The
word compassion comes to us from the Late Latin word compati, to bear suffering, to sympathize. To have compassion, that is, to have sympathetic
consciousness of others' distress and a desire to alleviate that stress, is to
practice one of the finest and noblest of emotions that we have.
What
we seem to be losing these days, is the understanding that the practice and acceptance
of compassion is a relationship between two equals. It is not a relationship
between the healer and the wounded or the have and the have not’s’.
