Unless you have suffered and wept, you really don't understand what compassion is, nor can you give comfort to someone who is suffering. If you haven't cried, you can't dry another's eyes. Unless you've walked in darkness, you can't help wanderers find the way. Unless you've looked into the eyes of menacing death and felt its hot breath, you can't help another rise from the dead and taste anew the joy of being alive.
Interpretation
True compassion requires personal experience of suffering.
This quote by Takashi Nagai emphasizes that understanding and empathizing with others' pain is fundamentally rooted in personal experience. It suggests that without having gone through hardships ourselves, we lack the depth of feeling necessary to genuinely comfort and help those who are suffering, as it is through our own trials that we acquire the wisdom and compassion needed to support others in their darkest times.
In practice
In a speech about mental health awareness, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of empathy.
Men and women of the world, never again plan war! With this atomic bomb, war can only mean suicide for the human race. From this atomic waste the people of Nagasaki confront the world and cry out: No more war! Let us follow the commandment of love and work together. The people of Nagasaki prostrate themselves before God and pray: Grant that Nagasaki may be the last atomic wilderness in the history of the world.
Let's be the people who look at the hurting until we hurt with them. No hurrying past, turning away, or shifting of eyes. No pretending or glossing over. Let's look at the face until we see the person.
Aside from doing everything possible to provide programs for people who are seriously ill, I want to do everything humanly possible to help create a more caring society so that we can begin to counter the painful loneliness and sense of helplessness which has engulfed too many of our people.
It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.
If we can cultivate a concern for others, keeping in mind the oneness of humanity, we can build a more compassionate world.
One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me.
I palliate the sufferings of others. yes I see myself as softening the blows, dissolving acids, neutralizing poisons, every moment of the day. I try to fulfill the wishes of others, to perform miracles. I exert myself performing miracles.
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