These are nuances of the human tragedy, nuances of the tragicomic situation in which we find ourselves. "Don't bring things to a painful point" is again saying, "Don't humiliate people." We do all of these things because we feel pain, because we feel hurt and separate. Instead of first making friends with what we're feeling and then, second, trying to communicate, we have all these ways of keeping the "us and them" story solid and strong. That's what causes all the pain on this earth, including the fact that the ecosystem is turned upside down. All of that comes from people not making friends with themselves and never being willing to communicate with the one they consider to be the troublemaker. That's how we stay caught in this battleground, this war zone.

From START WHERE YOU ARE by Pema Chdrn, 1994.
Published by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc., Boston.