Radical Compassion Quotes

“The basic ground of compassionate action is the importance of working with rather than struggling against, and what I mean by that is working with your own unwanted, unacceptable stuff, so that when the unacceptable and unwanted appears out there, you relate to it based on having worked with loving-kindness for yourself.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Sometimes letting go is hard because we have been helpful.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“IN HELPING THERE is a rhythm of moving inward and outward, connecting with ourselves and reaching out to others.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“HOW DO WE HELP? How do we create a saner world or a saner domestic situation or job situation, wherever we may be?”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Perhaps this will put off a lot of people, but I am afraid love is not really the experience of beauty and romantic joy alone. Love is associated with ugliness and pain and aggression, as well as with the beauty of the world; it is not the recreation of heaven. Love or compassion, the open path, is associated with “what is.” In order to develop love—universal love, cosmic love, whatever you would like to call it—one must accept the whole situation of life as it is, both the light and the dark, the good and the bad.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Compassion or altruism, then, is not about being perfect or just doing good; it’s about this daring heart that cherishes others and life itself.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Creating a sense of together is the very purpose of community.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“We are compassion, whether we know it or not.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“And finally, to bring this all back home, the mystics maintain that the type of action that one performs in this world, if one lives by choiceless awareness, is an action devoid of ego or devoid of self-centeredness.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Emptiness (shunyata) doesn’t mean blank or void; it means unobstructed or unimpeded or spontaneous; it also is roughly synonymous with impermanence or fleetingness (anicca).”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“I think this is why “nobody is interested in chronic,” because you can’t do anything about chronic, you can only be there.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Just being a sponge, you see, tends to make you feel helpless and useless, because you aren’t doing something, you’re just being there, doing nothing (or so it seems).”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Even bad problems are not just bad problems, they are my bad problems, and that makes them worse. Whatever we experience is seen as my cold, my fever, my friend, my enemy, my everything.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“In the Mahayana, one comes to realize the emptiness or egolessness of all of the phenomena that we experience in our lives, from the most gross to the most minute, including our ideas as well as our perceptions.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“For anyone working with conflict, compassion is a core capacity.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Although this practice of cultivating loving-kindness (metta, maitri) and compassion (karuna) is part of a traditional sequence contemplating “the four limitless ones,” many of us discover along the way the apparent limits of our heart’s radiance.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“THE SPIRITUAL PATH passes over steep mountains, through boring meadows, and into lush valleys—all part of a meditator’s journey.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“We try to will ourselves to be compassionate, but this forced approach quickly backfires.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“With guilt-based compassion, we buy into some theory as to what we are supposed to feel around people in distress—and if what we really feel does not coincide with what we think we should be feeling, we get upset.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“Meditation and tonglen are a good start because they enable us to work directly and personally with two major obstacles to compassionate activity: distractedness and self-absorption.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“We discover that if there is an opening for it, compassion is always present.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“When we are not constantly struggling to be something or somebody, we are not so hampered by our preconceptions, and we can see more clearly.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“COMPASSION IS INHERENT in our very nature as human beings.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“We have chosen words like teacher, master, and guru as titles for the people to whom we go for spiritual training and counsel. But the original Buddhist term is spiritual friend.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“to”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“guests. Having understood the futility and pain of always”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“This is the development of prajna, transcendent knowledge, the ability to see situations as they are.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“You do not feel uninspired with situations, which brings patience, the kshanti paramita. And patience leads to energy, virya—the quality of delight. There is the tremendous joy of involvement, which is energy, which also brings the panoramic vision of open meditation—the experience of dhyana—openness.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“This is the open way. If you give up your psychological attitude of “demand,” then basic health begins to evolve, which leads to the next act of the bodhisattva, the shila paramita, the paramita of morality or discipline.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love

“This is the dana paramita, the paramita of generosity.”
― Shambhala Publications, Radical Compassion: Shambhala Publications Authors on the Path of Boundless Love