The 'compassion' revolution

Two Nobel laureates present a compelling case for compassion, highlighting its benefits for health, well-being, and longevity

The Book of Compassion

Authors: His Holiness the Dalai Lama & Kailash Satyarthi with Pooja Pande

Publisher:  Penguin

Pages: 208

Price:  Rs 599

On the occasion of the Dalai Lama’s 89th birthday on July 6, Penguin released The Book of Compassion, the shared writings of the two Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, the Dalai Lama and Kailash Satyarthi, along with writer, TED speaker and the CEO of Chambal Media Pooja Pande.

Ms Pande has painstakingly extracted all references and analogies relating to compassion in several lectures and speeches by Mr Satyarthi and the Dalai Lama over the years. In her journey with this book, Ms Pande, a writer and a mother, came to regard compassion as the ultimate female impulse. She believes that the future of compassion leans female. “It is not mere ideology; it is creative, nurturing, equity-leaning, harmony-centric and action-oriented,” she writes in the book’s Introduction.

In a session at picturesque McLeod Ganj, the Dalai Lama talked about Gandhi’s ideas of ahimsa (non-violence) and karuna (compassion). His Holiness defines karuna as the wish for others to be free from suffering. Sitting in the same room, Mr Satyarthi added that just as Gandhi converted ahimsa  into a social and political movement during the struggle for India’s independence, karuna too should be converted into a social and global movement.

The duo talk about compassion as something that stems from the interconnectedness of the world in which we live. Discarding the concept of “us and them”, the Dalai Lama says, “We need to develop the concept of the entire world and the entire celebration of human beings as ‘we’, part of ‘we.’” “We need a celebration of compassion,” adds Mr Satyarthi.

Ms Pande explains that the etymology of compassion is simply “suffering with”. Its dictionary definition includes not just the feeling or emotion when a person is moved by another’s suffering, but also the desire to relieve their distress, she writes. “Concern for others seems to help lessen my own pain,” the Dalai Lama explains. “Compassion always enables solution-oriented action and behaviour,” adds Mr Satyarthi. Both also emphasise the need to bring compassion down from a pedestal in order to make it something ordinary and necessary as a part of one’s daily life. Using wordplay in a Facebook live stream, Mr Satyarthi urged people to “seek  karuna in the era of corona”.

Both lives exemplify the true nature of compassion — “being touched by another’s suffering to effect action,” writes Ms Pande. Mr Satyarthi also believes that the journey of many religious figures across  faiths— Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, Lord Krishna or Gautam Buddha — started with a spark of compassion. “[They were] urged to do something about what they saw as the inequalities of the world,” he says.

According to the Dalai Lama, compassion and kindness are natural qualities that can be cultivated in children as young as four or five, and reinforced progressively as they grow up. He elaborates on how sensitisation can be incorporated in the education system. Just as physical hygiene is part of the curriculum since kindergarten, he prescribes that the hygiene of emotion needs to be added too. “We should have some knowledge of how to tackle our inner world or emotions,” he says.

Social Emotional Ethical Learning, a programme envisioned by the Dalai Lama and developed by Emory University, aims to educate the heart and mind, placing greater emphasis on inner values. Compassion is also rewarded at Bal Ashram, the centre co-founded by Mr Satyarthi and his wife, where initiatives seek out and reward the most compassionate children. In the book, Mr Satyarthi also mentions Louisville, labelled the “City of Compassion”, which had invited him for an event in 2019. The mayor explained that philanthropy in the city had increased manifold over the years, compassion was being taught in school curricula and children were donating their things to children in other less privileged parts of the world.

Later in the book, Ms Pande provides possibly the most convincing argument in favour of compassion — its benefits for our health and well-being, and the fact that it keeps one young. Moreover, the mechanism of compassion, in its ability to make deep connections with others, is also a powerful buffer against loneliness. She also discusses self-compassion, the starting point of compassion. Self-compassion asks that we first recognise the suffering in the self and act to alleviate it, she explains. In fact, Mr Satyarthi feels that true self-compassion is much harder to practise than showing compassion towards others. Towards the end of the book, Ms Pande explains that compassion needs to be mindfully and intentionally practised in order for it to become a matter of choice and habit in the long run. The book’s closing chapter offers a compiled bible of how-to guides and tricks to ignite, exercise and practise compassion.

During a Facebook Live event in 2020, Mr Satyarthi said, “We have globalised everything, haven’t we? It is time for a globalisation of compassion now.” “His clarion call for a globalisation of compassion,” writes Ms Pande, “is ultimately about compassionate geopolitics, broken down into compassionate politics, compassionate economy and compassionate society.” The Dalai Lama goes a shade further, asking for “a revolution of compassion”, calling it “the mother of all uprisings”.

The reviewer is a freelance writer based in New Delhi. She writes on books, art, culture, travel, music and theatre