Myths tell us how to confront and bear and interpret suffering, but they do not say that in life there can or should be no suffering. When the Buddha declares there is escape from sorrow, the escape is Nirvana, which is not a place, like heaven, but a psychological state of mind in which you are released from desire and fear. Your life becomes harmonious, centered and affirmative, even with suffering. The Buddhists speak of the bodhisattva - the one who knows immortality, yet voluntarily enters into the field of the fragmentation of time and participates willingly and joyfully in the sorrows of the world. And this means not only experiencing sorrows oneself but participating with compassion in the sorrows of others. Compassion is the awakening of the heart from bestial self-interest to humanity. The word compassion means literally suffering with. Compassion condones suffering in that it recognizes that suffering is life. Who, when or where, has ever been quit of the suffering of life in this world?

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell