Great quote from the upcoming-birthday-present-book I received from my Mom, "Meditative Gardening," by Cheryl Wilfong. Obviously it's about more than gardening.
"While Loving-Kindness is the heart's natural response to another being, Compassion is the heart's response to seeing another living being suffer. This includes watching someone wrestle with her particular Root of Stress. After diagnosing myself as an aversive personality type, I now easily recognize others in my "family" of Aversion. I used to defend myself from feeling their Suffering by thinking "That's not right...If they'd only...They should..." Nowadays, when I watch another aversive person try to halt what's unpleasant (by complaining, judging, or expressing annoyance) I recognize a pattern that is deeply familiar to me--and, rather than feeling repelled by that person's actions or speech, my heart opens to them."
Ah, is that what they call it--aversive personality type? Pass the mirror, please. What a concept: to stop one's own aversive behavior and simultaneously cultivate compassion for everyone else who's doing it. Gotta work on that.
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