Respect, Compassion, Courage

"Respect leads to caring - a quality of impeccability in what we do...As we foster the quality of respect in our lives, we can also begin to see the world in a different light. The tone of caring that arises from giving respect can transform how we interact with society. We begin to explore the possibilities of service, of taking an active role in seeing what needs doing and lending our energy to those endeavors. Compassion motivates us to act and wisdom ensures the means are effective."
- Joseph Goldstein

"Compassion has nothing to do with achievement at all. It is spacious and very generous. When a person develops real compassion, he is uncertain whether he is being generous to others or to himself because compassion is environmental generosity, without direction, without 'for me' and without 'for them.' It is filled with joy, spontaneously existing joy, constant joy in the sense of trust, in the sense that joy contains tremendous wealth and richness.
We could say that compassion is the ultimate attitude of wealth: an antipoverty attitude, a war on want. It contains all sorts of heroic, juicy, positive, visionary, expansive qualities. And it implies larger-scale thinking, a freer and more expansive way of relating to yourself and the world...It is the attitude that one has been born fundamentally rich rather than that one must become rich. Without this kind of confidence, meditation cannot be transferred into action at all.
Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people, because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy. They recharge your energy, because in the process of relating with them you acknowledge your wealth, your richness. So, if you have difficult tasks to perform, such as dealing with people or life situations, you do not feel you are running out of resources. Each time you are faced with a difficult task it presents itself as a delightful opportunity to demonstrate your richness, your wealth."
-Chogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism p.115

"We each need to make our lion's roar - to persevere with unshakable courage when faced with all manner of doubts and sorrows and fears - to declare our right to awaken."
- Jack Kornfield