In the wake of the recent shooting in Fresno, which killed three people, I have been left wondering "what happened? How did it get to this?" And after scrutinizing all the information I could get, I can't help but believe this hate crime, as well as all hate crimes including the Holocaust, could have been prevented through the simple act of compassion. As the Dalai Lama said,

Developing compassion for others brings inner strength contributing to our inner peace. This automatically reduces fear. This is important because fear and stress can lead to frustration, which in turn can lead to anger and violence. It's not enough to say that violence is destructive, to prevent it we must address its causes, which very often are fear and anger.

Many hate crimes, if not all, start from fear and morph into anger and hatred. Just to put things into perspective, think of how many lives could have been saved had Hitler not reacted out of fear and hatred to destroy people. Yeah, a lot.

With the arrival of the Holocaust Remembrance Day and this Fresno shooting fresh in our minds, I believe it is essential than ever that we as human beings cultivate compassion for others to remove that fear and forestall the anger. I am also very aware that being compassionate is not as easy as it sounds.

In fact, extending our compassion for others, especially those we have no understanding of, may be one of the hardest things we find ourselves doing simply because it requires an enormous amount of courage and trust from us.

Yet, as hard as it may be, it is so important that we take that first step of extending compassion to prevent future tragedies such as what happened in the past with the Holocaust and recently this last week in Fresno.