Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering. A compassionate concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness,” the Dalai Lama had said earlier in the week. He was now rubbing his hands together in thought as we returned to the topic of compassion. “On this planet, over the last three thousand years, different religious traditions developed. All these traditions carry the same message: the message of love. So the purpose of these different traditions is to promote and strengthen the value of love, compassion. So different medicine, but same aim: to cure our pain, our illness. As we mentioned, even scientists now say basic human nature is compassionate.” Both he and the Archbishop had emphasized that this compassionate concern for others is instinctual and that we are hardwired to connect and to care. However, as the Archbishop explained earlier in the week, “It takes time. We are growing and learning how to be compassionate, how to be caring, how to be human.” The Buddha supposedly said, “What is that one thing, which when you possess, you have all other virtues? It is compassion.”
It is worth taking a moment to think about what compassion really means, since it is a term that is often misunderstood. Jinpa, with the help of colleagues, created the Compassion Cultivation Training at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine. In his marvelous book A Fearless Heart: How the Courage to Be Compassionate Can Transform Our Lives, he explains: “Compassion is a sense of concern that arises when we are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to see that suffering relieved.” He adds, “Compassion is what connects the feeling of empathy to acts of kindness, generosity, and other expressions of altruistic tendencies.” The Biblical Hebrew word for compassion, rachamim, comes from the root word for womb, rechem, and the Dalai Lama often says that it is from our mother’s nurturing that we learn compassion. He also says that his mother was his first teacher of compassion. It is from being nurtured, and in turn nurturing our own children, that we discover the nature of compassion. Compassion is in many ways expanding this maternal instinct that was so pivotal to the survival of our species.
The Dalai Lama tells a story of flying one night from Japan to San Francisco. Sitting close to him was a couple with two children, a very active boy of around three years old and a baby. At the beginning, it seemed the father was helping to look after the children, often walking about with the young boy, who kept running through the aisles. In the middle of the night the Dalai Lama looked over and saw that the father was fast asleep and the mother was left trying to take care of the two tired and cranky children by herself. The Dalai Lama handed the boy a piece of candy, as he noticed the mother’s swollen eyes and exhaustion. “Seriously,” he said later. “I thought about it, and I don’t think I would have had that kind of patience.” The Dalai Lama’s comment echoed a topic I have discussed with quite a few religious seekers and parents: It probably takes many years of monastic practice to equal the spiritual growth generated by one sleepless night with a sick child.
While we all carry what the Dalai Lama calls the “seed of compassion” from our own experience of being nurtured by others, compassion is actually a skill that can be cultivated. It is something that we can learn to develop and then use to extend our circle of concern beyond our immediate family to others. It helps when one recognizes our shared humanity.
“Archbishop, Your Holiness, over the course of the week, you have talked so much about compassion that I thought we might need to rename your collaboration The Book of Compassion. In this session, I hope we can explore compassion even more deeply. While everyone agrees that being compassionate is a worthy goal, it is hard for many people to understand or to put into practice. The word compassion, as we have said, literally means ‘suffering with.’ So what would you say to the person who says, ‘I have enough problems of my own. Why should I worry about being more compassionate and think about others who are suffering?’”
“As we have discussed,” the Dalai Lama began, “we are social animals. Even for kings or queens or spiritual leaders, their survival depends on the rest of the community. So therefore, if you want a happy life and fewer problems, you have to develop a serious concern for the well-being of others. So then when someone is passing through a difficult period or difficult circumstances, then automatically will come a sense of concern for their well-being. And if there is the possibility to help, then you can help. If there is no possibility to help, you can just pray or wish them well.
“Even other social animals have this same concern for each other. I think the other day I also mentioned how scientists have found that when two mice are together, if one is injured, the other will lick it. The injured mouse that is being licked by another mouse will heal much faster than a mouse that is alone.
“This concern for others is something very precious. We humans have a special brain, but this brain causes a lot of suffering because it is always thinking me, me, me, me. The more time you spend thinking about yourself, the more suffering you will experience. The incredible thing is that when we think of alleviating other people’s suffering, our own suffering is reduced. This is the true secret to happiness. So this is a very practical thing. In fact, it is common sense.”
“So will the mouse that does the licking benefit as well?” I asked.
The Dalai Lama spoke in Tibetan, and Jinpa translated: “One could argue that the mouse doing the licking is better off, and is also in a calmer state of mind.”
The Archbishop laughed at all of this discussion of mice and the need for scientific justifications for what, to him, was so obviously at the very core of our humanity. “I would say that one of the ways to show that compassion is something we want to become is the very fact that we admire compassionate people. You know, you don’t—very, very few of us—admire a vengeful person. Why do they come to listen to the Dalai Lama?
“It is very largely because of who he has become. They are attracted to him because of his spiritual stature. A stature that has been created by the fact of his caring for others, even in the midst of his own suffering, the suffering of being in exile.”
“Still, Archbishop, the question for many people is that they have so many of their own problems. They may admire both of you and say, ‘Well that’s wonderful, they’re incredibly holy men. But I’ve got to feed my children.’ And ‘I have to do my job.’ And ‘I don’t have enough money.’ Or they say, ‘If I am compassionate others will take advantage of me, because it’s a dog-eat-dog world.’ So why is compassion in their self-interest, how does it help the rest of their goals in life?”
“Yes, I would hope they would try it out, because it’s very difficult just speaking about it theoretically. It’s something that you have to work out in actual life. Try out being kind when you are walking in the street and say good morning to the people you are passing, or smile, when you are not feeling like it. I bet you my bottom dollar, in a very short period of time this pall of self-regard, which is a bad self-regard, lifts. It’s universal. When you try it out, why does it work? We really are wired to be caring of the other. And when we go against that fundamental law of our being, whether we like it or not, it is going to have deleterious consequences for us.
“When you say, ‘I, I, I, I, I,’ as His Holiness pointed out, you are going to come a cropper. But when you say, ‘How can I help?’ even in the midst of your deep anguish, it’s got an alchemy that transforms your pain. It may not take it away. But it becomes in a way bearable, more than it was at the time when you were just saying ‘poor me,’ thinking only about yourself.
“When your doorbell rings, and you’re going to open it, as a Christian, I would make the sign of a cross over whoever it is who is there, which is just to say let them be blessed. They may not be in desperate need of anything. But they might also be. And you are in that process being helped not to be so self-regarding, so constantly conscious of your anguish. As you remember, yes, compassion is absolutely essential. It is like oxygen.”
“Very right, very right,” the Dalai Lama said. “Thinking me, me, me automatically brings fear, a sense of insecurity, and distrust. That kind of person will never be happy person. And at the end of that person’s life, their neighbor will be happy that that person is gone. Yes?”
“You are quite right, yes,” the Archbishop said.
“If you look after others, particularly those who are in need, then when you are passing through some difficulties, there are plenty of people you can ask for help. Then at the end, many people will feel that they have really lost a wonderful person. So it’s just common sense,” the Dalai Lama concluded, pointing to his forehead.
“And then I want to say,” the Dalai Lama now added, passionate and wanting to convince the skeptics, “look at Stalin’s picture or Hitler’s picture and compare it to the face of Mahatma Gandhi, and also the face of this person.” He was pointing to the Archbishop. “You can see that the person who has all the power, but who lacks compassion, who only thinks about control,” the Dalai Lama said as he ground one hand into the other, “can never be happy. I think during the night they do not have sound sleep. They always have fear. Many dictators sleep in a different place every night.
“So what creates that kind of fear is their own way of thinking, their own mind. Mahatma Gandhi’s face was always smiling. And to some extent I think Nelson Mandela, also; because he followed the path of nonviolence, and because he was not obsessed with power, millions of people remember him. If he had become a dictator, then nobody would have mourned his death. So that’s my view. Quite simple.”
I was pushing the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop hard because I did not want to leave compassion in the lofty realm of saints and lamas. I knew they were suggesting that it was a pillar of joy for the rest of us, and I wanted to understand why it has been so hard for our modern culture to embrace. “So that same cynic might say, ‘If compassion is so natural and it’s in many ways the ethical root of all religions and for thousands of years people have been preaching and teaching compassion, then why is there such a lack of compassion in the world?’”
“Our human nature has been distorted,” the Archbishop began. “I mean, we are actually quite remarkable creatures. In our religions I am created in the image of God. I am a God carrier. It’s fantastic. I have to be growing in godlikeness, in caring for the other. I know that each time I have acted compassionately, I have experienced a joy in me that I find in nothing else.
“And even the cynic will have to admit that it is how we are wired. We’re wired to be other-regarding. We shrivel if there is no other. It’s really a glorious thing. When you say, ‘I will care for only me,’ in an extraordinary way that me shrivels and gets smaller and smaller. And you find satisfaction and joy increasingly elusive. Then you want to grab and try this and try that, but in the end you don’t find satisfaction.”
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The modern world is suspicious of compassion because we have accepted the belief that nature is “red in tooth and claw” and that we are fundamentally competing against everyone and everything. According to this perspective, in our lives of getting and spending, compassion is at best a luxury, or at worst a self-defeating folly of the weak. Yet evolutionary science has come to see cooperation, and its core emotions of empathy, compassion, and generosity, as fundamental to our species’ survival. What the Dalai Lama was describing—explaining that compassion is in our self-interest—evolutionary biologists have called “reciprocal altruism.” I scratch your back today, and you scratch my back tomorrow.
This arrangement was so fundamental to our survival that children as young as six months have been shown to have a clear preference for toys that reflect helping rather than hindering. When we help others, we often experience what has been called the “helper’s high,” as endorphins are released in our brain, leading to a euphoric state. The same reward centers of the brain seem to light up when we are doing something compassionate as when we think of chocolate. The warm feeling we get from helping others comes from the release of oxytocin, the same hormone that is released by lactating mothers. This hormone seems to have health benefits, including the reduction of inflammation in the cardiovascular system. Compassion literally makes our heart healthy and happy.
Compassion also seems to be contagious. When we see others being compassionate, we are more likely to be compassionate. This results in a feeling called “moral elevation,” and that is one of the aspects of joy that Paul Ekman had identified. Recent research by social scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler suggests that this ripple effect can extend out to two and three degrees of separation. In other words, experiments with large numbers of people show that if you are kind and compassionate, your friends, your friends’ friends, and even your friends’ friends’ friends are more likely to become kind and compassionate.
We fear compassion because we’re afraid of experiencing the suffering, the vulnerability, and the helplessness that can come with having an open heart. Psychologist Paul Gilbert found that many people are afraid that if they are compassionate they will be taken advantage of, that others will become dependent on them, and that they won’t be able to handle others’ distress.
One of the differences between empathy and compassion is that while empathy is simply experiencing another’s emotion, compassion is a more empowered state where we want what is best for the other person. As the Dalai Lama has described it, if we see a person who is being crushed by a rock, the goal is not to get under the rock and feel what they are feeling; it is to help to remove the rock.
Many people are also afraid of receiving compassion from others because they are afraid that others will want something in return or that they will at least feel indebted. Finally, many people are even afraid of being self-compassionate because they are afraid they will become weak, that they will not work as hard, or that they will be overcome with sadness and grief. Gilbert says, “Compassion can flow naturally when we understand and work to remove our fears, our blocks, and our resistances to it. Compassion is one of the most difficult and courageous of all our motivations, but is also the most healing and elevating.”
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Self-compassion is closely connected to self-acceptance, which we discussed in an earlier chapter, but it is even more than the acceptance of ourselves. It is actually having compassion for our human frailties and recognizing that we are vulnerable and limited like all people. As a result, it is a fundamental basis for developing compassion for others. It’s hard to love others as you love yourself, as both men pointed out, if you don’t love yourself.
The Dalai Lama had mentioned during the week how he was shocked to hear from Western psychologists about how many of their patients wrestled with issues of self-hatred. Self-preservation, self-love, and self-care, he had assumed, are fundamental to our nature. This assumption is fundamental to Buddhist practice, so it was shocking to hear that people had to learn to express compassion not only to others but also to themselves.
Modern culture makes it hard for us to have compassion for ourselves. We spend so much of our lives climbing a pyramid of achievement where we are constantly being evaluated and judged, and often found to be not making the grade. We internalize these other voices of parents, teachers, and society at large. As a result, sometimes people are not very compassionate with themselves. People don’t rest when they are tired, and neglect their basic needs for sleep, food, and exercise as they drive themselves harder and harder. As the Dalai Lama said, they treat themselves as if they are part of the machine. People tend to feel anxious and depressed because they expect themselves to have more, be more, achieve more. Even when people are successful and grab all the brass rings, they often feel like failures or frauds, just waiting to fall off the merry-go-round. Jinpa explains, “Lack of self-compassion manifests in a harsh and judgmental relationship with ourselves. Many people believe that unless they are critical and demanding, they will be failures, unworthy of recognition and undeserving of love.”
Psychologist Kristin Neff has identified ways to express self-compassion: When we treat ourselves with compassion, we accept that there are parts of our personality that we may not be satisfied with, but we do not berate ourselves as we try to address them. When we go through a difficult time, we are caring and kind to ourselves, as we would be to a friend or relative. When we feel inadequate in some way, we remind ourselves that all people have these feelings or limitations. When things are hard, we recognize that all people go through similar challenges. And finally when we are feeling down, we try to understand this feeling with curiosity and acceptance rather than rejection or self-judgment.
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The Archbishop and the Dalai Lama had revealed throughout the week one of the core paradoxes of happiness: We are most joyful when we focus on others, not on ourselves. In short, bringing joy to others is the fastest way to experience joy oneself. As the Dalai Lama had said, even ten minutes of meditation on the well-being of others can help one to feel joyful for the whole day—even before coffee. When we close our heart, we cannot be joyful. When we have the courage to live with an open heart, we are able to feel our pain and the pain of others, but we are also able to experience more joy. The bigger and warmer our heart, the stronger our sense of aliveness and resilience.
When Anthony Ray Hinton went to death row after a trial that can only be called a travesty of justice, he was understandably angry and heartbroken at how the American justice system had failed him. “When no one believes a word you say, eventually you stop saying anything. I did not say good morning. I did not say good evening. I did not say a how-do-you-do to anyone. If the guards needed some information from me, I wrote it down on a piece of paper. I was angry. But going into the fourth year, I heard a man in the cell next to mine crying. The love and compassion I had received from my mother spoke through me and asked him what was wrong. He said he had just found out that his mother had passed away. I told him, ‘Look at it this way. Now you have someone in heaven who’s going to argue your case before God.’ And then I told him a joke, and he laughed. Suddenly my voice and my sense of humor were back. For twenty-six long years after that night, I tried to focus on other people’s problems, and every day I did, I would get to the end of the day and realize that I had not focused on my own.” Hinton was able to bring love and compassion to a loveless place, and in doing so he was able to hold on to his joy in one of the most joyless places on the planet.
While he was in prison, he watched fifty-four people, fifty-three men and one woman, walk by his cell on their way to the execution chamber. He got his fellow inmates to start banging their bars at five minutes before the execution. “I discovered on death row that the other inmates had not had the unconditional love that I had had from my mother. We became a family, and we did not know if they had any other family and friends there, so we were banging the bars to say to those who were being put to death, ‘We’re with you, we still love you right up to the end.’”