7.

Compassion: Something We Want to

Become

T oo 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