Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

Pema Chödron

from the book The Places That Scare You: A Guide to Fearlessness in Difficult Times

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Further quotes from the book The Places That Scare You:

• Doing all with one intention
• Threefold purity
• Stay!
• Forgive into freshness
• Our true nature and condition
• Nothing and no one is fixed
• Whatever we encounter
• Being inspired by everyday good fortune
• The queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere
• The anxiety of opening
• Everyday uncertainty
• Cultivating equanimity
• Happiness
• Life preferences
• The root of happiness
• Awakening our unlimited potential
• Dissolving our self-importance
• Dissolving our fear
• At least until you die
• The first mark of existence