QUOTE : Robert Thurman, professor of Buddhist studies at Columbia University, often uses an amusing and powerful image to describe what living compassionately, with lovingkindness, could look like: 'Imagine you're on the New York City subway,' he begins, 'and these extraterrestrials come and zap the subway car so that all of you in it are going to be together...forever.' What do we do? If someone is hungry, we feed them. If someone is freaking out, we try to calm them down. We might not like everybody, or approve of them - but we're going to be together forever, so we need to get along, take care of one another, and acknowledge that our lives are linked. Isn't living on planet Earth like being in that subway car? We're all together forever; our lives are linked.