrit word that means "noble or awakened heart." It is said to be present in all beings. Just as butter is inherent in milk and oil is inherent in a sesame seed, this soft spot is inherent in you and me.

feel gratitude that someone saw the truth and pointed out that we don't suffer this kind of pain because of our personal inability to get things right.

For one thing, I let go much more easily: knowing that it's all passing so quickly makes everything I encounter exceedingly precious. I know that every taste, every smell, every day, every meeting, every parting, could be my last. When I see people bent over, shuffling along on walkers, I know what could be ahead for me. I've begun to identify with the very elderly so intimately that instead of recoiling, I feel immense compassion.

expanding our ability to feel comfortable in our own skin and in the world, so that we can be there as much as possible for other people, is a very worthy way to spend a human life.

Our journey of making friends with ourselves is not a selfish thing. We're not trying to get all the goodies for ourselves. It's a process of developing loving-kindness and a true understanding for other people as well.

We can only stand in the shoes of others to the degree that we can stand in our own.