Buddhism encourages new followers to go slowly and adopt the practices gradually. This is sound advice. Buddhism isn’t just another religion or philosophy to learn about, it’s also culturally different from anything we’re familiar with in the West, and is presented in many Eastern languages. Gradual suits me just fine.
On the Buddhist path, compassion is pretty much a prerequisite and one I very much agree with. Only it can be really, really hard to feel any sense of compassion when we hear and read such disturbing news across the media. It can be really difficult to feel compassion for our fellow man when they can be so annoying, egotistical, spiteful, hurtful, inconsiderate…