What Is Compassion?

A Skeptic's Path to Enlightenment

Compassion is starting to rival mindfulness as the next most popular up-and-coming form of secular meditation. But what is compassion? Compassion, from the Buddhist perspective, is not just empathizing with others’ suffering, but actively wishing to take it away.
Episode 28. What Is Compassion?
Two years ago, we created A Skeptic’s Path to Enlightenment to share the rich tradition of Tibetan Buddhist analytical meditation in a form that requires no belief beyond what science currently accepts. The first 40 episodes of the podcast gradually go through all of these topics, in order, beginning with appreciating the gift of our life and our place in the universe, and gradually moving up to cultivating boundless compassion for all beings and understanding the ultimate nature of our inner and outer realities. Over the next year, interspersed with new interviews, we are re-releasing updated versions of these topics.

Scott Snibbe has just released a new book called How to Train a Happy Mind that shares the accessible approach to Buddhism familiar to podcast listeners. The book features a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and you can order it right now anywhere you buy books. Go to skepticspath.org for more details on the book and tour, featuring some of the great artists, authors and activists you’ve heard on the podcast.

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