Week 5

Jul 3, 2025

We are now moving from loving kindness for oneself to embracing common humanity. It was so great to engage in this topic with you all and hear your thoughts. Thank you as well for your authenticity last night.

The theme of week 5 is cultivating a feeling of connection with others and appreciating the contributions of others to our lives.

1. Guided Daily Meditation: Embracing Shared Common Humanity

[Option] When working with the “neutral” person try using the same person each day and see if they remain “neutral.”

If you’d like an extra resource and would like to dive more deeply into the Compassionate Image, feel free to use Britta’s Daily Grace Meditations, where she goes through several different versions of a compassionate Image. (As with Britta’s Self Compassion meditations, each meditation is about 5-8 minutes long, with the possibility for you to pause the video and spend some time in silent contemplation, if you wish)

Compassionate Image (Letting in the Good)

2. Informal Daily Practices:

Silently say “Just like me” in your interactions.
Look for an opportunity to reinterpret your reaction to a situation or interaction when you are feeling something other than compassion (e.g. disgust, irritation, pity, envy, schadenfreude) by remembering, “Just like me: this person wishes to be happy, loved, and appreciated; just like me: this person wishes to be healthy, safe and free from suffering.” Notice if this gives rise to greater compassion.
In your everyday activity, every now and then consciously notice someone (a friend, an acquaintance, or a total stranger) and silently wish that he or she be happy, well, free of fear, and at ease (Like Sharon Saltzberg video: Grand Central Station – Street Lovingkindness with Sharon Salzberg)
As you go about your daily activities, consider how you are part of a wider web. When you eat, consider who and what was required to bring this food to your table. When you get dressed in the morning, consider where the resources for the fabric, the buttons, the zipper came from. Who made these garments? What is their life like? As you walk or ride through your neighborhood, notice the landscape, the roads, the buildings. Notice and honor how we are all interconnected and how contribute or detract from each other’s lives. How can you be more mindful and more supportive of this infinite web and all who contribute to it?
Optional: Repeat the Eye Gazing exercise (4 min.) with someone in-person. Perhaps share the video with them first.

Optional Book Reading: A Fearless Heart by Thupten Jinpa Chapters for Week 5: Chapter 10, ‘More Courage, Less Stress, Greater Freedom’, pages 197 – 213.

3. Science:

Stevens, F., Taber, K. (2021) “The neuroscience of empathy and compassion in pro-social behavior.” Neuropsychologia, 59: 107925
Fiske, S. T. (2018). “Stereotype Content: Warmth and Competence Endure.” Current Directions in Psychological Science
“Why Are We Doing This?” Clinical Helplessness in the Face of Suffering (2015) Anthony L. Back – Cynda H. Rushton –Alfred W. Kaszniak – Joan S. Halifax. This research paper discusses the feeling of helplessness that clinicians can face when dealing with patients.
Compassion: Universally Misunderstood, Professor Paul Gilbert. People can be frightened of compassion because they think it is a weakness or an indulgence. This is largely because they don’t understand it and don’t recognize the enormous value.

4. Supplemental Resources:

Videos:

Beyond Borders – Amnesty International [Video we watched in class]
The video is based on a theory that four minutes of uninterrupted eye contact increases intimacy. Amnesty International Poland and Polish ad agency DDB&Tribal applied the theory, developed by psychologist Arthur Aron in 1997, to the refugee crisis, sitting refugees from Syria and Somalia opposite people from Belgium, Italy, Germany, Poland and the UK, with overwhelmingly positive results. It was filmed by Amnesty International Poland in Berlin in April 2016.
Susan Fiske & Chris Malone – “The Human Brand: How We Relate to People, Products, and Companies.” (2014) Dr. Fiske’s part of this talk discusses her research on the four quadrant and how we categorized/stereotype people.
https://practicalpie.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Warmth-and-Competence.png
Compassion and the True Meaning of Empathy Joan Halifax, TED Talk

Articles:

Greater Good Magazine. (2016). Five science-backed strategies to build resilience. Greater Good Science Center.

Quotes:

The Line Dividing Good and Evil

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The Delusion of Separation

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

~ Albert Einstein

Knowing One’s Own Darkness

In cultivating compassion we draw from the wholeness of our experience–our suffering, our empathy, as well as our cruelty and terror. It has to be this way. Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

~ Pema Chodron

Everyone you Meet

Remember that everyone you meet is afraid of something, loves something and has lost something.

~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

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