This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Life is a process, a seamless garment, and there is a universal nexus connecting all phenomena so that every part pulsates sensitively to every other part. The truth is inexpressibly deeper than a harmony-between-parts relationship, but this can only be experienced mystically. Pragmatically, on the plane of our sensory experiencing, love is the witness of the unseen yet ever potent law of unity. The root of all sins is to be blind to this fundamental fact regarding the inner nature of the universe. If love rules us, no sins can be committed. En passant we may say that the doctrine of karma is a phenomenal expression of the organic unity of the universe. The individual cannot gain at the cost of the whole. Pain and suffering check us when harmony is disturbed. Love restores harmony and registers through us a deep compassion which dissolves our separative carapaces and releases our energies for impersonal service.
Compassion | Cost | Doctrine | Harmony | Individual | Law | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Organic | Pain | Phenomena | Relationship | Service | Suffering | Truth | Unity | Universe | Witness |
Life is a process, a seamless garment, and there is a universal nexus connecting all phenomena so that every part pulsates sensitively to every other part. The truth is inexpressibly deeper than a harmony-between-parts relationship, but this can only be experienced mystically. Pragmatically, on the plane of our sensory experiencing, love is the witness of the unseen yet ever potent law of unity. The root of all sins is to be blind to this fundamental fact regarding the inner nature of the universe. IF love rules us, no sins can be committed. En passant we may say that the doctrine of karma is a phenomenal expression of the organic unity of the universe. The individual cannot gain at the cost of the whole. Pain and suffering check us when harmony is disturbed. Love restores harmony and registers through us a deep compassion which dissolves our separative carapaces and releases our energies for impersonal service.
Compassion | Cost | Doctrine | Harmony | Individual | Law | Life | Life | Love | Nature | Organic | Pain | Phenomena | Relationship | Service | Suffering | Truth | Unity | Universe | Witness |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Human dignity… can be achieved only in the field of ethics, and ethical achievement is measured by the degree in which our actions are governed by compassion and love, not by greed and aggressiveness.
Achievement | Compassion | Dignity | Ethics | Greed | Love |
Arnold J. Toynbee, fully Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Human dignity...can be achieved only in the field of ethics, and ethical achievement is measured by the degree in which our actions are governed by compassion and love, not by greed and aggressiveness.
Achievement | Compassion | Dignity | Ethics | Greed | Love |
The measure of love is compassion; the measure of compassion is kindness.
Compassion | Kindness | Love |
Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
Wisdom, compassion and courage - these are three universally recognized moral qualities of man. It matters not in what way men come to the exercise of these moral qualities, the result is one and the same. When a man understands the nature and use of these three moral qualities, he will then understand how to put in order his personal conduct and character; he will understand how to govern men.
Character | Compassion | Conduct | Courage | Man | Men | Nature | Order | Qualities | Will | Wisdom | Govern | Understand |
Wisdom is the tears of experience, the bridge of experience and imagination over time. It is the listening heart, the melancholy sigh, the distillation of despair to provide a realistic, if often despondent, view of the world.
Despair | Experience | Heart | Imagination | Listening | Melancholy | Tears | Time | Wisdom | World |
In the alchemy of man’s soul almost all noble attributes - courage, honor, love, hope, faith, duty, loyalty, and so on - can be transmuted into ruthlessness. Compassion alone stands apart from the continuous traffic between good and evil proceeding within us. Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion, even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Alchemy | Compassion | Courage | Duty | Evil | Faith | Good | Honor | Hope | Love | Loyalty | Loyalty | Man | Ruthlessness | Soul |
Man started out as a "weak thing of the world" and evolved "to confound the things that are mighty." And within the human species, too, the weak often develop aptitudes and devises which enable them not only to survive but to prevail over the strong. Indeed, the formidableness of the human species stems from the survival of its weak. Were it not for the compassion that moves us to care for the sick, the crippled, and the old there would probably would have been neither culture or civilization. The crippled warrior who had to stay behind while the manhood of the tribe went out to war was the storyteller, teacher, and artisan. The old and the sick had a hand in the development of the arts of healing and of cooking. One thinks of the venerable sage, the unhinged medicine man, the epileptic prophet, the blind bard, and the witty hunchback and dwarf.
Care | Civilization | Compassion | Culture | Man | Survival | War | World | Old |
Hearing is one of the body's five senses. But listening is an art.
Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.
Compassion | Soul |
Compassion...abolishes the distance, the in between which always exists in human inter course; and if virtue will always be ready to assert that it is better to suffer wrong than do wrong, compassion will transcend this by stating in complete and even naïve sincerity that it is easier to suffer than to see others suffer.
Better | Compassion | Sincerity | Virtue | Virtue | Will | Wrong |
I make progress by having people around who are smarter than I am and listening to them. And I assume that everyone is smarter about something than I am.
There are two good rules which ought to be written upon every heart. Never believe anything bad about anybody, unless you positively know that it is true. Never tell even that, unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary, and that God is listening while you tell it.
Never believe anything bad about anybody unless you positively know that it is true. Never tell even that unless you feel that it is absolutely necessary and that God is listening while you tell it.
Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
If we can listen we shall hear. By reverently listening to the inner voice, we may reinstate ourselves on the pinnacle of humanity.
From listening comes wisdom; from speaking, repentance.
Listening | Repentance | Wisdom |
In many spiritual traditions there is only one important question to answer, and that question is: Who am I? When we begin to answer it, we are filled with images and ideals – the negative images of ourselves that we wish to change and perfect and the positive images of some great spiritual potential – yet the path is not so much about changing ourselves as it is about listening to the fundamentals of our being.
Realizing that no simple formulas apply to everyone, we develop the courage to live a unique spiritual life, in our own idiosyncratic way. While archetypal patterns exist to guide seekers, in the West individuals can find their won way within these deeper patterns by honoring their unique backgrounds, temperaments, values and creative capacities... We commit ourselves to passionate action in the world, without becoming overly attached to the success or failure of our endeavors... In spiritual maturity, recognizing that such an attitude of indifference stems from a fear of life, we commit to our spouses, professions, and social action, developing compassion and equanimity through a balanced engagement with life.
Action | Compassion | Courage | Equanimity | Failure | Fear | Indifference | Life | Life | Success | Unique | World | Engagement | Failure |