Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you. Invoke them often and trust in their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.
~ St. Francis de Sales
This tenderness for life, bodhichitta, awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. It awakens through kinship with the suffering of others. We train in the bodhichitta practices in order to become so open that we can take the pain of the world in, let it touch our hearts, and turn it into compassion.