“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
- His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
Compassion — the wish that others be free from suffering — and love — the wish for their well-being — are of vital importance for both personal and societal flourishing. Not only are compassion and love absolutely central to a life well lived, but we have the capacity to deliberately cultivate and develop these fundamental virtues within. This truth is affirmed at once by multiple world religions, traditional wisdom, common sense, and modern science.
Compassion Programing
Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) and Cognitively Based Compassion Training (CBCT) are secular adaptations of classical Tibetan Buddhist compassion practices. Both are eight-week cohort based courses that take participants through a progressive curriculum starting with basic meditation skills and building to various compassion practices. CCT was developed at Standard University’s School Medicine within the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Educate (C.C.A.R.E). A team of contemplatives and scientists partnered to create the program including luminaries such as Thupten Jinpa, Ph.D, James Doty, Ph.D and Philippe Goldin, Ph.D. CBCT was developed at Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion Based Ethics under the the direction of Geshe Lobsang Tenzin Negi, Ph.D, a former monk and a current professor of religious studies. Both programs have received enthusiastic support from the Dalai Lama.
CCT and CBCT are research informed and backed programs. They utilized insights from modern psychological and medical research to inform their development and they have since validated their efficacy through rigorous scientific research. There are over thirty scientific articles that have been published on these two programs much of which represents novel academic contributions to the understanding of compassion and the human ability to cultivate it (click here for CCT articles and here for CBCT articles).
Thubten Jinpa, Ph.D
This research suggests many benefits including increased compassion for self and other, happiness, emotional regulation, self acceptance, self caring behavior, and prosocial tendencies. Research also demonstrates decreased worry, anxiety, anger, mind wandering, and emotional suppression. While the research is young, it is provocative and encouraging . But what is is even more compelling than the research is the experience itself. Those who sincerely undertake these practices can see for themselves the results from the inside out of a kinder, more connected, more loving heart and mind.
I’m not so much a grand exemplar of compassion as I am an earnest and dedicated student who loves to invite others into their own exploration of this work. For each of us it is a deeply personal matter of how to embody more virtue within the complexities of our lives. Based on the belief that wherever one may be there is room to grow, and in the spirit of camaraderie, I create learning communities in which I too am a learner. I am certified to deliver both CBCT and CCT and have done so in a range of environments including at the University of Arizona, and New York University. I have also developed unique compassion programing based on a decade of study of Buddhist meditation, trauma work, body work, and interpersonal meditation. If you would like to bring any of this programing to your organization or community, either in person or online, reach out directly to me using the contact page.
- Miles
