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:

• A flexible identity
• Threefold purity
• Our true nature and condition
• Awakening our unlimited potential
• Happiness
• Dissolving our self-importance
• Cultivating equanimity
• The essence of generosity
• Cultivating equanimity
• Doing all with one intention
• Stay!
• Whatever we encounter
• Dissolving our fear
• Nothing and no one is fixed
• Life preferences
• Abiding in openness
• The queasy feeling of being in the middle of nowhere
• Idiot Compassion
• The root of happiness