This practice is effective in strengthening our capacity for empathy and compassion. Instead of focusing on what divides us, we will focus on what unites us: Deep down, we are all human beings. We need food, shelter and love. We implore attention, recognition, affection and, above all, happiness.
Reflect on these things, the things you have in common with any other human being, and ignore the differences. I found one of my favorite exercises in a great article in Ode Magazine. It is a five-step exercise that you can practice when you meet friends and strangers. Do it discreetly and try to follow all the steps with the same person. With your attention focused on him or her, say to yourself:
STEP 1: "Like me, this person seeks happiness in their life."
STEP 2: "Like me, this person tries to avoid suffering in their life."
STEP 3: "Like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness and despair."
STEP 4: "Like me, this person is trying to meet your needs."
STEP 5: "Like me, this person is learning about life."
What is to feel compassion? "It is feeling what a mother feels when she sees her son cry."
We live in an interconnected society, in which the successes and regrets of others come instantly to us through cell phones, computers, television, radio and newspapers. This carries the risk that we feel overwhelmed or overwhelmed by our emotions. When we are exhausted, we stop feeling compassion. Training people to feel compassion instead of empathy can help solve problems like depression and fatigue. For Tania Singer of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, empathy is "a precursor to compassion, but too much empathy can lead to antisocial behavior." For example, people working in the healthcare system or caring for others, as they often encounter trauma victims, can be very stressed, and feel overcome. Brain scans have shown that similar areas of the brain are activated in both the suffering and empathetic person. Therefore empathic suffering is a real experience of suffering.
To avoid this, we need to transform empathy into compassion. Compassion is a feeling of pity or a feeling of concern that is not accompanied by feelings such as sadness, for example, if the other person is sad. To better understand compassion, Singer has studied Buddhist monks as they are experts in prosocial meditation and compassion. When these monks watched videos of other people in pain, their brain scans showed an intensification of activity in areas that are important for care, emotional nutrition, and positive social engagement. In people who didn't meditate, videos used to activate areas of the brain associated with feelings of sadness and pain.
One of the monks who participated in the study, Matthieu Ricard, described his mental state during meditation as "an activation of the tenderness, love and care that a mother arouses when she hears a child cry."