If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. People who can open to the web of life that called us into being
Joanna MacyRead
Compassion literally means to feel with, to suffer with. Everyone is capable of compassion, and yet everyone tends to avoid it because it's uncomfortable. And the avoidance produces psychic numbing - resistance to experiencing our pain for the world and other beings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Compassion involves sharing in the suffering of others, yet many avoid it due to discomfort.
This quote by Joanna Macy emphasizes the essence of compassion as a shared emotional experience. It highlights that while every individual has the capacity for compassion, there is often a tendency to shy away from it because it can be uncomfortable to confront the pain of others. This avoidance, she warns, leads to a 'psychic numbing,' where we become desensitized to both our own suffering and the suffering of the world, calling for a deeper engagement with our shared humanity.
Themes
CompassionSufferingHumanityEmpathyConnection
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a speech about mental health awareness to emphasize the importance of empathy.
More from Joanna Macy
All quotes →To be alive in this beautiful, self-organizing universe -- to participate in the dance of life with senses to perceive it, lungs that breathe it, organs that draw nourishment from it -- is a wonder beyond words.
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It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to evolutionary and psychological transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells.
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Confirming an intuitive sense I've always felt for the interconnectedness of all things, this doctrine has provided me ways to understand the intricate web of co-arising that links one being with all other beings, and to apprehend the reciprocities between thought and action, self and universe.
Joanna MacyRead
Out of this darkness a new world can arise, not to be constructed by our minds so much as to emerge from our dreams. Even though we cannot see clearly how it's going to turn out, we are still called to let the future into our imagination. We will never be able to build what we have not first cherished in our hearts.
Joanna MacyRead
It’s walking the razor’s edge of the sacred moment where you don’t know, you can’t count on, and comfort yourself with any sure hope. All you can know is your allegiance to life and your intention to serve it in this moment that we are given. In that sense, this radical uncertainty liberates your creativity and courage.
Joanna MacyRead
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