I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I'm not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I'm not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.

Follow the three R's: - Respect for self. - Respect for others. - Responsibility for all your actions.

Every human actions becomes dangerous when it is deprived of human feeling. When they are performed with feeling and respect for human values, all activities become constructive.

For the moment a lot of attention is given to economic concerns, and these problems at hand easily eclipse all others. But the remedies proposed for these problems all come out of outmoded ways of thinking... The remedy? Compassion. The logical feeling that we find in ourselves if we search deeply enough that has to be exercised toward all other living creatures.

The ultimate source of a happy life is warm-heartedness. This means extending to others the kind of concern we have for ourselves. On a simple level we find that if we have a compassionate heart we naturally have more friends. And scientists today are discovering that while anger and hatred eat into our immune system, warm-heartedness and compassion are good for our health.

Even within one person, yesterday and today, there are differences. We must look at a deeper level.

A tree with strong roots can withstand the most violent storm, but the tree can't grow roots just as the storm appears on the horizon.