Thich Nhat Hanh provided this beautiful quote about compassion and embracing who we are in this world. I need to be inside of someone else`s skin to build compassion.
The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves “inside the skin” of the other. We “go inside” their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another’s suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, “to suffer with.”
About ivonprefontaine
In keeping with bell hooks and Noam Chomsky, I consider myself a public and dissident intellectual. Part of my work is to move beyond (transcend) institutional dogmas that bind me to defend freedom, raising my voice to be heard on behalf of those who seek equity and justice in all their forms.
I completed my PhD in Philosophy of Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA. My dissertation and research was how teachers experience becoming teachers and their role as leaders.
I focus on leading, communicating, and innovating in organizations. This includes mindfuful servant-leadership, World Cafe events, Appreciative Inquiry, and expressing one's self through creativity. I offer retreats, workshops, and presentations that can be tailored to your organzations specific needs.
I published peer reviewed articles about schools as learning organizations, currere as an ethical pursuit, and hope as an essential element of adult eductaion. I published three poems and am currently preparing my poetry to publish as an anthology of poetry.
I present on mindful leadership, servant leadership, schools as learning organizations, how teachers experience becoming teachers, assessement, and critical thinking. I facilitate mindfulness, hospitality retreats. and World Cafe Events using Appreciative Inquiry.
I am writing and researching about various forms of leadership, how teachers inform and form their identity as a particular teacher, schools as learning organizations, hope and its anticipatory relationship with the future, and hope as an essential element in learning.
ivonprefontaine
Teacher as Transformer 
It is wisdom and insight we all could benefit from, especially in this day and age, when life is so busy that we hardly have time to be compassionate towards ourselves, never mind trying to be compassionate towards others. On the flip side, though, I think we have a tendency to hold back to a degree – not because we aren’t compassionate, but because we’re frightened by the idea of walking in the shoes of someone who is in great pain.
Having said that, I believe there is a reason for all things, including – but in no way limited to – blog postings. So, I would like to thank you for sharing this particular piece of wisdom today. I hope you have a wonderful day.
You are welcome Holly. Thank you for further insight. Your point about fear about seeing ourselves in the shoes of another is so true. It is hard.
are empathy and compassion the same thing?
They are not exactly the same, but I don’t think you can have one without the other. I think the reason they are different is compassion is also something we need to give ourselves.
ahh. I love the nuance of language. Thanks, Ivon!
You are welcome.
very insightful:)
Thank you Len
well said about compassion. Thank you, Ivon!
You are welcome Amy
That’s a great lesson to us all, that compassion can’t be passive. If we are truly compassionate, we have to do something about it.
That is so true David. We have to live it.
Reblogged this on echosfromtheabyss.
Thank you for the re-blog. It is greatly appreciated.
My Pleasure thank you so much for making it available for me to share 🙂
Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron and the Dalai Lama are three of my mainstays. And let’s not forget Rumi and Hafiz 😉
All of those resonate and are in my library.
As I would imagine 😉
I don’t wish to comment on this post, but do wish to convey this feeling of ……co-incidences in life.
Last night I re-watched Thich Nhat Hanh’s dvd called ‘Peace Is Every Step’ and skimmed across the books on my shelves he has Authored. It seems years since I have read/watched either. And tonight I come across your Blog, (through another Blog I follow) and read two of your posts mentioning this inspiring Vietnamese Buddhist teacher.
How very strange to bump into Thich’s name 2 nights running (after so many years absence).
Thank you for stopping today Victoria. I find the same thing with synchronicity of events. Perhaps, as I aged, I take more time and pay attention differently. I find much great teaching in the writings and teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh.