' ... a compassion which carries a sense of responsibility ...
This sense of responsibility will only arise if you have generated a spontaneous, genuine compassion which extends to all sentient beings without exception ...
You recognise your state as being one of suffering, then you will also feel a genuine empathy and connection with others ...
Shantideva in The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life ... explains a way of cultivating genuine empathy by considering others as equal to oneself. For example, just as you personally wish to be happy and overcome suffering, others too have a similar desire, and just as you have the right to achieve this, so do they. With that sense of equality you reverse your self-centred perspective, putting yourself in others' shoes and relating to them as if they were dearer to you than you are to yourself.'
p. 119
The Four Noble Truths
The Dalai Lama
Thorsons, London, 1997
