“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten we belong to each other.”  – Mother  Theresa

More than half of Americans report having no one outside of their immediate family to share personal troubles and concerns. The forces of modern life are alienating to a troubling degree. Low social connection is worse for our health than smoking, obesity, and high blood pressure with the burden of isolation linked to increased risk of depression, disease, suicide, and worse. Often a factor in tragedies of mass proportion, social alienation breeds unpredictable consequence. And yet, we’d rather retreat to our solitary spaces than open up and be vulnerable with one another.

We’ve developed a dangerous aversion to all that is bad and uncomfortable. We’re taught to brush it under the rug, take it in stride, and suck it up; vulnerability is weakness and no one likes a complainer! We’ve built impenetrable fortresses of “the good life” and learned to hide behind a smile.

In refusing to acknowledge what ails us, we’ve turned our back on life itself and what it means to be human, as messy as it is. Denial of suffering is a rejection of life.

Compassion is the remedy, and essential for our continued survival.

We are wired to connect. Our very biology is designed to facilitate bonds of social connection and cooperation, a survival of the kindest and most collaborative vs a survival of the fittest. Let’s embrace one another, the good, the so-called bad, and everything in between.

There is a real value in suffering.

“…suffering is a privilege, it moves us toward thinking about essential things and shakes us out of shortsighted complacency” (click the link above to read an incredibly moving NY Times opinion piece on the topic by Pico Iyer).

My weeks in Compassion Cultivation Training at Stanford, have inspired me to be with the sin of our suffering humanity, to accept it in curiosity instead of rushing to fix, heal, or simply turn away in disgust. Or at least try!

“I am larger and better than I thought. I did not think I held so much goodness.” – Walt Whitman

By helping others we help ourselves and we begin to realize there is no such thing as “compassion fatigue.” By connecting with others, and training the mind and the heart to cultivate compassion it can be drawn up as an endless resource.

In just 8-weeks, I’m no expert. But I am encouraged to continue. My intention in taking the course was to slow down, be less self-concerned and more present, be a better spouse – attuned to the true needs rather than the needs as I see them, and to be a source of positivity and support for others. It will take a full life’s journey to reach these aspirations. So for you, and for me, here are a few final tips to keep us growing together in compassion…

• Work to establish a regular routine and time to meditate or reflect daily.
• Begin with YOU – start with self-compassion, treat YOU like a friend, remember and savor what you appreciate about yourself.
• Set your intention for the day in the morning and check-in with yourself at night before bed. Keep a gratitude journal!
• Spend time learning more about compassion and altruism.
  • Visit Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (C-CARE) or the Greater Good Science Center’s archive on compassion for a trove of articles and stories.
• Respond to the people and circumstances in your life with an open heart and attitude of compassion.
• Take note when you witness acts of kindness and compassion. Keep a kindness log!
• Connect with a friend or community who shares your interest.
• Remember that every effort is an affirmation in the right direction; let go of expectation and just practice.

And, for me…this is where it all fell apart…it’s taken a while to process and find my voice to share what came next. In Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) week seven we learned about Tonglen meditation.

What is Tonglen? It is the Tibetan word for giving and taking. Practiced for centuries exclusively in Tibet, it’s been widely known in the West for less than a decade. The idea (simplified) is to reduce suffering in the world, by taking it in (caution! but NOT taking it on) and then transforming it through your own inner well of limitless compassion and love. The transformation is highly visual and takes place in the rhythm of the breath. The suffering of self and others is absorbed slowly with the deliberate in-breath (perhaps imagined and inhaled as a dark cloud), and then, just as light immediately cancels out the darkness, the warmth of your heart (perhaps as a golden beam of light or burst of flowers) relieves the suffering you took in with an equally deliberate out-breath.

Inhale suffering, exhale love and compassion. Simple, right? Are you picking up on my sarcasm?

Before you can effectively practice Tonglen, you have to be adept at tapping into the well of compassion inside yourself. But where does this limitless well of love and compassion come from?

And that is why I stopped. I wasn’t fully on board with the concept. And I realized that I’m all too often stuck in the empathy trap. The place where you’re taking on, and taking on wholly and completely (Warning! Warning!), then walking straight off the cliff with the very person you’re trying to help. That’s not helpful and may even be harmful to YOU, AND those around you! Sigh…

Do you prioritize others’ feelings over your own? If so, you might be in this mean little trap with me.

“Overly empathic people may even lose the ability to know what they want or need. They may have a diminished ability to make decisions in their own best interest, experience physical and psychological exhaustion from deflecting their own feelings, and may lack internal resources to give their best to key people in their life. What’s more, unending empathy creates vulnerability to gas-lighting, in which another person negates your own reality to assert his or hers…Those who regularly prioritize the feelings of others above their own needs often experience generalized anxiety or low-level depression. They may describe a feeling of emptiness or alienation, or dwell incessantly on situations from the perspective of another.”
– Robin Stern & Diana Divecha, July 7, 2015 Greater Good Magazine

And so, the idea of Tonglen was not appealing. But I’m not alone, many people respond similarly upon introduction to the practice. They ask, how can I possibly take in and transform what already seems so overwhelming?

Then, an epiphany! I began to connect this foreign practice to the roots of my own faith.

I’m a Christian. I don’t profess it openly because I don’t subscribe to interpretations presented by “organized” religion, I don’t go to church, I happen to admire atheists like Sam Harris and Robert Sapolsky, I love science, and quite honestly, I’m ashamed of what most people do in the name of Christ.

But when I began to think of Tonglen as Jesus’ calling to be a light unto the world, I began to imagine myself drawing on the light of His suffering and forgiveness. I felt an opening of my own heart toward the possibility of freedom from the burden of empathy, the burden of feeling too much.

Empathic distress is real, but with faith, there is an endless well of love and compassion that never runs dry, a light capable of transforming the darkness.

In CCT we graduated through studies and practices of loving-kindness and compassion for self, others, strangers, and beyond. I’m reminded of a book I read in an undergraduate religious studies class, Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh, an elegant study of the overlapping teachings of Buddha and Christ. This was the beginning of a personal spiritual journey. In college, I moved from a naive stance of reared Christianity to becoming a rebel skeptic and nearly nihilist, then later on to adopt a sort of a new age version of Christianity, and now, to professing my own authentic faith.

Christ is within. He is the infinite source of light to transform our suffering. The original followers of Christ were called followers of The Way. Unfortunately, the modern church has lost the way and the truth of Christ and Western Buddhist philosophy has risen up to take its place providing comfort in a stress-ridden world. I relate to the Buddhist idea that suffering is the base of our human experience. But taking it a step further, I know that the burden of sin is the source of our suffering separating us from the divine. This separation is the ultimate suffering.

Personally, I bear the guilt of being silent about my faith. As they say, we never really change, we only, perhaps slowly, become more of what we are. Pay attention to the moments of resistance in your life and what they may be telling you. For me, my Christian faith, which includes contemplative practice, is the source of a boundless compassion through Christ.

Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and think of a friend or loved one. Imagine a pleasant time or experience that you shared with this person. Take a minute to sense how it feels to recall this memory. Where does it manifest across your body – in your heart, in a tingling sensation, a glow of warmth?

Scientists are mapping the physical signatures of various human emotions – how love vs anger feels in the body.

What manifests in the senses, often without our conscious awareness, can profoundly influence our actions. Anger is like a hot coal; when you pick it up, you are the first to get burned. We are the most immediate and direct recipients of our emotions, thoughts, and mental states.

Indeed thoughts and emotions give rise to action without intention, forming habitual aspects of our personalities that can become deeply ingrained. I’m reminded of a movie years ago called, What the Bleep Do We Know, perhaps the inspiration for a more recent animated film Inside Out presenting many of the same concepts: that chemical reactions in the body triggered by emotions are intensely powerful.

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, Dutch psychiatrist and author of The Body Keeps the Score is well-known for his work in the area of post-traumatic stress. He gained acceptance for the diagnosis in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) by demonstrating how trauma lives in the body and how it must be coaxed out in similarly tangible and physical ways in order for healing to begin.

Gavin de Becker, the author of the Gift of Fear and world expert on security and violence, tells listeners on the Waking Up podcast with Sam Harris, that intuition is your greatest strength in assessing danger. If you attend to your body, you’ll recognize how fear feels and be ready to take action. Go with your gut!

Stanford professor and MacArthur genius awardee, Robert Sapolsky changed the way we think about stress by comparing the health of animals in wild to that of humans in modern day life.

The flood of negative emotions we experience constantly degrade our immune systems and increase the risk of disease. We literally make ourselves sick with worry, anger, and fear.

It’s not all bad: Dacher Keltner, psychologist and founder of the Greater Good Science Center, describes a compassion instinct – how compassion evolved throughout our evolution promoting cooperation and social cohesion.

Compassion stimulates real physiological changes in the autonomic nervous system – a bundle of nerves, glands, and organs in the body – the same bundle that unconsciously regulates heart rate, digestion, and other bodily functions and controls our fight-or-flight response. Compassion releases oxytocin, a reward that motivates us to be even more compassionate. Recent research examined couples’ physiological states and found kindness to be the glue in marital relationships!

In Compassion Cultivation Training Week-2 we’re exploring the palpable sensations of kindness and compassion by noticing when kindness shows up in day-to-day life and how it feels. Also by noticing its opposites – like anger and disgust – and how they feel as well.

This week’s challenge is to cultivate an awareness of sensory experience, without judging. To be present with emotions as they come rejecting the belief that bad is wrong.

Denying the difficult is akin to abandoning life. In some cases, as Gavin de Becker shows, such denial may even increase the risk of threat and harm.

The skill of listening, feeling, sensing and fully recognizing ‘what is’ and ‘what isn’t’ opens a path to be fully present and engaged with all that life brings without being overwhelmed.

We can’t make ourselves BE compassionate, we need only to FEEL that we ARE and then get out of the way.

Stop! What’s going through your mind right now? Hold that thought. Wait, what was that again? Not surprisingly, our minds wander 47% of our waking hours.

I don’t know about you, but mine is always racing – occupied with a never-ending to-do list, searching for ways to optimize, to do MORE, scanning news headlines, making sure no e-mail is left unread, no social media like or comment is left unnoticed, always on hyper-drive, on high alert to respond to my family, my friends, my work, or the littlest of environmental stimulus to come my way.

It’s impossible to be ON all the time, yet we take pride in responsiveness, cradling our devices before bed and grabbing them at first light to start again.

We know this level of activity and attachment is unhealthy. Study after study shows that time spent in front of a screen leads to increased rates of depression, especially in teens with links to higher suicide rates. It turns out Facebook may make us feel less connected, not more. Multi-tasking actually decreases productivity. Busyness isn’t good for business. A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. And mental distraction leads to rudeness, accidents, and worse. Bottom line: it’s impossible to be kind to ourselves, let alone others with a buzz of constant commotion draining our energy and attention.

How to stop the madness?

Just last week I attended the first in an 8-week series aimed at cultivating compassion through Stanford’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (C-CARE). The Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) program, established in part by his Holiness the Dalai Lama, increases compassion through meditation practices found in Tibetan Buddhism. The approach consists of six steps:

1. Settling the mind and training it to focus
2. Establishing compassion for a loved one
3. Establishing compassion for oneself
4. Establishing the basis for compassion toward others through the concept of our common humanity and interconnectedness
5. Expanding compassion towards others
6. Developing an ‘active’ compassion practice which involves meditation

Compassion begins with an awareness of suffering – in self and other. We can’t possibly begin to relate and respond to alleviate pain and distress without first understanding it, and ourselves. In this way, the mind is at the heart of our ability to be compassionate. And it can be trained!

So far I’ve bombed the homework for week-1: meditate for 15 minutes per day. My first attempt, I succeeded in avoiding the nagging urge to do ‘things’ for a massive 5 minutes, what felt like an eternity. My second attempt, after counting breaths up to 120, ended with an erratic movement of the kind one makes just before falling asleep. My third, well…

Needless to say, I need more practice! I’m the worst at slowing down. I live to DO and so much of my self-worth and esteem is based on how much I’m able to accomplish. It’s not just me, America is obsessed with winning; and our achievement mindset teaches that success comes at the expense of others. I win; you lose.

Enough already, I’m over it! Real winning is achieved in earning respect by service to others. We win!

I’m excited to see what the next seven weeks have to offer. Will I succeed in my attempts to meditate? Can C-CARE’s CCT approach help me be kinder and gentler to myself, but also, more compassionate, generous, and able to serve as a source of support for others? I certainly hope so!

The benefits of mindfulness and meditation are many – from enhancing attention and increasing performance, to reducing stress and boosting immune function.  The contemplative path also holds enormous potential to bring us back to our heart’s center. A calming of the mind changes the way we understand and relate to the world, allowing compassion to emerge.

The weeks’ calamities began with an innocent white lie out of fear of confrontation. Not wanting to address the situation, I decided to wait and see…only just to see if it would resolve on its own. Days turned into weeks, a minor discomfort into personal agony, digressing further and farther from the desired outcome.

Does this story sound familiar? We’ve all been there!

Truth is…dishonesty is a slippery slope and according to neuroscience the more we lie the easier it gets. Too often, and increasingly, we are willing to set aside the truth to pacify the moment, avoid confrontation, or protect someone’s feelings.

Because what is true anyway?

Modern society has come to celebrate a relative view of it – you have a truth, I have a truth, who’s to argue, who’s to say? The popular motto “live your truth” reinforces this view. But to what end? What happens when your truth comes into conflict with my truth? We are far too easily offended when another’s view doesn’t conform to our own.

Fixated on personal realism, truth then becomes a will to power. If I claim to have the truth and tell others who then believe my truth, I WIN the day. The more a false statement is heard the truer it begins to sound – this is called the illusory truth effect. And cognitively, the brain starts to give up when discerning truth from lies becomes too difficult. As a result, alternative facts become reality.

Truth is you are born and then you die with the space between amounting to struggle. Truth is…life is suffering. To seek truth is to overcome suffering as best we can; pursuing that which is honorable, just, and pure toward the best possible outcome – not just for me, but for you, for others, and for the world.

We must admit there are a vast amount of things that we know nothing about. Our individual grasp of the truth is limited by our fragmented knowledge. On a personal level, we believe something to be true, if it corresponds to what we observe in the world. Yet our observations are based on a narrow band of personal life experiences. There are truths of science and the known universe, but even these truths are constantly being challenged and tested as new information comes to light.

Truth is the light. It is the end of inquiry; the place where knowledge and beliefs converge. It is revealed through the seeking of it and the only way we can ever hope to glimpse the truth is through a willingness to share honestly and openly without offense.

Truth is elusive, but that does not mean we should abandon it. The only way to reclaim it is to adopt the values of honesty and integrity in our daily lives.

The micro-lies we tell ourselves and others, lead us farther from the truth. The worst thing you can do is lie to someone. Sometimes it’s better to be an asshole than to always sugar coat things.

There’s also danger in being too empathetic! Feeling others’ stressors can intensify the stress. And in that moment of shared stress, we are likely to say or do what’s needed to alleviate it, even if it’s dishonest.

Compassion doesn’t always lead to truth.
But truth opens a space for a deeper understanding and compassion to emerge.

Compassionate truth, a kind radical candor (to care personally, and challenge directly) – at work, at home, in our communities – is needed to get beyond the veneer of polite society and protect us from the assault of deceit.

By courageously listening and sharing honestly, in this space, we have the power to expand one another’s perspectives in order to gain a more complete truth of the situation and discover higher truths together.