Compassion Defined as Mixture of Sadness and Joy That Transcends Both

What was said

"The Tibetans have this really profoundly beautiful notion of compassion, which is that it's a mixture of sadness and joy. So that you're sad because there's suffering in the world. You're not happy that children are hungry. But your heart is so open that there is a joyfulness that transcends happiness and sadness."

Ram Dass corrected Western misunderstandings of compassion by defining it as simultaneously holding grief for suffering and joy from an open heart, rather than sentimental niceness. This Tibetan teaching reframes compassion as a stable state of consciousness that contains both sadness and transcendent joy, not an emotion projected toward others.