Although you may not always be able to avoid difficult situations,you can modify the extent to which you can suffer by how you choose to respond to the situation.

Happiness can be achieved through training the mind.

Looking at various means of developing compassion, I think empathy is an important factor: the ability to appreciate others' suffering.

It is the state of mind of the person wielding the instrument that determines to what end it will be put.

Genuine happiness and compassion go hand in hand.

We need to employ a secular approach to ethics, secular in the Indian sense of respecting all religious traditions and even the views of non-believers in an unbiased way. Secular ethics rooted in scientific findings, common experience and common sense can easily be introduced into the secular education system. If we can do that there is a real prospect of making this 21st century an era of peace and compassion.

Ethics: The indispensable interface between my desire to be happy and yours.