Tara Brach: Compassion Can Be Cultivated

It is my experience that compassion is essential to living a healthy, whole, courageous, kind, empathic, and loving life. Compassion is also a vital part of what is needed in our world today. Whatever our religious or spiritual tradition, may we each seek and learn from all that supports the deepening and strengthening of our capacity to emanate the wisdom and loving gifts which are rooted in compassion. Bless us all. — Molly

Compassion Can Be Cultivated

The capacity for compassion is hardwired into our brain and body. Just as we are rigged to perceive differences, to feel separate, and to react with aversion, we are also designed to feel a connection with our fellow humans. Specialized "mirror neurons" attune us to another person's state — to their emotions and the intentions behind their movements — and re-create that state in our own brain. Our experience of them is not just a projection based on visible expressions such as grimaces, narrowed eyes, or furrowed brows. Because of mirror neurons, and other structures in the prefrontal cortex that make up our compassion circuitry, we can actually "feel with" them.

Yet these compassion circuits are easily blocked when we're stressed and out of touch with our emotions and bodies. They can also become blocked when we buy into cultural stereotypes and when we're experiencing unexamined reactivity to the people in our life. Research shows that the less we identify with someone — the less they seem real to us — the less the mirror neuron system gets activated.

The good news is that we can unblock and activate our compassion networks. This happens as we intentionally turn toward the refuge of truth and love. Mindfulness directly engages the parts of our brain (the insula and anterior cingulate cortex) that are key in reading others' emotions. When we mindfully recognize that another is hurt or afraid, we naturally feel the tenderness of compassion. That tenderness blossoms fully as we find ways to express our care. This alchemy of letting ourselves be touched by another's pain and of responding with love is the essence  of Buddhist compassion practice.

One such meditation training, the Tibetan practice of tonglen, literally means "sending and receiving." The breath is used as a support and guide: Breathing in with deep receptivity, we take in the pain of others. Breathing out, we offer our care and blessings, sending whatever will bring relief and space and happiness. This practice goes counter to our tendency to shut down in the face of suffering. As my mother discovered, the more fully we let ourselves be touched by suffering, the more we soften and awaken our hearts. The more we offer our love, the more we discover our belonging to all beings, and to loving awareness itself.

The starting place in tonglen is an intentional relaxing of the armor around our heart. Each of us has been wounded and, in reaction, has erected defenses to protect us from experiencing further harm. We don't want to be vulnerable or available to pain. Yet before we can be tenderhearted, we have to be tender. As poet Mark Nepo writes —

"Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world, but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold, and the car handle feels wet, and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable."

— Tara Brach

Excerpted from  True Refuge: Finding Peace and

Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart

Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.— Rumi