Talking about cultivating or developing compassion can have the unfortunate side-effect of giving us the idea that compassion is something we don’t have, and need to create. Actually, the words cultivate and develop are meant to imply that we already have compassion as a natural attribute, and that what we need to do is to connect with this innate compassion and make it stronger. Really, karuna bhavana is “strengthening compassion.”
Compassion is part of our genetically inherited mental tool-kit. Other animals show compassion: primatologist Frans de Waal (one of my personal heroes) points out that chimpanzees take care of the sick and elderly, for example by bringing water to older females who are crippled by arthritis. The much less brainy capuchin monkey also shows empathy, and will help others when they have nothing directly to gain themselves. Even mice show the capacity for empathy.
Compassion is part of our evolutionary heritage. We may think of moral emotions as being handed down from on high (on a mountain-top, engraved on stone tablets) but actually they are to a large extent handed up from below, inscribed in our DNA.
We often take our compassion for granted, or ignore its whisperings. But it’s there all the time, even if we’re not aware of it.
Certainly, we often act in ways that are uncompassionate — even unkind or cruel (that harsh word, the judgmental thought, the unkind glare, cutting someone off in traffic) — but our uncompassionate instincts and our more compassionate ones coexist. The brain, and hence the self, is not unitary, but modular. The brain has not been designed from scratch as a smoothly functioning system, but has evolved piecemeal and is full of cooperating, competing, and antagonistic modules.
We therefore find ourselves morally divided. One part of us believes that showing dominance or anger is a valid means to find happiness or peace; if we’re aggressive, we hope, the troublesome object of our aggression will stay away from us and trouble us no more. But another part of us recognizes that conflict is painful and that compassion and kindness are more likely to lead to peace within our minds and in our world. In our everyday behavior we swing from one set of motivations to another.
So we need, sometimes, to let go of a whole layer of behavior and assumptions about how the world works, and how happiness is brought about in our lives, in order to connect with our innate compassion.
As with lovingkindness meditation, I have some simple reflections that help me reconnect with my innate ability to feel compassion.
As I’m beginning the practice of cultivating compassion, I recognize the truth of the following:
- I don’t want to suffer.
- But suffering is hard to avoid.
I drop these thoughts into the mind, and give them time to sink in. I give myself time to respond to the truth of these statements. I don’t have to make a response happen. I don’t have to think about these concepts — and in fact thinking about the concepts will get in the way os acknowledging their essential truthfulness. The response, like compassion itself, will come up from below.
These thoughts are deceptively simple. As you’re reading them, your eyes skimming the marks on this page, they may have no perceptible effect. The left brain understands the concepts, but perhaps isn’t touched by them. It’s just data. But let them sink in and the right brain can relate. These words reflect a fundamental reality of your life — something deep, primal, and moving. Be still, and let the words ripple through the space of the mind and see what happens. Listen.
Often the response is in the form of a mild heart ache, a tenderness in the center of the chest. This feeling of tender vulnerability is not something to avoid; it’s something to accept. It’s the stirring of compassion within the heart.

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When I reflect in this way I recognize something I often overlook because it’s so obvious. Life is a difficult thing to do. We want happiness but keep stumbling into suffering instead. This being human is a hard thing.
And having let these thoughts drop into the heart, and having felt the heart’s response, I let the part of me that wishes me well speak. I strengthen the innate compassion that’s been revealed by dropping phrases into the mind, just as I do in lovingkindness practice.
There are other traditional phrases that you can use, like
- May I be free from hostility
- May I be free from affliction
- May I be free from suffering
- May I live happily.
The exactly wording of the phrases doesn’t matter too much, but they have to be meaningful for you, short enough to remember, and said with sincerity.
You can just use phrases like “May I be well; may I be happy; may I be free from suffering.” At the same time you are aware of the fact that you suffer. You don’t have to think about this or dwell upon it. You just have an awareness of this fact in the back of your mind. It’s like if you’re talking to a friend and you know they’re going away for a few weeks and this is the last time you’re going to see them for a while; you don’t need to keep saying to yourself “My friend is going away. My friend is going away.” Instead, you just get on with your conversation, and in the back of your mind you know the truth of the situation. And that truth affects everything you say. Similarly, having established that you don’t want to suffer, and yet to, everything you say to yourself is touched by that awareness. You get on with having a conversation with yourself — a conversation that turns the heart to kindness and compassion.
PS. You can see a complete list all the 100 Days of Lovingkindness posts here.
8 Comments. Leave new
I enjoy reading your blogs everyday. I am new to meditation and still struggle with the whole idea. I have a lot of family members who are very negative and I try to show them loving kindness but I get accused of being a do-gooder. I am a natural worrier and I know I should focus on the moment, but sometimes even the present moment is filled with fear. Is there a meditation I can do that will help me ?
I’m sorry to hear that you’re up against so much negativity. Really, any meditation will help. It sounds like you’re already doing metta bhavana, but if you’re not I’d highly recommend it. It’s especially important that you accept that you’re experiencing fear or anxiety and hold those feelings in a space of kindness. The scared parts of your mind need kindness and reassurance.
[…] Spontaneous compassion is inherent to us all (Day 27) […]
First of all thank you for what you are doing here. I’ve come into the 100 days a bit late so have missed some of your blogs. I’m taking care of my 96 year old mother 24/7 and don’t get much time for myself, having said that, I am managing to get at LEAST 10 minutes of loving kindness, metta bhavana meditation in, much to my surprise. This is my anchor. And I’m struggling, as you are moving into compassion, with my seemingly total lack of compassion towards my mother, who is in a lot of pain, especially at night, both mental and physical pain. I tell myself I have to steal myself from her crying out or else her pain will drive me crazy. but really, her pain makes me angry, tired, stony hearted, unkind and cold. And then I realize my mother can feel this from me and how that must hurt her, and I feel sorrowful. Your words have encouraged me to try and shift this pattern of hurt and coldness and ‘drop’ some words loving kindness into my brain/heart. I’ve been feeling guilty (which I know has no real value), trying to wish my mother to be free from pain and anger, but I see that I may be deluding myself, and I have to start with opening my own heart…and finding that compassion which I feel completely devoid of at this point in time. Thank you again. Susan
“And then I realize my mother can feel this from me and how that must hurt her.”
That sounds like the seed of compassion right there…
It’s a difficult situation you’re in, and I wish you both well.
Thank you , again.
You’re welcome, again!
[…] earlier that we can do as a conscious act as we begin a session of lovingkindness practice. And learning to embrace our innate desire to be free from suffering is likewise something we can contemplate as we begin to cultivate […]