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Cultivating Compassion Through Mindfulness

This document discusses cultivating compassion by looking beyond judgments of right and wrong to see "suffering and no suffering." It explains that without judgment, we would feel compassion instead of fear, guilt or shame. Compassion can lead to helping others without condemnation. To have compassion, we must understand the underlying conditions that led to someone's current state rather than just the end result, realizing past experiences shape behaviors. For example, two people who suffered abuse as children reacted differently as adults due to their backgrounds. Gaining insight into others can help us acknowledge why they act as they do and foster compassion and forgiveness.

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151 views2 pages

Cultivating Compassion Through Mindfulness

This document discusses cultivating compassion by looking beyond judgments of right and wrong to see "suffering and no suffering." It explains that without judgment, we would feel compassion instead of fear, guilt or shame. Compassion can lead to helping others without condemnation. To have compassion, we must understand the underlying conditions that led to someone's current state rather than just the end result, realizing past experiences shape behaviors. For example, two people who suffered abuse as children reacted differently as adults due to their backgrounds. Gaining insight into others can help us acknowledge why they act as they do and foster compassion and forgiveness.

Uploaded by

Tere
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

cultivating compassion

Date / Time So far today, have you brought kind awareness to your:
Thoughts? Heart? Body? None of the Above

1. Can you envision a state of mind where there is no harsh, condemning judgment of yourself or
of others? This state of mind does not view the world in terms of good and evil or right and
wrong; it sees only “suffering and no suffering.”

2. What would happen if we did not judge any of the things that we see? We would see things
that bring happiness and things that bring pain but we would not see fear, guilt or shame.
Wouldn’t it be remarkable if we saw the world this way? When we only see suffering and no
suffering, we feel compassion.

3. Compassion can lead to forceful action without judgment. For example, if we see a small child
reaching for a cup filled with hot coffee, we instantly respond. This response is born out of the
compassion we feel; we move to keep the child from harm, without any judgment.

4. Compassion is the ability to feel someone else’s experiences and wish them to be free from
pain. To view life compassionately, we have to look beyond the end result of what is
happening now, and look at the underlying conditions that caused the end result.

5. If you have insight into someone’s history you may realize past events cause them to behave
in a certain way. Then you can see the conditions that led up to that situation, not just the end
result of those conditions.

6. For example, two people, a man and a woman, both suffered childhood abuse. The woman
grew up to be fearful; the man grew up to be angry.

7. As adults they found themselves working together and the fearful woman disliked the angry
man – until she gained some insight to his background and realized he had suffered the same
as she had.

8. This kind of understanding does not mean that we condone a person’s negative behavior but
it does mean that we can acknowledge the underlying factors that make up that person’s life
opening us up to compassion and forgiveness.

[Link]
cultivating compassion
9. Think of someone that you have had a problem with in the past. Can you look beyond the
problem and see that underlying conditions may have caused that person to react
negatively – or perhaps underlying conditions caused you to react negatively. Can you
view the situation with compassion and forgiveness?

10. How will you take what you learned from this forward into your life?

thank you for your mindfulness practice

Get more free mindfulness worksheets, talks, eBooks and meditations at

[Link]

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