## Metadata - Author: [[Norman Fischer]] - Full Title: Training in Compassion - Category: #books ## Highlights - Changing the habit of avoiding difficulty to the habit of engaging it creatively may be the single most important factor for training the mind. ([Location 222](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=222)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - In our culture, intelligence and caring seem to be quite different from each other. A highly intelligent person may often be a little arrogant or abstract; a deeply feeling person may appear to be a fuzzy thinker. But in Buddhist thought true intelligence and real caring always go together. They are like the two wings of a noble bird that must be activated together in flight, in perfect harmony and rhythm. ([Location 395](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=395)) - There is no such thing as a person. There are only persons who have cocreated one another over the long history of our species. The idea of an independent, isolated, atomized person is impossible. And here we are not only speaking of our needing others practically. We are talking about our inmost sense of identity. Our consciousness of ourselves is never independent of others. This is what nonself or emptiness means in Buddhist teaching: that there is no such thing as an isolated individual. ([Location 988](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=988)) - Unhappiness and gratitude simply cannot exist in the same moment. If you feel grateful, you are a happy person. ([Location 998](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=998)) - Who can fathom why people do what they do? Who can fathom what makes another person tick? Jack Himmelstein, of the Center for Understanding in Conflict, has a very wise saying about this: “We judge ourselves by our intentions; we judge others by the effects of their actions on us.” This is one reason we so often come out on the righteous side of our conflicts: we know (or think we know) our own inmost intentions; we assume the intentions of others based on our understanding of their outward acts. And we are usually wrong. ([Location 1695](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=1695)) - With mind training we are quite honest about what is going on, never pretending, never whitewashing or denying, but at the same time not assuming that we have to give in to or believe our every impulse and thought. We are all quite predictable because we are all fixated on identities we have constructed (with the help of our families and friends) that we consider to be accurate reflections of our possibilities. But they are not. ([Location 1787](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=1787)) - Don’t be so predictable is telling us to cultivate beginner’s mind in relation to ourselves and our own experiences. To stop being such experts on ourselves. We should all stop becoming professional selves and become amateur selves. An amateur is someone who does what he does for the love of it, not for advancement or money. Imagine being yourself for the love of discovering every day who you are in relation to others: loving them, and yourself in the process of loving them. In this sense we are all a bit too professional about our lives and our relationships, engaging in them for self-advantage, which reduces the love—and the fun. Amateurs always have more fun than professionals. Professionals have to be predictable; amateurs can’t be. ([Location 1793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=1793)) - In Zen we have a colorful way of making the point Don’t make everything so painful: “Don’t put a head on top of your head.” ([Location 1828](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00AR2WRZW&location=1828))