Sharing Compassion

It is fairly easy to be kind and compassionate to those we care for. It is not too difficult to be kind to strangers or those we just met. To be kind to those we don’t like or actively hate feels like a contradiction. We often imagine that kindness is only for those we want to embrace, not those we want to yell at or never see again. But to be kind to those we dislike changes our whole way of responding to events in our life. When we allow ourselves to simply notice the feeling of “I don’t like this” or “I don’t like you,” without holding on to that feeling or automatically acting on it, then we can break conditioned behaviors. We can just recognize the thought or feeling and move on. We become flexible in our thinking and less burdened by hurtful feelings.

 

How do we share this with our students and ourselves? Here is one practice. The idea is to develop the ability to imagine, “feel with” and care about another person’s inner state. Alfie Kohn said that compassion is not just to imagine what its like to be in another person’s shoes but “what its like to have their feet.”

 

Start, as with other mindfulness practices, by calming and focusing the mind.

 

Sit up, near the edge of the chair, so your back is straight but not rigid. Close your eyes partly or fully. Then turn your attention inwards to your breath. Exhale, noticing how the diaphragm works to push out the air. Then notice the inhalation, how the diaphragm expands downwards on its own, and air comes in. Just notice this. Notice what it feels like to breathe in, to refresh yourself. And breathe out, focusing on the breath and letting go of thoughts or images.

 

Notice the quality of your awareness and attention. Is your mind clear or foggy? Focused or wandering? Awake or tired?

 

As you breathe in, let a friend or someone you get along with well come to mind. Just imagine him or her, or let descriptive words about the person come to you. Notice their face, mouth, hair, eyes. Notice how they look at you, their expression.

 

Then notice their whole body, how they stand, their shoulders, hands. Do they stand straight?  Are they relaxed or stiff?

 

Then go inside. What do you think this person is feeling? What clues can you get from their expression and from their posture about what they are thinking or feeling?

 

In this subtle way, you can teach students about reading another person, reading their body language and facial expression, which is one form of empathy.

 

Now imagine giving a simple gift to this person. The gift is merely a wish for the person to feel kindness, peacefulness and joy. Just say it to yourself: I wish this person kindness, peacefulness and joy. Imagine the person filled with this kindness, inner peacefulness, and joy. Notice how it affects them.

 

Standard compassion practices start with someone you are comfortable with or close to. Then you go to someone neutral. Then to someone you don’t know. Finally, you imagine someone you dislike or are angry with. Then you give the gift to yourself.

 

Just sit for a moment with the sense of kindness, inner peacefulness and joy being all around you, filling you.

 

You could end right there or you might add this visualization:

 

Imagine a ball of light appearing above your head, a beautiful light, maybe white, or golden, like sunlight. The light begins to flow into your body, from the top of your head down to your feet. It fills your body with a warm, healing light. Then it flows out from your feet to the feet of the other person. It flows from you to the person you imagined, up her or his feet, through their body to their head and out to the ball of light above your body. Imagine the light filling both you and the other person, connecting you both in a circle of light. Enjoy the connection for a moment.

 

You can have the light flow from you, or from you and the imagined person, out to the whole class.

 

I usually use a singing bowl to end all practices. If you don’t use one, then end the visualization with:

 

Now, return your awareness to your breath. Breathe out—then allow yourself to inhale– and exhale again. As you inhale, return your attention fully to the classroom remembering the sense of kindness, peacefulness, joy and connection.

 

Singing bowls can also be used when the room gets too loud and you want to quiet everyone. Just listening to the bowl sing can focus attention and give people a sense of inner quiet.

 

Students often report that it is easier to imagine giving kindness, peacefulness, and joy to others than receiving it themselves. It is difficult to feel deserving of such gifts. I think it was the Dalai Lama who said that in the U. S. you must be courageous to be happy—or to allow yourself the gift. However, imagining the gift of joy for another bestows it on yourself. By giving it, you receive it. It is so easy to lose sight of the fact that the joy you imagine is in yourself. That’s one reason why, as I pointed out in my last blog, there are many psychological and health benefits to being compassionate.

 

Likewise, the more anyone can be kind and compassionate to themselves, the deeper their capacity for compassion for others.  Being kind to yourself is something you can practice each moment. Whenever you realize your mind has drifted or when you become aware that a thought, judgment, or emotion has carried you off, in that moment, you can come awake. You hear your thoughts as just thoughts, emotions as just emotional energy. Instead of judging yourself negatively, you treat your thoughts and emotions kindly and as an experience to learn from.

 

I have so far talked about mindfulness and compassion in terms of what one teacher or student could do in or out of a classroom. There is a deeper question that needs to be asked: What can a whole school do to teach compassion? Ultimately, compassion works best when it is embedded in the structure and culture of the school community and curriculum. What can you do you to embed compassion in your community?

 

 

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” Dalai Lama

Compassion And Empathy, The Golden Skills

What is compassion? Empathy? I have to admit that I often lump these two together. Some educators have trouble using the word ‘compassion.’ It sounds too “spiritual” to them, whereas ‘empathy’ is something most anyone could support. Both empathy and compassion have the sense of “feeling with” another person, in some way feeling what another person is going through. But in what way do you feel the other? And why is this so important that it is called it the “golden skill?”

 

Paul Ekman defines three forms of empathy, the third being close to what I think of compassion.

  1. Cognition: an ability to discern the feelings of another or to “read” another person and the physical and action cues. A person like a sociopath can “read” another person but not care.
  2. Feeling: Internalize or “feel with” another person, body to body, sense to sense.
  3. Caring: “compassionate empathy” or to have a concern for another and the energy to help.

With compassion, you want to act to end the suffering of another person. You want to act in a kind, caring manner. You value the welfare of another person like you value your own welfare.  Hidy Ochiai once said compassion is being the other person.

 

With compassion, you do not help others in order to feel superior; that is pity. You do not simply feel a sense of sorrow about what they are going through; that is sympathy. Both pity and sympathy are based on an emotional distance with the other being. With empathy, that distance diminishes. The situation becomes more close up and personal. Compassion is when that sense of closeness compels action.

 

And it is this closeness that the students want. They want to know that other people can act for the good of another person, because they want to know that people can be caring. They want to feel that care themselves, both in the giving and in the receiving.

 

There’s always a group of students who get very cynical. They take a stance against the possibility of compassion in order to dare someone to prove otherwise. They argue that compassion, like altruism or selflessness, is impossible. People act only to get some reward or because it feels good. If it feels good, then it isn’t compassion; it isn’t a selfless act.  They think they have me or have compassion on the spear point of a logical dilemma.

 

I am always gladdened by their recognition that compassion feels good. When you act for the good of another, a sense of joy does arise. There is even good evidence that there are physical and psychological benefits from acting with compassion.  The problem is that the supposed dilemma masks the essential point. When you act in order to get the benefits then you lose the joy of compassion. The key is the intention. The joy comes only when the caring is selfless.

 

V. S. Ramachandran describes how, when you watch someone doing an intentional action, like reaching out for a sandwich, the motor control neurons in areas of your brain fire in a manner as if you were doing the action. You model in your brain what another person is doing. You then respond physically and mentally to your model almost as if it represents a distinct person.  You understand what the other person is doing through reading your response to your model; you understand through empathy.

 

The neuron systems which enable this empathy are called mirror neuron systems. If you see a person experiencing pain, your pain neurons fire almost as if you were in pain. Did you ever flinch back when you saw a person hit? Or smile when you saw someone smile? In this way you become the other person.

 

These neurons enable humans not only to empathize with others but to be sophisticated imitators. We mirror mostly unconsciously. We are so good at it that we need mechanisms in our brain and in our skin to prevent us from constantly imitating others. There is even a condition where people can’t stop their imitating; it is called echopraxia.

 

The ability to imitate in action and imagination facilitates learning and understanding. You learn through imitating the sound of a word, how to hold a hammer, how to write a formula—or solve a formula. As I said in my blog on imagination, you understand a character in a novel by creating a model of the person in your mind and then “reading” your response to the model. You can understand a time in history or how riding in a spaceship might affect you by creating a mental model and then reading your own response to the model.

 

Empathy and compassion facilitate thinking and communicating. In talking with students about how to write an essay or story, teachers often say “know your audience.” Without knowing your audience, it is difficult to write a coherent, focused piece. You know what to say only to the extent that you feel and imagine the people you are speaking with or writing to. Communication is not just expressing yourself, not just saying what is on your mind. You have to understand, to some degree, the mind of the other person.

 

What does expressing yourself mean? If no one hears you, have you had a conversation? ‘Con’ means ‘with’, ‘vers’ means ‘turn’, so a conversation can mean “turning with another” or turning together. What is on my mind changes depending on whom I am with and where I am. So, improving my ability to read, feel with, and care about another person aids my ability to communicate more clearly.

 

Empathy and compassion can be strengthened with mindfulness practices. Mindfulness strengthens the insula, which is an area of the cerebral cortex of the brain. It is  deep down, near the temporal, parietal and frontal lobes. It is  very connected to the limbic or emotion system, and to the mirror neuron system I spoke about earlier that is involved in understanding the emotion of others by experiencing the emotion in your self. The insula is also involved in the arousal of energy and focus. Compassion practices not only make the insula stronger; they ready you to act in a compassionate, kind or helpful manner.

 

Thus, teaching mindfulness and compassion practices can contribute to improving the environment in schools. It can improve learning, thinking and understanding. It readies students and teachers to act in ways which improve relationships and to intervene in actions like bullying which undermine relationships. Students and teachers will act to stop bullying because when they see it happen, they will feel the pain of being bullied, yet have the inner commitment and awareness to stop it.

 

So, when you feel a push to speak or act, especially when you are upset or angry, use compassion. Think about how you would feel hearing what you think you want to say. If you pity the other person, or feel very distant, what happens to understanding? Only by an empathetic or compassionate modeling and reading of another person’s intent do you understand what they meant to say and what you mean to say to them. Now that is a golden skill.

 

Next week: empathy and compassion practices.