Near Enemies Quotes

“I’m helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are “near enemies” to every great virtue—reactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can’t possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a “pathological empathy” of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can’t help but stay present”
― Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living

“I don't understand,' Gamache said finally, bringing his eyes back to Myrna. 'Can you explain?'

Myrna nodded. 'Pity and compassion are the easiest to understand. Compassion involves empathy. You see the stricken person as an equal. Pity doesn't. If you pity someone you feel superior.'

'But it's hard to tell one from the other,' Gamache nodded. 'Exactly. Even for the person feeling it. Almost everyone would claim to be full of compassion. It's one of the noble emotions. But really, it's pity they feel.'

'So pity is the near enemy of compassion,' said Gamache slowly, mulling it over.

'That's right. It looks like compassion, acts like compassion, but is actually the opposite of it. And as long as pity's in place there's not room for compassion. It destroys, squeezes out, the nobler emotion.'

'Because we fool ourselves into believing we're feeling one, when we're actually feeling the other.'

'Fool ourselves, and fool others,' said Myrna.

'And love and attachment?' asked Gamache.

'Mothers and children are classic examples. Some mothers see their job as preparing their kids to live in the big old world. To be independent, to marry and have children of their own. To live wherever they choose and do what makes them happy. That's love. Others, and we all see them, cling to their children. Move to the same city, the same neighborhood. Live through them. Stifle them. Manipulate, use guilt-trips, cripple them.'

'Cripple them? How?'

'By not teaching them to be independent.'

'But it's not just mothers and children,' said Gamache.

'No. It's friendships, marriages. Any intimate relationship.

Love wants the best for others. Attachment takes hostages.' Gamache nodded. He'd seen his share of those. Hostages weren't allowed to escape, and when they tried tragedy followed.”
― Louise Penny, The Cruelest Month