‘Nowadays we find many people involved in “altruistic jobs”, spending all day helping others and then coming back home, shutting the door behind and throwing themselves on the bed crying, as they feel so lonely and desperate. We do have this type of paradox where we have people who spend lots of time “helping others” but not being able of helping themselves. Therefore we need a method that can teach us how to help ourselves, which does not mean at all being self-focused. If we can help others – and that is true, but we cannot help ourselves, then we do have a problem, and we should begin to question why so.’

Extract from Antonio Satta, ‘The Purpose of Vipassana’.