Writings: Pity…not deep enough

From my friend Carmen:

Compassion is a far greater and nobler thing than pity.

Pity has its roots in fear and carries a sense of arrogance and condescension, sometimes even a smug feeling of “I’m glad it’s not me.”

As Stephen Levine says: “When your fear touches someone’s pain it becomes pity; when your love touches someone’s pain, it becomes compassion.”

To train in compassion is to know that all beings are the same and suffer in similar ways, to honour all those who suffer, and to know that you are neither separate from nor superior to anyone…

~Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, chapter 12