It’s a funny thing to think that you can look at people daily, see all of the various forms of dysfunctionality they exhibit — all the signs of great personal suffering — and still not know anything at all about their pain. But there are good reasons for this kind of blindness.

No one can know the unspoken pain of another person until one knows his own; and this self-knowledge, I believe, is the heart of compassion.

In some strange paradoxical way, to know one’s own spiritual poverty is to see and know that same pain in all — and to value them all the more for it. And even more paradoxical is this fact: It’s never too late to awaken to what is true…and to see how it changes all things present, future, and past.