Compassion and tolerance: their relationship in a spirit for turbulent times

Compassion relates well with tolerance in order to ‘keep life real’ in turbulent times when a spiritual bearing provides a way through suffering to a better place. This chapter explores the narrative of how kindness matters in our everyday awareness, as our sense of the world changes by events and ideas such as post-truth uncertainty, undertow and the unknown. It also tells of our stories woven from experiences, where we connect with feelings in the ebb and flow of nature. This is compassion relating with tolerance in practice. There is an essential play between the limiting survival contained in pleasure and pain, and the more expansive temporal holding position; and examples drawn from literature, poetry and spiritual traditions illustrate this play. We develop by actions which keep both part and whole in mind. In this way, the chapter arrives at a shape that fits the purpose of tolerance well, as an enabler of compassion.