The Book of Joy

empathy to acts of kindness, generosity, and other expressions of
altruistic tendencies.” The Biblical Hebrew word for compassion,
rachamim, comes from the root word for womb, rechem, and the Dalai
Lama often says that it is from our mother’s nurturing that we learn
compassion. He also says that his mother was his first teacher of
compassion. It is from being nurtured, and in turn nurturing our own
children, that we discover the nature of compassion. Compassion is in
many ways expanding this maternal instinct that was so pivotal to the
survival of our species.
The Dalai Lama tells a story of flying one night from Japan to San
Francisco. Sitting close to him was a couple with two children, a very
active boy of around three years old and a baby. At the beginning, it
seemed the father was helping to look after the children, often walking
about with the young boy, who kept running through the aisles. In the
middle of the night the Dalai Lama looked over and saw that the father
was fast asleep and the mother was left trying to take care of the two tired
and cranky children by herself. The Dalai Lama handed the boy a piece of
candy, as he noticed the mother’s swollen eyes and exhaustion.
“Seriously,” he said later. “I thought about it, and I don’t think I would
have had that kind of patience.” The Dalai Lama’s comment echoed a
topic I have discussed with quite a few religious seekers and parents: It
probably takes many years of monastic practice to equal the spiritual
growth generated by one sleepless night with a sick child.
While we all carry what the Dalai Lama calls the “seed of
compassion” from our own experience of being nurtured by others,
compassion is actually a skill that can be cultivated. It is something that
we can learn to develop and then use to extend our circle of concern
beyond our immediate family to others. It helps when one recognizes our
shared humanity.
“Archbishop, Your Holiness, over the course of the week, you have
talked so much about compassion that I thought we might need to rename
your collaboration The Book of Compassion. In this session, I hope we
can explore compassion even more deeply. While everyone agrees that
being compassionate is a worthy goal, it is hard for many people to