Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
As long as we observe love for others and respect for their rights and dignity in our daily lives, then whether we are learned or unlearned, whether we believe in the Buddha or God, follow some religion or none at all, as long as we have compassion for others and conduct ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility, there is no doubt we will be happy.
We are beset by problems and if we look for their source, we find they arise because of our selfishness, because we tend to pursue our own interests at the expense of others. Our various religious traditions exist to help us reduce these problems. They all teach ways to overcome suffering through cultivating love and compassion, tolerance, patience and contentment.
Our commitment to this founding principle is especially relevant today. Americans are united as rarely before in compassion and generosity for our fellow citizens whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The powerful winds and floodwater of Katrina tore away the mask that has hidden from public view the many Americans who are left out and left behind.
According to my own experience, the highest level of inner calm comes from the development of love and compassion. The more concerned we are with the happiness of others, the more we increase our own well-being. Friendliness and warmth towards others allow us to relax and help us to dispel any sense of fear or insecurity so we can overcome whatever obstacles we face.
Our illusions-the beliefs we hold on to-are the very doorways to our freedom. We simply have to enter through them without grasping or pushing away. We must not believe them, but we must not run away from them either. We need to see each moment of apparent bondage as an invitation to freedom. Then it becomes an act of love, an act of compassion, to stop running away.
An important distinction can be made between religion and spirituality. Religion [is] concerned with faith in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition... Spirituality is concerned with qualities of the human spirit, love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, that bring happiness both to self.
Contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and bad heart,--while it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles there little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest,--affording only an uneasy sensation, and bringing always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.
If we want the freedom to take part in our bit of differentness, then we must allow others their rights to take part in theirs, as long as they do not harm the person or property of a non-consenting other, of course. IT'S JUST common sense. It's also constitutional and it forms the cornerstone of the American ideal: free individual expression, tolerance and compassion.
What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion, everyday acts of compassion. In South Africa they have a phrase called ubuntu. Ubuntu comes out of a philosophy that says, the only way for me to be human is for you to reflect my humanity back at me.
Jesus is challenging that when addressing "who is your neighbor" and he has a lot of hard things to say about family, "unless you hate your own family you are not going to be a disciple." He is challenging the limits of our compassion and our love as if someone's kid suffers it should be as devastating to us as if it were our own kid. That is what the early church said.
Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
Every truth ever discovered -- each new light that will ever burn bright -- already exists in our consciousness. All we will ever know and share about love, humility, compassion, and sacrifice -- the secrets that will reveal and then resolve old sorrows -- awaits us within ourselves. Hidden in this truth is our great promise, both as individuals and as a race of beings.
We need to be kinder with one another, more gentle and forgiving. We need to be slower to anger and more prompt to help. We need to extend the hand of friendship and resist the hand of retribution. In short, we need to love one another with the pure love of Christ, with genuine charity and compassion and, if necessary, shared suffering, for that is the way God loves us.
Want of imagination makes things unreal enough to be destroyed. By imagination I mean knowledge and love. I mean compassion. People of power kill children, the old send the young to die, because they have no imagination. They have power. Can you have power and imagination at the same time? Can you kill people you don’t know and have compassion for them at the same time?
Ours is not a culture that respects the sick, the old or the vulnerable. We strive for independence, competence, and mastery. In embracing such 'frontier' values, we may become intolerant of human wholeness, contemptuous of anything in ourselves, and in others, that has needs or is capable of suffering. The denial of a vulnerability is the ultimate barrier to compassion.
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
Anyone familiar with the numerous accounts of the Buddha's extraordinary compassion and reverence for living beings - for example his insistence that his monks strain the water they drink lest they inadvertently cause the death of any micro-organisms - could never believe that he would be indifferent to the sufferings of domestic animals caused by their slaughter of food
Scientists tell us that we have enough technology to save our planet. . . . Yet we don't take advantage of this new technology. . . . The technological has to work hand-in-hand with the spiritual. Our spiritual life is the element that can bring about the energies of peace, calm, brotherhood, understanding, and compassion. Without that, our planet doesn't stand a chance.
Yours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy - these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that in every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul.
We must look deeply into the nature of our volition to see whether it is pushing us in the direction of liberation from suffering and toward peace and compassion, or in the direction of affliction and misery. What is it that we really want deep in our heart? Is it money, fame, power? Or is it finding inner peace, being able to live life fully and enjoy the present moment?
It is not enough simply to wish that love and compassion should increase in us. We need to make a sustained effort, again and again, to cultivate the positive aspects within us - and the key here is constant familiarity. The nature of human thoughts and emotions is such that the more you engage in them, the more you consciously develop them, the more powerful they become.
The fifth doorway to experiencing Love for No Reason is the Doorway of Communication, which corresponds to the energy center located in the throat area. This doorway relates to speaking and listening with compassion, rather than judgment. There are some wonderful tools and techniques available to help us speak and listen with compassion that I've included in this chapter.
When someone steals another's clothes, we call them a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.
For all her active goodness, Florence Nightingale herself was far from being the angelic figure of popular adulation: according to Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians she was a self-righteous, domineering amazon, who was ruthless in her compassion, merciless in her philantropy, destructive in friendships, obsessional in her list for power, and demonic in her saintliness.
When there's something that impacts a family member or friend, that is difficult for them, you want to do what you can to help. Sometimes you can't do anything and it makes you feel like you're helpless, so those emotions cross a big barometer, but they're a big, broad stroke when it comes to someone who you care about. If you have compassion in your heart, you just care.
Chekhov said: let's put God - and all these grand progressive ideas - to one side. Let's begin with man; let's be kind and attentive to the individual man - whether he's a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands, or a waiter in a restaurant. Let's begin with respect, compassion, and love for the individual - or we'll never get anywhere.
Blanket compassion will shift the distribution decisively towards the manipulative end of the spectrum, and may paradoxically decrease the compassion with which the genuinely despairing are treated: for they are apt to get lost in the great mass of pseudo-distress and manipulation, and often their conduct draws less attention precisely because it is less attention-seeking.
Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love... Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is not of that which kills; their power is of that which creates. Their power is not of violence, aggression; their power is that of compassion.
As I get considerably beyond the biblical allotment of three score years and ten, I feel with increasing intensity that I can express my gratitude for still being around on the oxygen-side of the earth's crust only by not standing pat on what I have hitherto known and loved. While oxygen lasts, there are still new things to love, especially if compassion is a form of love.
In today's world, people experience two types of poverty: the poverty caused by lack of food, clothing and shelter, and the poverty caused by lack of love and compassion. Of these two, the second type needs to be considered first because if we have love and compassion in our hearts, then we will wholeheartedly serve those who suffer from lack of food, clothing and shelter.
Cool loneliness allows us to look honestly and without aggressionat our own minds. We can gradually drop our ideals of who we think weought to be, or who we think we want to be, or who we think other peoplethink we want to be or ought to be. We give it up and just look directlywith compassion and humor at who we are. Then loneliness is no threat andheartache, no punishment.
When we come to the moral principles on which the government is to be administered, we come to what is proper for all conditions of society. Liberty, truth, probity, honor, are declared to be the four cardinal principles of society. I believe that morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human constitution; that there exists a right independent of force.
People are complicated creatures. On the one hand, capable of great acts of charity, and on the other, capable of the most underhanded forms of betrayal. It's a constant battle that rages within all of us, between the better angels of our nature and the temptations of our inner demons. And sometimes, the only way to ward off the darkness is to shine the light of compassion.
Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity's golden ladder.
Part of the reason that America is born in the world is to demonstrate an openness and a goodness and a compassion that is all too absent. It's part of the reason that I feel every day so blessed that I and so many Jews have found this wonderful haven, and I hope that we can spread that message and that people who come here will find it as inspiring as I think all of us do.
He will long be remembered as one of the great Christian thinkers of our century, with a childlike faith and a profound compassion toward others. It can rarely be said of an individual that his life touched many others and affected them for the better; it will be said of Francis Schaeffer that his life touched millions of souls and brought them to the truth of their creator.
I think to dwell continually on the dark side creates gloom and despair and anger and hatred, and that just adds to the darkness. So rather than that, we need to think of the beauty in the world, and also send out love and compassion to all beings in this world. Not just the people we like, but people who we find difficult. Because they are very deeply in need of compassion.
One of God's central qualities is compassion, a word that in Hebrew is related to the word for "womb." Not only is compassion a female image suggesting source of life and nourishment but it also has a feeling dimension: God as compassionate Spirit feels for us as a mother feels for the children of her womb. Spirit feels the suffering of the world and participates in it. . . .
There are those who do not hold that there is any innate goodness to mankind. To them I say, had you lived my life, you would not believe it. I have known the depths to which mortals are capable of descending, and I have seen the heights. I have seen how kindness and compassion may grow in the unlikeliest of places, as the mountain flower forces its way through the stern rock.
The real troublemakers are anger, jealousy, impatience, and hatred. With them, problems cannot be solved. Though we may have temporary success, ultimately our hatred or anger will create futher difficulties. Anger makes for swift solutions. Yet, when we face problems with compassion, sincerity, and good motivation, our solutions may take longer, but ultimately they are better.
Let us have compassion for those under chastisement. Alas, who are we ourselves? Who am I and who are you? Whence do we come and is it quite certain that we did nothing before we were born? This earth is not without some resemblance to a gaol. Who knows but that man is a victim of divine justice? Look closely at life. It is so constituted that one senses punishment everywhere.
Mentally, physically and emotionally we are the same. We each have the potential to good and bad and to be overcome by disturbing emotions such as anger, fear, hatred, suspicion and greed. These emotions can be the cause of many problems. On the other hand if you cultivate loving kindness, compassion and concern for others, there will be no room for anger, hatred and jealousy.
While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in it's final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of "the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit.
A man of understanding, a man who understands himself and others, always feels compassion. Even if somebody is an enemy you have compassion toward him because a man of understanding can understand the viewpoint of the other also. He knows why the other feels as he feels, he knows why the other is angry, because he knows his own self, and in knowing that, he has known all others.
To be awake and harmonious creates the possibility for ecstasy to happen. Ecstasy means the ultimate joy, inexpressible; no words are adequate to say anything about it. And when one has attained to ecstasy, when one has known the ultimate peak of joy, compassion comes as a consequence. When you have that joy, you like to share it; you cannot avoid sharing, sharing is inevitable.
By softening our attitudes, practicing mercy and compassion, we transform our lives by transforming other people's experience of us. Send love before you when you enter a room, and people will subconsciously feel it; they'll be prone to show greater kindness in return. That's how love makes things work better in our lives; it realigns the reactions of people and things around us.
If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display.
Throughout his many years, he enriched the lives of countless others and served as a model of generosity and discipline to those he met, fostering an atmosphere of compassion, harmony, and unity. Sri Chinmoy was a leader, humanitarian, artist, athlete, and public servant who will be sorely missed. His legacy of kindness, reflection, and resolve will endure for many years to come.
To feel overflowing love and almost unbearable compassion for all living creatures is the best way to fulfil the wishes of all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Even if for the moment you cannot actually help a sentient being in an external way, meditate on love and compassion constantly over the months and years until compassion is knit inseparably into the very fabric of your mind.
Don't wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him... so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God.