Compassion international database - anything you want to know about compassion is here. Launched in May, 2007 this site is a free public service, with the goal of developing a comprehensive compassion international database and moving toward a culture of compassion through better research and teaching. A website solely dedicated to sharing compassion information. Thousands of document pages and links, new research, and the site is updated often. Increase your compassion power to facilitate change. Use this site to develop strong compassion .
One of the most marvelous aspects of the Buddhist tradition is its development of a vast array of practices that fill us with the power and joyful enthusiasm we need to unblock our hearts and allow the healing energies of wisdom and compassion to unfold.
These special teachings will explore how meditation, compassion and training the mind can help us to transform negative circumstances and suffering, and how we can integrate these practices meaningfully into our lives. Schedule and Fees:
This photo from Himachal Pradesh, North is titled 'Goddess of Compassion'. Tibetan Buddhism, also known as Lamaism or the Karma-Kagyu order of the Mahayana Buddhism sect, is prevelant in the Himalayan region of India. The mythology of Tibetan Buddhism is fused with Hindu Tantric elements of India. This deity is goddess the of mercy and compassion.
The Voice of The Salvation Army in Canada and Bermuda... What Garrison first witnessed in her colleagues, a
nd later in herself, was “compassion fatigue”—unhealthy behaviours and emotions resulting from helping or wanting to help traumatized or suffering people. Compassion fatigue leads to a reduced capacity to express empathy and is often experienced by individuals offering care continually through social services or in one-off traumatic situations.
“My colleagues and I had to learn to be intentional about how we gave to others in order to sustain ourselves over the long-term,” Garrison says.
Teach Your Kids Compassion with Heifer International
One of my favorite charities is Heifer International. Instead of flipping through toy catalogs, why not spend some time with your kids this holiday season looking through Heifer's gift catalog and choose a way to support a family in need? Kids will love picking out a goat, cow, chicken, or even a water buffalo! Take a look at this short video...
Compassion is essentially the wish that beings not suffer - from subtle physical and emotional discomfort to agony and anguish - combined with feelings of sympathetic concern.
You could have compassion for an individual (a friend in the hospital, a co-worker passed over for a promotion), groups of people (victims of crime, those displaced by a hurricane, refugee children), animals (your pet, livestock heading for the slaughterhouse), and yourself.
Compassion is not pity, agreement, or a waiving of your rights. You can have compassion for people who've wronged you while also insisting that they treat you better.
Do you understand the difference between self-pity and self-compassion?
There is a vast difference between feeling sorry for yourself and feeling kindness toward yourself.
Self-Pity
When you see yourself as a victim, you indulge in self-pity. You are a bottomless pit of misery, and you may find yourself crying endless victim tears. You might say things like:
Why do bad things always happen to me?
I'm a loser and I'll always be a loser.It's not fair.?
Three PLU student filmmakers spent more than a year researching the cumulative effects of tragedy and trauma, which will soon be unveiled in a new documentary – "Overexposed: The Cost of Compassion."
The new documentary from MediaLab, "Overexposed: The Cost of Compassion," examines and defines "compassion fatigue."
Seniors Elizabeth Herzfeldt-Kamprath and Hailey Rile, along with junior Katie Scaff, first learned of the condition "compassion fatigue" last fall and soon decided to make it the topic of their new film.
Even a casual look at the world today would reveal an abundance of self-centeredness and fixation on ideologies. Compassion is well-hidden. This occurs despite many of the world religions and the findings of psychologists teaching that mercy and compassion lead to favorable personal and social outcomes.
The Hebrew prophet Ezra tells us, "For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children will find compassion with their captors, and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him."
Buddha taught that, "Compassion is that which makes the heart of the good move at the pain of others. It crushes and destroys the pain of others; thus, it is called compassion. It is called compassion because it shelters and embraces the distressed."
what, exactly, is missing from our economy, our politics, and our society, that has led to this “reckless pursuit of money?”For Sachs, the answer is simple: Compassion.
“Compassion,” he says “is the thing that holds society together,” and what our society is sorely lacking. Why? Because it “brings the powerful down to the level of the weak.” There is no room for compassion in an economy where “everything is for the top,” he says....
Where is the compassion in our economy and our politics?
Mata Amritanandamayi, spiritual leader, has said that disappearance of compassionate hearts is a serious problem facing society.
She was speaking at a function organised at her ashram, Amritapuri, some 15 km from here, to celebrate her 58th birthday on Tuesday.
She said the consequences of dwindling compassion needed serious contemplation. People took pride in increasing their intellectual abilities. “But our hearts, which should be flowing like a river, is becoming like dry wells,” she said.
"There is no such thing as a simple act of compassion or an inconsequential act of service. Everything we do for another person has infinite consequences."
With the start of a new year, many of us are focused on change. We are in a hurry to change our long-ingrained behaviors, and we are quick to berate ourselves when we fall short. Somehow we believe that being harsh with ourselves will motivate us to perform better.
Instead, I would suggest we all need a healthy dose of self-compassion. With this in mind, I have gathered the following quotes:
Research shows that a compassionate attitude towards others improves mental and physical health.
The Dalai Lama has been telling us for years that it would make us happy, but he never said it would make us healthy, too.
“If you want others to be happy,” reads the first part of his famous formula, “practice compassion.” Then comes the second part of the prescription: “If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Maybe the Dalai Lama knew all along or maybe he’s just finding out like the rest of us, but science is starting to catch up with a couple millennia of Buddhist thought. In recent years, the investigation of compassion has moved beyond theology and philosophy to embrace a wide range of scientific fields, including neurology, endocrinology and immunology.
About Stanford Compassion Training What is Stanford Compassion Training (SCT)? Stanford Compassion Training (SCT) is a nine-week program designed to develop the qualities of compassion, empathy, and kindness for oneself and for others. SCT integrates traditional contemplative practices with contemporary psychology and scientific research on compassion. The program was developed at Stanford University by a team of contemplative scholars, clinical psychologists, and researchers...
Training
Humans have a natural capacity for compassion. However, everyday stress, social pressures, and life experiences can make it difficult to fully express this capacity. Each of us can choose to nurture and grow the compassionate instinct, like a plant that is carefully cultivated from a seed. This process requires patience, steady care, proper tools, and a supportive environment.
ShareHow can someone “teach” compassion? How does one show compassion? What does it mean to be compassionate towards others? This is a topic that is in the front of my mind most days. With holiday season seems to put it into BOLD letters for me.
Finding love and compassion in our inner garden The Nation American professor Jerry Braza explains how mindfulness can help us to lead more meaningful lives...
A practising Catholic, Braza has studied the teachings of psychologist Carl Rogers, meditation teacher Ram Dass, thanatologist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross as well as Thich Nhat Hanh and finds Nhat Hanh the most impressive. In "The Seeds of Love", Braza, a professor in health education at a US university as well as a meditation practitioner/teacher, mainly draws on Nhat Hanh's approach to mindfulness and adds ideas from other faiths, culling quotes from the Talmud and St Francis of Assisi.
Jon Kabat-Zinn tells us why being mindful can help us unlock our compassionate side. This was part of a talk put on by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center.
I wanted to share a fairly simple observation from teaching this week, related to the meditation practices that focus on the development of compassion, such as metta and tonglen. It's interesting that if we see a great athlete or yogi, or just someone in prime physical condition, we have a tendency to think that this person has gone through an immense amount of training and work to get in that condition. We say things like, "I wonder where they work out" or "I wonder where they practice."
Klein said that she was moved to join Occupy Wall Street when she saw a photo of a young woman holding a sign at the protest that read, “I care about you.” This, she said, was a radical act because of its subversion of the American cultural norm.
“I found it very moving. There was another sign that was part of the same photo essay that I was looking at of somebody else holding up a sign that said ‘compassion is a radical act’,” Klein said. “I’m increasingly convinced that all of the change that we want…none of this is going to happen unless we really shift the underlying values of our culture.
The problem with making compassion into the foundation of an ethic is that compassion by itself does not provide a very solid incentive to conquer one’s fears, to struggle against one’s weaknesses, or to pursue undertakings that are high in risk, low in material reward, and provide gratification that cannot be accounted for in terms of the crude calculus of sex, money, and power.
Compassion leads us to feel sympathy for others, but it is of limited use in helping us to understand their grievances, ambitions, and aspirations, and is of even less value in enabling us to determine the extent to which the desires, animosities, and anxieties of the other are justified.
Compassion isn’t just a feeling. In fact, true compassion need not involve any particular emotions at all. Sincere compassionate action can take place when there is no sense of “Me” and “You”, “Us” or “Them”.
If my left arm is itchy, my right hand reaches over to scratch it without first having to feel really, really sorry for the left arm. My right hand doesn’t need to spend a lot of time thinking of the best way to solve the problem of itching. It recognizes a degree of suffering experienced by the left arm and responds appropriately in a way that alleviates that suffering.
We’re joined this week by Dr. Kelly McGonigal, to discuss her work at Stanford University, where she is teaching compassion-based practices from the Buddhist tradition, taught in a way that pulls from scientific research and appeals to a secular sensibility.
As part of her work with CCARE she shares some of her background with Stanford as well as her long-standing Buddhist practice, which pulls from both the Zen and Tibetan traditions. We close the discussion by exploring some of the difficulties with teaching meditation in a secular context, as well as some of the benefits that come through framing the teachings in scientific and psychological terms.
Every day, oncology nurses provide care to patients who rely on them not only for their physical care, but also emotional and even spiritual care. Close relationships are formed as the oncology nurse cares for these patients and families over a period of time...
Compassion Fatigue Defined
Compassion fatigue was first mentioned in relation to professional healthcare in 1992 by Carla Joinson. Joinson identified behaviors characteristic of compassion fatigue. These include chronic fatigue, irritability, dread of going to work, aggravation of physical ailments, and a lack of joy in life. Figley defined compassion fatigue as a state of tension and preoccupation with the individual or cumulative traumas of clients.
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