Compassion has two near enemies. The first is grief born of despair. As Matthieu Ricard says, true compassion is based on the type of healthy sadness that inspires both a loving response and courageous action. In contrast, the type of grief that causes helplessness, despair, and powerlessness is unhealthy. It needs to be transformed into healthy sadness for compassion to properly function. The second near enemy of compassion is pity. To pity somebody necessarily (and often unconsciously) means you are putting yourself above that person, and that (often unconsciously and insidiously) reinforces
...more
