The compassion we feel normally is biased and mixed with attachment. Genuine compassion flows towards all living beings, particularly your enemies. If I try to develop compassion towards my enemy, it may not benefit him directly, he may not even be aware of it. But it will immediately benefit me by calming my mind. On the other hand, if I dwell on how awful everything is, I immediately lose my peace of mind.

Hatred, jealousy and excessive attachment cause suffering and agitation. I feel compassion can help us overcome these disturbances and let us return to a calm state of mind. Compassion is not just being kind to your friend. That involves attachment because it is based on expectation. Compassion is when you do something good without any expectations - based on realizing that "the other person is also just like me".

I hope that at this moment you are thinking of yourself as a human being rather than as an American, Asian, European, African, or member of any particular country. These loyalties are secondary.

There are two kinds of satisfaction or happiness: one mainly through mental peace; another physical comfort

The many factors which divide us are actually much more superficial than those we share. Despite all of the things that differentiate us - race, language, religion, gender, wealth and so on - we are all equal concerning our fundamental humanity.

Instead of harboring fear and suspicion we need to think of other people not as ‘them’ but ‘us’.

Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way - everything is interdependent, not absolute.