The Gateway to Sympathetic Joy (from Cultivating Inner Peace) - a podcast by podcasts@pariyatti.org

Chapter 19 - The Gateway to Sympathetic Joy
fromCultivating Inner Peaceby Paul R. Fleischman, M.D.

A person who has learned the skill of sorrow paradoxically will be lightened by kinship and communion with all beings, and will spontaneously speak in phrases of emphathy and saliency. Words and sorrow are a couple with a long, strong marriage.

Regardless of what we believe the meaning of our life to be, we feel peaceful when our sense of concern is directed outside ourselves toward others, not as a substitute for selfcare, but as an extension of it. Sorrow is what enables pity, dread, or condescension to become compassion. This is one of the deepest ironies of human nature, that our sorrow also contains a leavening celebration.

Dr. Paul Fleischman
Massachusetts, USA
2020
16 minutes

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Copyright, 2020 Paul R. Fleischman

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