Monday, February 8, 2010

Meditation on Compassion

Love is a mind that brings peace, joy, and happiness to another person.  Compassion is a mind that removes the suffering that is present in the other.  The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other.  We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering.  We must become one with the object of our observation.  When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us.  Compassion means, literally, "to suffer with."
Wisdom from PEACE IS EVERY STEP - Thich Nhat Hanh

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