Quotes About Empathy

Eventually it dawns on us that we can regret causing harm without becoming weighed down by negative shame. Just seeing the hurt and heartbreak clearly motivates us to move on. By acknowledging what we did, cleanly and compassionately, we go forward.

la meditación nos ofrece la oportunidad de mantener una atención abierta y compasiva hacia todo lo que ocurre.

the best way to serve ourselves is to love and care for others.

Teachers and helpers of all kinds will be of limited use if they are doing their work to build up their own egos. In fact, setting out to help others is a very quick way to pop the bubble of ego.

In joy and sorrow all are equal, Thus be guardian of all, as of yourself. —SHANTIDEVA

Even if we're alone, our yawns and farts communicate.

Those events and people in our lives who trigger our unresolved issues could be regarded as good news. We don't have to go hunting for anything. We don't need to try to create situations in which we reach our limit. They occur all by themselves, with clockwork regularity.

Every day we could reflect on this and ask ourselves, "Am I going to add to the aggression in the world?" Every day, at the moment when things get edgy, we can just ask ourselves, "Am I going to practice peace, or am I going to war?

it's more daring and real not to shut anyone out of our hearts and not to make the other into an enemy.

The word bodhisattva refers to those who have committed themselves to the path of compassion.

Without loving-kindness for ourselves it is difficult, if not impossible, to genuinely feel it for others.

Only to the degree that we've gotten to know our personal pain, only to the degree that we've related with pain at all, will we be fearless enough, brave enough, and enough of a warrior to be willing to feel the pain of others.

Looking at the arrows and swords, and how we react to them, we can always return to basic wisdom mind. Rather than trying to get rid of something or buying into a dualistic sense of being attacked, we take the opportunity to see how we close down when we're squeezed. This is how we open our hearts. It is how we awaken our intelligence and connect with fundamental buddha nature.

Bodhichitta is our heart – our wounded, softened heart. Right down here in the thick of things, we discover the love that will not die.

When our mind is full of the warmth of humor, we are in touch with the best of ourselves.

Some of us can accept others right where they are a lot more easily than we can accept ourselves. We feel that compassion is reserved for someone else, and it never occurs to us to feel it for ourselves.

Tonglen practice has to do with cultivating fearlessness. When you do this practice for some time, you experience your heart as more open.

When you do tonglen, you invite the pain in. That's what opens your eyes, even though that's what shamatha is all about—seeing pain, seeing pleasure, seeing everything with gentleness and accuracy, without judging it, without pushing it away, becoming more open to it.

As adults, we can begin to cultivate a sense of loving-kindness for ourselves—by ourselves, for ourselves.

si podemos mantener aunque sólo sea una relación incondicional con una persona, podemos tener una relación incondicional con el mundo.

We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people's wrongness.

True compassion does not come from wanting to help out those less fortunate than ourselves but from realizing our kinship with all beings.

The greatest obstacle to connecting with our joy is resentment.

To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is. (The Wisdom of No Escape, p. 3)