“Have compassion for all beings, rich and poor alike; each has their suffering.”
Gautama Buddha
The Webster Dictionary defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Compassion and empathy are often used interchangeably, but they differ in one crucial aspect. When we are filled with empathy, we feel another person’s suffering. When we are filled with compassion, we feel another person’s suffering and act to lessen it. Compassion is our empathy carried out into action.
Our compassion usually kicks into gear when a loved one suffers dramatically and unmistakably. A parent becomes seriously ill. A neighbor suddenly loses their job. A friend is in despair over a painful divorce or separation. If a person’s or a group of people’s suffering is severe enough, we will extend our compassion even if we don’t know them by donating money, food, clothes or our time. For most of us, our compassion becomes activated when a person’s suffering exceeds what we deem the normal tribulations of life. In such a situation, it’s easy to empathize with the person’s acute pain, so we are quick to give them our attention and time.
And so, our compassion becomes our go-to emergency response. It’s an attitude we drum up in a crisis or when the need is great. But suffering is ubiquitous and often silent. People suffer from loneliness, disappointment, anxiety, fear, depression, old age, a poor self-image, a sense of failure, hopelessness, a too strong preoccupation with the self. Right now, I can’t think of one family member or friend who isn’t suffering in some way. Some are suffering less, some more. Suffering is a fixture of our human condition or, as philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche tersely concluded, “To live is to suffer.” Given how universal suffering is, how can our compassion also become universal? How do we make compassion not some high-minded ideal we practice once in a while or when it suits us, but the cornerstone of our interactions with people?
Maybe the notion of living a life filled with compassion sounds onerous or overwhelming, if not impossible. Embracing a compassionate lifestyle might sound burdensome only because we fail to appreciate how enormously beneficial compassion is. A 2007 brain-imagining study from neuroscientist Jordan Grafman at the National Institutes of Health revealed that the pleasure centers in our brain – the parts of our brain that are active when we experience pleasure like dessert, money and sex – are equally active when we observe someone giving money to charity. It turns out that giving to others is one of the most fulfilling and pleasurable activities we can do for ourselves. The Dalai Lama is someone who has long understood the selfish benefits of compassion. As he so famously expressed it, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Compassion is a win-win for everyone involved.
Even knowing about the personal benefits of practicing compassion, many of us may still be daunted by the idea of habitually giving ourselves to others. But the ways in which we give don’t always need to require an extraordinary effort or even our time. We can give by simply cultivating a more emotionally generous attitude toward others. We notice a friend is quietly hurting. We can show them our compassion by slowing down, becoming curious, and giving them our complete and undivided attention. Our attention, when given wholeheartedly, can heal others and is one of the most powerful expressions of our compassion that we have.
Co-mindfulness is a practice designed to make compassion, not a feeling we act on when the need is great, but the foundation of who we are. Co-mindfulness is about fostering an everyday compassion knowing that to live is to suffer and that our greatest responsibility is to love and take care of each other. I hope you will take the time to explore its principles and give yourself, and your loved ones, the gift of compassion.
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