Rev. Danny Fisher

Today’s quote is another from the much-beloved Acharya Ani Pema Chödrön, whom I first quoted and wrote a little biography for in this post. This is it — from her feature in the latest issue of Shambhala Sun:

If we’re hurting enough, and we really start looking for the source of our pain and what we can do about it, it goes beyond just wanting to feel better ourselves. In Buddhism, this is called the bodhisattva ideal. In the Shambhala teachings, we talk about it as warriorship, or, you might say, spiritual warriorship. At its most basic, it means working on ourselves, developing courage and fearlessness and cultivating our capacity to love and care about other people. It involves taking good care of ourselves, but whatever we do, it’s all in the bigger context of helping.