“Another thing about the abolitionist movement is that, if you look at the history of it, it actually took sixty or seventy or eighty years to actually make an effect. And some of the people who started it didn’t live to see the fruits of it. So there’s something about this giving myself to benefit others. I will never see them, I will never meet them, I will never get anything from them, whether that’s people or parts of the earth. And having this long view. And somehow it cannot be, in that case, about the limited self. It cannot be, because the limited self is not getting anything out of it. [...] But how might we have this sense of urgency without despair? Meeting the enormity of the suffering in the world with a sense of urgency in the heart, engagement in the heart, but without despair. How can we have, as human beings, a love that keeps going no matter what? And we call that ‘equanimity.’ It’s an aspect of equanimity, that it stays steady no matter what. The love, the compassion stays steady. [...] If we’re, in the practice, cultivating this sense of keeping the mind up and bright, and it’s still open, and it’s still sensitive, and the heart is open and receptive, but the consciousness is buoyant, that means it won’t sink when it meets the suffering in the world. The compassion will be buoyant.”
Thank you for the kind words Jonas!
Your comment reminded me of another passage from one of my favorite Rob talks, Selflessness and a Life of Love: