Ingrid Landin, Adjunct lecturer, Department of Clinical Neuroscience

Compassion starts with our capacity to care. It is the softening and opening of the heart to ourselves and all that lives; a profound experience of our mysterious interconnectedness with all life; the realization that we are not separate from others. Compassion is what the world needs to heal and become whole. We can develop and deepen an intention to be of help and not to cause harm; and also the wisdom and skills needed to see what causes suffering and what will alleviate it.

So how do we develop our capacity to be with suffering, wisely and compassionately? In the Buddhist tradition, and nowadays also in Compassion Focused Therapy and ACT, there are many ways to train the mind in the compassion that we so desperately need, so that we don’t turn away from suffering and can meet the challenges of today’s world. We will explore these in a short compassion exercise.