The end of suffering happens in this very moment, whether you're watching a terrorist attack or doing the dishes. And compassion begins at home. Because I don't believe my thoughts, sadness can't exist. That's how I can go to the depths of anyone's suffering, if they invite me, and take them by the hand and walk them out of it into the sunlight of reality. I've taken that walk myself.
Interpretation
Suffering can be alleviated by practicing compassion and letting go of negative thoughts.
This quote speaks to the idea that suffering transcends circumstances, whether in a deeply troubling situation or in mundane tasks. It emphasizes the importance of compassion, which begins with self-acceptance and mindfulness, allowing individuals to connect with others' suffering and guide them towards healing and a more positive reality, as well as recognizing one's own journey through suffering.
In practice
In a therapy session, a counselor might quote this to emphasize the importance of presence and compassion in healing.
When you stay present with your children, that’s where abundance is. And when you stay out of their business, that’s where everything you deserve in life is. When you’re in presence, there’s no story, and you are abundance. And you come to trust that space so often that you just eventually hang out as that, because there is nothing that can move you out of it, not even a perceived child or a perceived anything.
It is easy to be swept away by some overwhelming feeling, so it's helpful to remember that any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says, "You're caught in the dream."
We don't attach to people or to things; we attach to uninvestigated concepts that we believe to be true in the moment.
An unquestioned mind is the world of suffering.
Hurt feelings or discomfort of any kind cannot be cause by another person. No one outside me can hurt me. That’s not a possibility. It’s only when I believe a stressful thought that I get hurt. And I’m the one who’s hurting me by believing what I think. This is very good news, because it means that I don’t have to get someone else to stop hurting me. I’m the one who can stop hurting me. It’s within my power.
I am a lover of what is, not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality.
The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come.
I have lived to prove Thoreau's contention that a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
I expect you have seen someone put a a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny steak of flame creeping along the edged of the newspaper. It was like that now.
My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.
It's a fallacy that writers have to shut themselves up in their ivory towers to write. I have all these interruptions, three of which I gave birth to. If I was thrown for a loop every time I was distracted I could never get anything done.
Doing what has never been done before is intellectually seductive, whether or not we deem it practical.
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