Pastel Chalk by John Potts
COMPASSION
Quotes compiled by
John Potts
Arriving Home at the Source
Selfless Action
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It is not an
untrammeled market economy that is going to redeem our world.
It is not
strategies of aggression, domination, and repression that are going to make
us safe.
The secret to
transforming the world, the key to security and safety, lies in cooperation
and collaboration.
It lies in compassion
for all beings in the wider web of life,
and in generosity
and love
channeled into selfless action on behalf of people we will never know or see.
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- Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, "An
Act of Conscience"
Pastel Chalk by John Potts
Can You Teach Compassion?
Stanford’s
investment in altruism research, funded by the Dalai Lama.
We can
be healthier, live longer, and make the world a better place by exploring our
potential for compassionate behavior, according to neurosurgeon James Doty, founder and director of the Center for
Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, part of the Stanford Institute
for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neurosciences.
Where
does your strong interest in compassion, altruism and empathy come from?
Having grown up in poverty with a father who was an alcoholic and a mother who
was an invalid, I was exposed to suffering—lack of shelter, lack of food.
Sometimes you would see people in positions of power or wealth who could
intervene to help, and either would be silent observers or would turn away. And
then you would see other people who would immediately reach out. Why is it that
there are some who are immediately engaged, and others who turn away as soon as
they see suffering because they don't want any proximity to it? That paradox
stuck with me.
So much
so that you founded the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and
Education at Stanford University?
Yes. Later in life, when I got into a position in which I could more seriously
think about this, I began conversations with my colleagues at Stanford which
led to preliminary research efforts. I also wanted the Dalai Lama to come to
Stanford to speak because I thought his message on the importance of compassion
was compelling. He did come, and it led to individuals donating significant
sums, and it began a research effort, which continues.
What is
the goal of the center?
Its mission is to understand the neuroscience of compassion and altruism on a
deep level, and the impact of these behaviors on health and longevity. One goal
is how to maximize an individual's potential in these areas.
Why is
that worth exploring?
We know that as a species we flourish and thrive when we care for others. Not only do you
feel happier, but you live better, you feel better, you live longer. And it's a
self-supporting activity in the sense that when you do those activities and
they make you feel good, it makes you want to continue. It's a boon to
humanity, but also to one's self.
Might
some people still think you are simply saying "it's nice to be good"?
If we can show that you have the potential to increase your capacity for
kindness and caring, and that this should result in dramatic improvements in
your personal relationships, significant
decrease in inflammation, improvement in cardiac function, increase in your telomere length (the DNA that protects the
ends of your chromosomes), which increases longevity. ... If we can show
you this proposition, then I think it is different to that.
Some
people react with compassion when seeing another's suffering, and some don't.
Is this divide a result of nature versus nurture?
It's an open question, but most likely a mix. You can fall back on the
happiness literature and say the nature/nurture split is 50–50. We know that
genes have a significant impact on behavior. For example, with a female rodent
who typically would be protective of her young, if we manipulate a particular
gene by turning it off, then she abandons them. We also know that variations in
gene receptors for oxytocin can result in individuals being less altruistic. I
suspect that, like happiness, we will find a similar split between how one's
DNA and environment affects their ability to be kind and caring.
Pastel Chalk by John Potts
Can we
all become more compassionate?
There's a small subset of people on the side of extraordinarily kind,
compassionate, and that's their baseline—Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama. And then
there's a fairly small group who, no matter what we do to try to potentiate
their capacity for compassion, don't have that capacity. Between those extremes
are the rest of us, who can probably benefit from some kind of intervention or
training when it comes to our ability to be altruistic or compassionate.
So how
does CCARE try to intervene?
It has a program of
compassion-cultivation training courses that includes both meditation and
group-focused activities. There are also other institutions in the United
States and internationally that have intervention or training programs of which
a large component focuses on increasing compassion.
What
effect are these measures having?
There's preliminary data that people who take our eight-week course
show greater compassion. We also did some work with Stanford psychologist Jeanne Tsai
in which individuals went through our training and then we studied how they
responded to a scenario of writing to someone in prison for murder. Some think
being compassionate means you give others a free pass regarding responsibility.
But what was found was that no one gave this presumed murderer a free pass.
They held them to be responsible but also encouraged them that they did have a
future.
Could
what is being learned about altruism help us tackle challenges such as war and
injustice?
Research has shown that there is a tendency, based on evolutionary aspects, for
us to define a tribe or an anchor, an in-group and out-group. Ultimately this
doesn't work for the greater good. To overcome these natural mechanisms,
certain techniques help: simply looking at that other group, whose members you
would not normally feel kinship with, and saying, "Well, it turns out that
they want their children to be educated like mine. They have the same interest
in seeing X, Y or Z occur, just like me." It has a profound effect on how
you perceive your responsibility to others. It gives you the realization of our
shared humanity and interdependence. It changes how you interact.
The
Dalai Lama donated to CCARE. Can a body funded by a religious leader do good
science?
The Dalai Lama has had an
interest in the neuroscience of meditation for more than 30 years, and which is
more recently focused on compassion. But there is not one shred of evidence
that there was ever any agenda related to the promotion of Buddhism. He has
very specifically separated empirical science from religious dogma in his
talks.
Where
does the work of CCARE go from here?
I would like to create a virtual compassion gym, where individuals get a
psychological profile which takes into account what resonates with them, be it
spirituality or religiosity, or other types of philosophies. Additionally, we
would incorporate what we have learned from online gaming and psychology on
engagement. Based on that, we would create a plan so they can strengthen their
compassion muscle and then show how they benefit, both mentally and
physiologically. If we've done our work correctly, the results will be strong
motivators for them to continue, hopefully making their lives and society
better.
Pastel Chalk by John Potts
How
hopeful are you that the world can become a more compassionate place?
I think that we're really
seeing a sea change in how people perceive their place in the world. The
millennium generation is the first to grow up with 24/7 access to global
information. When you see the suffering of others, you realize that those
individuals could just as easily have been you. It's much easier to say,
"I can't let that happen—I feel their pain." That is how humanity is
going to survive.
Above quotes compiled by John Potts,
Arriving Home at the Source (Dharma Name)
