Compassion – The Foundation That Binds Communities Together

Recent scientific research has indicated that training in compassion, using simple contemplative activities and practices, can deepen and broaden our ability to express, and act upon, the compassion that is inherent in all human beings. In this session we will explore the elements of compassion training that facilitate compassionate action.

Imagine what it would be like if we all made decisions and actions based on true compassion, informed by wisdom, and with daily practice.  Even just 10 minutes twice a day results in genuine progress.  Imagine the positive changes if every elected official and public service employee practiced compassion this way! Image if every corporate manager, owner, and employee included compassion every day in every decision.

Want to become a “Compassionate Organization’? We invite every group to send representatives to explore this with us.  Share the benefit.

James Torbert will be our presenter.  Jim is a Co-Director at Waves of Compassion www.wavesofcompassion.ca/ (see also www.contemplativecentre.ca/).  The intention is to draw in participation from many local organizations as this is very helpful to a wide group. This will be a practical introduction to a useful skill. They are doing some exciting work towards introducing compassion as a core value and a cultivated practice in a wide variety of settings, including the public sector, the social action sector, and well, everywhere. People often think of compassion as just something one has or does not have. However, research shows that compassion has an element of a skill that one can develop through practices that can be taught. And that can transform lives and organizations. Waves of Compassion is dedicated to that training and to helping people understand the nature of compassion more deeply.

Free. Registration not needed.

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Here is a response from a fellow activist that took the Training for Transition program here:  

A few weeks ago a post from George Monbiot (Common Cause Foundation) pointed out a new study which concluded that:

“Humans [possess] an enhanced capacity for empathy, an unparalleled sensitivity to the needs of others, a unique level of concern about their welfare and an ability to create moral norms that generalize and enforce these tendencies.”

He also cited a review article in the journal Frontiers in Psychology that pointed out that …..humans … are ultra-social: possessed of an enhanced capacity for empathy, an unparalleled sensitivity to the needs of others, a unique level of concern about their welfare and an ability to create moral norms that generalize and enforce these tendencies..

These new studies reinforce what has been well documented by Jeremy Rifkin in his 2009  670 page tome “The Empathetic Civilization” in which he chronicled the evolution of empathy.  Rifkin examined the new view of human nature that is emerging in the biological and cognitive sciences that is forcing us to rethink long-held beliefs that human beings are by nature, aggressive, materialistic, utilitarian, and self-interested. He feels that the dawning realization that we are a fundamentally empathetic species has profound and far-reaching consequences for the future of society. http://empathiccivilization.com

Hopefully the paradigm shift in attitudes and policies that we are now experiencing in Canada will move us forever beyond the Hobbesian inspired dictates that the Harper government unleashed on our country to a point where the compassionate Canada we once knew again defines our nation, all be it with different policies, responding to the complex emergencies the world now faces.”  – Janet Eaton