Les Murray, 2009, 'Killing the Black Dog', Black Inc

https://flic.kr/p/fZLR5e 

'I derived great benefit from talking with him, as we often do when the pain and its terms are shared and there can be no more nonsense about Getting a Grip on Yourself. We gave each other permission to be ill, a necessary precondition of being cured. I'm convinced that stoicism is never the answer to anything, being nothing more than a cruel, callous encouragement to people to devour each other, a powerful ally of sadists and tyrants keen to get people to endure things which should be firmly refused as unendurabale. Courage, indeed! Desensitisation and bully-training, rather.'
p. 14

https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/killing-black-dog

https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/archived/bookshow/les-murray-and-the-black-dog/3083662 

universal compassion

https://flic.kr/p/8Vrhpe

  ' ... 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 

'The Guest House' by Rumi

https://flic.kr/p/55DUEf

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond. 


Translated by Coleman Barks

http://www.colemanbarks.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleman-barks/rumi-and-some-new-ways-to_b_777382.html