What’s the key to finding equanimity in fraught times? How do we experience joy when life may be challenging us to the breaking point? Both science and the great faith traditions encourage us to practice compassion.

I’m reading the wonderful Book of Joy by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams, published in 2016. It’s the story of five days of conversations among the three men, and it’s loaded with the wisdom, insight, and humor you’d expect from these two lions of the spiritual world. Abrams adds an additional layer by bringing in his interviews with secular experts in the science of happiness.

Here’s the bottom line: as a species we are hard-wired for connection and compassion. There’s no better way to remind ourselves of this than meditation.

Everyone suffers. Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone knows what it’s like to be exiled from their homeland or imprisoned for years because of their ethnicity. Still, no one escapes life unscathed.

There’s a wonderful story about the Buddha: a woman whose child has died comes to him one day and asks him to teach her how to stop feeling overwhelmed by grief. “Of course,” he answers. “First, bring me a cup of rice from every house in the village that has not experienced loss.” The woman hurries out to fulfill her task. In the evening, she returns empty handed. “I understand,” she says. “I’m not alone.” She leaves feeling better, feeling compassion for others knowing that they, like she, have grieved.

When we see that others suffer, when we connect with others on the level of their humanity, our compassion is awakened. When we turn our attention, then, to others, we noticeably become happier. As the Dalai Lama says, “Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering.” In fact, there are scientific studies indicating that people who frequently use the first person pronouns (I, me, mine) are more likely to be depressed.

I’m often asked, What exactly is compassion? I can hardly do better than to echo the Dalai Lama, who puts it simply, “Compassion is the wish to see others free from suffering.” In greater depth, he defines compassion as a deep, genuine concern for the well-being of others, coupled with a strong desire to alleviate their suffering. True compassion, he reminds us, is unbiased and universal, extending not only to friends and loved ones but also to strangers and even enemies. [emphasis mine]

That’s the hard part, isn’t it? Can we actually feel deep, genuine concern for the well-being of our enemies? So many movies, television shows, books, are premised on the idea that we show our strength through vengeance. Audiences delight in seeing “the bad guys” get their comeuppance at the hand of the person they wronged. We often conflate compassion with weakness.

But the Dalai Lama stresses that compassion isn’t a sign of weakness but a source of inner strength, promoting peace, happiness, and a sense of connection among all beings.

A source of strength. I’m inclined to believe a man who has flourished in exile and survived countless threats on his life. A man whose equanimity is all-but-unshakeable.

That’s not to say that we’re all at the level of one of the world’s great spiritual leaders. But I will say that I’ve found when I call up compassion for people who I completely disagree with, I feel more at peace, stronger.

So how do we call up compassion? Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the Dalai Lama: we can remind ourselves that “this person’s actions are due to their own destructive emotions. You can develop a sense of concern, compassion, even feel sorry for their pain and suffering: how sad that this person is out of control, or having such a negative feeling. Instead of frustration and anger you feel sorry for the other person and concern for them.”

And since meditation has been shown scientifically to benefit us in myriad ways, here’s one I practice often. You can find a recording of it at the end of my TEDx talk, or stay tuned for a new recording that I’ll link to in these pages.

MEDITATION

Sit comfortably, feet on the floor, hands in your lap. If you prefer to sit on the ground, that’s fine, too.

Close your eyes or soften your gaze.

Take five deep, slow breaths, allowing your focus to stay with the breath as it begins, flows through your nostrils, reaches its peak, and flows out. Notice the brief pause between outbreath and inbreath and allow your body to tell you when it needs to start the next inbreath.

Allow the image of someone you care about to come into your mind. Picture their face. As you hold their image, say in your mind, “I wish you love with all my heart. I wish you joy with all my heart. I wish you peace with all my heart.”

Let their image fade. Now, allow the image of someone you’re neutral about to come into your mind. Don’t second guess yourself. Whoever comes to you is fine. As you hold their image, say in your mind, “I wish you love with all my heart. I wish you joy with all my heart. I wish you peace with all my heart.”

Let their image fade. Now, allow the image of someone you feel negatively toward to come into your mind. Perhaps don’t choose the person you feel most negatively toward on your first time with this meditation. Work up to that individual. Once you’ve thought of someone, as you hold their image, say in your mind, “I wish you love with all my heart. I wish you joy with all my heart. I wish you peace with all my heart.”

Let their image fade. Take five slow breaths.

How do you feel?