Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

by Karen Armstrong

Overview

In this important and thought-provoking work, Karen Armstrong—one of the most original thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world—provides an impassioned and practical guide to helping us make the world a more compassionate place.
 
The twelve steps she suggests begin with “Learn About Compassion,” and close with “Love Your Enemies.” In between, she takes up self-love, mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and “concern for everybody.” She shares concrete methods to help us cultivate and expand our capacity for compassion, and provides a reading list to encourage us to “hear one another’s narratives.” Armstrong teaches us that becoming a compassionate human being is a lifelong project and a journey filled with rewards.

The First Step: Learn About Compassion
The Second Step: Look at Your Own World
The Third Step: Compassion for Yourself
The Fourth Step: Empathy
The Fifth Step: Mindfulness
The Sixth Step: Action
The Seventh Step: How Little We Know
The Eighth Step: How Should We Speak to One Another?
The Ninth Step: Concern for Everybody
The Tenth Step: Knowledge
The Eleventh Step: Recognition
The Twelfth Step: Love Your Enemies

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307742889
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/27/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	120,181
Product dimensions:	5.22(w) x 8.46(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous other books on religious affairs—including A History of God, The Battle for God, The Case for God, Islam, Buddha, and The Great Transformation—and two memoirs, Through the Narrow Gate and The Spiral Staircase. Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. She has addressed members of the U.S. Congress on three occasions; lectured to policy makers at the U.S. State Department; participated in the World Economic Forum in New York, Jordan, and Davos; addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and New York; is increasingly invited to speak in Muslim countries; and is now an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations. In February 2008 she was awarded the TED Prize and recently launched with TED a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion. She lives in London.
 
The author invites you to start a Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life Reading Group in your community, school, or workplace. An Organizer’s Guide, including tips for starting the group, discussion questions, sample promotional material, and more, can be found online at www.CharterForCompassion.org/Learn/ReadingGroups.

Read an Excerpt

Preface

Wish for a Better World

In November 2007, I heard that I had won a prize. Each year TED (the acronym for Technology, Entertainment, Design), a private nonprofit organization best known for its superb conferences on “ideas worth spreading,” gives awards to people whom they think have made a difference but who, with their help, could make even more of an impact. Other winners have included former U.S. president Bill Clinton, the scientist E. O. Wilson, and the British chef Jamie Oliver. The recipient is given $100,000 but, more important, is granted a wish for a better world. I knew immediately what I wanted. One of the chief tasks of our time must surely be to build a global community in which all peoples can live together in mutual respect; yet religion, which should be making a major contribution, is seen as part of the problem. All faiths insist that compassion is the test of true spirituality and that it brings us into relation with the transcendence we call God, Brahman, Nirvana, or Dao. Each has formulated its own version of what is sometimes called the Golden Rule, “Do not treat others as you would not like them to treat you,” or in its positive form, “Always treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself.” Further, they all insist that you cannot confine your benevolence to your own group; you must have concern for everybody—even your enemies.

Yet sadly we hear little about compassion these days. I have lost count of the number of times I have jumped into a London taxi and, when the cabbie asks how I make a living, have been informed categorically that religion has been the cause of all the major wars in history. In fact, the causes of conflict are usually greed, envy, and ambition, but in an effort to sanitize them, these self-serving emotions have often been cloaked in religious rhetoric. There has been much flagrant abuse of religion in recent years. Terrorists have used their faith to justify atrocities that violate its most sacred values. In the Roman Catholic Church, popes and bishops have ignored the suffering of countless women and children by turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse committed by their priests. Some religious leaders seem to behave like secular politicians, singing the praises of their own denomination and decrying their rivals with scant regard for charity. In their public pronouncements, they rarely speak of compassion but focus instead on such secondary matters as sexual practices, the ordination of women, or abstruse doctrinal formulations, implying that a correct stance on these issues—rather than the Golden Rule—is the criterion of true faith.

Yet it is hard to think of a time when the compassionate voice of religion has been so sorely needed. Our world is dangerously polarized. There is a worrying imbalance of power and wealth and, as a result, a growing rage, malaise, alienation, and humiliation that has erupted in terrorist atrocities that endanger us all. We are engaged in wars that we seem unable either to end or to win. Disputes that were secular in origin, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, have been allowed to fester and become “holy,” and once they have been sacralized, positions tend to harden and become resistant to pragmatic solutions. And yet at the same time we are bound together more closely than ever before through the electronic media. Suffering and want are no longer confined to distant, disadvantaged parts of the globe. When stocks plummet in one country, there is a domino effect in markets all around the world. What happens today in Gaza or Afghanistan is now likely to have repercussions tomorrow in London or New York. We all face the terrifying possibility of environmental catastrophe. In a world in which small groups will increasingly have powers of destruction hitherto confined to the nation-state, it has become imperative to apply the Golden Rule globally, ensuring that all peoples are treated as we would wish to be treated ourselves. If our religious and ethical traditions fail to address this challenge, they will fail the test of our time.

So at the award ceremony in February 2008, I asked TED to help me create, launch, and propagate a Charter for Compassion that would be written by leading thinkers from a variety of major faiths and would restore compassion to the heart of religious and moral life. The charter would counter the voices of extremism, intolerance, and hatred. At a time when religions are widely assumed to be at loggerheads, it would also show that, despite our significant differences, on this we are all in agreement and that it is indeed possible for the religious to reach across the divide and work together for justice and peace.

Thousands of people from all over the world contributed to a draft charter on a multilingual website in Hebrew, Arabic, Urdu, Spanish, and English; their comments were presented to the Council of Conscience, a group of notable individuals from six faith traditions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism), who met in Switzerland in February 2009 to compose the final version:

"The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.

It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity. We acknowledge that we have failed to live compassionately and that some have even increased the sum of human misery in the name of religion.

We therefore call upon all men and women

• to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion;

• to return to the ancient principle that any interpretation of scripture that breeds violence, hatred or disdain is illegitimate;

• to ensure that youth are given accurate and respectful information about other traditions, religions and cultures;

• to encourage a positive appreciation of cultural and religious diversity;

• to cultivate an informed empathy with the suffering of all human beings—even those regarded as enemies.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community."

The charter was launched on November 12, 2009, in sixty different locations throughout the world; it was enshrined in synagogues, mosques, temples, and churches as well as in such secular institutions as the Karachi Press Club and the Sydney Opera House. But the work is only just beginning. At this writing, we have more than 150 partners working together throughout the globe to translate the charter into practical, realistic action.

But can compassion heal the seemingly intractable problems of our time? Is this virtue even feasible in the technological age? And what does “compassion” actually mean? Our English word is often confused with “pity” and associated with an uncritical, sentimental benevolence: the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, defines “compassionate” as “piteous” or “pitiable.” This perception of compassion is not only widespread but ingrained. When I gave a lecture in the Netherlands recently, I emphatically made the point that compassion did not mean feeling sorry for people, but the Dutch translation of my text in the newspaper De Volkskrant consistently rendered “compassion” as “pity.” But “compassion” derives from the Latin patiri and the Greek pathein, meaning “to suffer, undergo, or experience.” So “compassion” means “to endure [something] with another person,” to put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes, to feel her pain as though it were our own, and to enter generously into his point of view. That is why compassion is aptly summed up in the Golden Rule, which asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else. Compassion can be defined, therefore, as an attitude of principled, consistent altruism.

The first person to formulate the Golden Rule, as far as we know, was the Chinese sage Confucius (551–479 BCE), who when asked which of his teachings his disciples could practice “all day and every day” replied: “Perhaps the saying about shu (“consideration”). Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you.” This, he said, was the thread that ran right through the spiritual method he called the Way (dao) and pulled all its teachings together. “Our Master’s Way,” explained one of his pupils, “is nothing but this: doing-your-best-for-others (zhong) and consideration (shu).” A better translation of shu is “likening to oneself”; people should not put themselves in a special, privileged category but relate their own experience to that of others “all day and every day.” Confucius called this ideal ren, a word that originally meant “noble” or “worthy” but which by his time simply meant “human.” Some scholars have argued that its root meaning was “softness,” “pliability.” But Confucius always refused to define ren, because, he said, it did not adequately correspond to any of the familiar categories of his day. It could be understood only by somebody who practiced it perfectly and was inconceivable to anybody who did not. A person who behaved with ren “all day and every day” would become a junzi, a “mature human being.”

Compassion, therefore, was inseparable from humanity; instead of being motivated by self-interest, a truly humane person was consistently oriented to others. The disciplined practice of shu took you into a dimension of experience that was transcendent because it went beyond the egotism that characterizes most human transactions. The Buddha (c. 470–390 BCE) would have agreed. He claimed to have discovered a realm of sacred peace within himself that he called nirvana (“blowing out”), because the passions, desires, and selfishness that had hitherto held him in thrall had been extinguished like a flame. Nirvana, he claimed, was an entirely natural state and could be achieved by anybody who put his regimen into practice. One of its central disciplines was a meditation on four elements of the “immeasurable” love that exists within everyone and everything: maitri (“loving kindness”), the desire to bring happiness to all sentient beings; karuna (“compassion”), the resolve to liberate all creatures from their pain; mudita (“sympathetic joy”), which takes delight in the happiness of others; and finally upeksha (“even-mindedness”), an equanimity that enables us to love all beings equally and impartially.

These traditions, therefore, agree that compassion is natural to human beings, that it is the fulfillment of human nature, and that in calling us to set ego aside in a consistently empathetic consideration of others, it can introduce us to a dimension of existence that transcends our normal self-bound state. Later, as we shall see, the three monotheistic religions would arrive at similar conclusions, and the fact that this ideal surfaced in all these faiths independently suggests that it reflects something essential to the structure of our humanity.

Table of Contents

Preface Wish for a Better World 3

The First Step Learn About Compassion 25

The Second Step Look at Your Own World 65

The Third Step Compassion for Yourself 75

The Fourth Step Empathy 91

The Fifth Step Mindfulness 105

The Sixth Step Action 110

The Seventh Step How Little We Know 116

The Eighth Step How Should We Speak to One Another? 131

The Ninth Step Concern for Everybody 143

The Tenth Step Knowledge 156

The Eleventh Step Recognition 164

The Twelfth Step Love Your Enemies 177

A Last Word 191

Acknowledgments 195

Notes 199

Suggestions for Further Reading 213

Reading Group Guide

This guide is designed to help you organize, promote, and facilitate your own reading group.
 
In 2008, Karen Armstrong won the 2008 TED Prize and with it her “wish to change the world”. Karen sought to create a Charter for Compassion. Thousands of people contributed to the process and the Charter was unveiled around the world in November 2009 (www.charterforcompassion.org). One year later, the Charter has inspired community-based acts of compassion all over the world. From Seattle to Karachi, Houston to Amsterdam, in schools, houses of worship, city governments, and among individuals everywhere, the message of the Charter is transforming lives.
 
Reading Groups are contributing to this transformation. Well over 400 people have downloaded this guide, so far. Thanks to volunteers throughout the world, we have groups in at least eight countries, including Canada, England, Ireland, New Zealand, Qatar, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, with more being added regularly.
 
Our societies are informed by the words we use and the actions we take as individuals, in our institutions, and in our communities. Expanding our understanding of compassion and discussing it with others are important steps toward activating the Golden Rule around the world. You are key to making this happen!
 
 
Goals
Reading groups will use the book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life to seed discussions that produce the following results:
• Foster a greater understanding of compassion.
• Identify ways to regularly practice compassion in personal and public ways.
• Affirm and act on the Charter for Compassion at charterforcompassion.org.
 

The Importance of Listening
Simply put, there is nothing, nothing in the world that can take the place of one person intentionally listening or speaking to another.
—Jacob Needleman, Philosopher and Author
 
Listening is important to practicing compassion. At the first meeting, take a few minutes to discuss the value of deeply listening to each other (see suggestions below). During this discussion you might share experiences when you and your group members really felt heard or when you or your members listened to someone who needed to be heard.
 
In addition to listening to individuals, it’s important to listen to what is emerging from the discussion. The group will not only be sharing ideas, insights, and stories, but they will also be giving form to an intangible essence: compassion. Short periods of silent reflection, especially following periods of intense discussion, give this essence a place in the conversation.
 
• Listen with an open mind and heart.
• Even when we feel impatient to speak, we will allow others to speak without interruption.
• Accept that the speaker’s feelings are valid, no matter what we think. We will refrain from “correcting” the speaker’s feelings.
• Listen with no agenda other than to be a sounding board for someone who needs to speak.
• Imagine that we are speaking and listening to ourselves.
• Listen without trying to solve or fix a problem unless feedback or advice is sought.
 
 
A Word from Karen Armstrong
The work of the Charter for Compassion and this book is born from Karen Armstrong’s commitment to provide practical and actionable ideas that can indeed transform our world. Armstrong offers these words of advice to reading groups:
 
I suggest that at the end of each session, each person resolves to introduce one regular practice into his or her life. This resolution should, for example, be “realistic.” It has to be something that you can feasibly include in your daily routine; it should be challenging, but not so demanding that you give it up after a few days; it is no good saying, for example, “I am never going to say another unkind word to anybody in my life ever again,” because this just isn’t going to happen. It should be something really concrete: “I am going to go out of my way to perform one act of kindness each day to somebody (make a list of candidates!) who really annoys me.”
 
The resolution should also be practical. It shouldn’t be something vague, such as “I am going to open my heart to the whole world.” That is meaningless unless it becomes a concrete reality in your life.
 
Be creative and inventive; there is no need to stick slavishly to these suggestions: think of ways in which your actions can become a dynamic and positive force for change, not just within yourself but in the world around you. Make each resolution a regular part of your life, and by the end of the course you will have twelve new habits that should be effecting a transformation within yourself and your immediate environment.

 
Discussion Questions and Actions
The following are suggested discussion questions and actions to use in your reading group. Most are taken directly from Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. Select and use whatever questions and actions fit your style and/or your group.

1. Learn About Compassion
 
Discussion Questions:
1. In the preface, Armstrong writes that our “egotism is rooted in the ‘old brain,’ which was bequeathed to us by the reptiles that struggled out of the primal slime some 500 million years ago” (p. 13). Even though we’ve developed a new brain endowed with the power of reason, our instincts for survival “are overwhelming and automatic; they are meant to override our more rational considerations” (p. 14). Why is it important to the practice of compassion to understand the functions of our old and new brain?
 
2. “The Buddha’s crucial insight was that to live morally was to live for others” (p. 40). Why was it not enough for the Buddha to attain the very highest states of trance and practice “fierce asceticism” to attain enlightenment? What was missing?
 
3. Confucius believed that “when people are treated with reverence, they become conscious of their own sacred worth, and ordinary actions, such as eating and drinking are lifted to a level higher than the biological and invested with holiness” (p. 42). He also believed in “a constantly expanding series of concentric circles of compassion” from family, to community, state, and world (p. 43). In what ways do Confucius’ beliefs apply to our world today?
 
4. Armstrong writes that compassion is central to the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What stories, quotes, or passages stood out for you in this chapter? What stories or myths in your cultural, religious, family, or other traditions emphasize compassion?
 
Actions:
1. Visit charterforcompassion.org. Affirm the Charter and invite your friends to do the same.
 
2. Examine the teachings of your own religious or secular tradition about compassion.
 
3. Revisit this passage on page 63: “Each of the world religions has its own particular genius, its own special insight into the nature and requirements of compassion, and has something unique to teach us. By making room in your mind for other traditions, you are beginning to appreciate what many human beings, whatever their culture and beliefs, hold in common. So while you are investigating the teachings of your own tradition, take time to find out more about the way other faiths have expressed the compassionate ethos.”
 
4. For the next month, keep a journal of notes, passages, poems, thoughts on what you learn about compassion (p. 27).

2. Look at Your Own World

Discussion Questions
1. “Can you think of a twenty-first-century equivalent to the li [ancient rites controlling egotism and cultivating compassion, described on page 40] that would make each member of the family feel supremely valued” (p. 71)?
2. “How can you make your family a school for compassion, where children learn the value of treating all others with respect? What would life be like if all family members made a serious attempt to treat one another ‘all day and every day’ as they would wish to be treated themselves” (p. 71)?
3. “What would be the realistic criteria of a compassionate company”, organization, school, or community (p. 71)?
4. To whom in your life—home, work, school, etc.—would you give a Golden Rule prize and why (pp. 71–72)?
 
Actions
1. Look at what’s happening in your family, school, workplace, religious community, penal institutions, etc. What teachings, practices, or policies contribute to a lack of compassion? Identify ways you might help bring them to light and/or change them—whether it’s writing a letter to the editor of the local paper, creating a curriculum on compassion, starting a mediation program in the schools, or whatever action resonates with you.

3. Compassion for Yourself

Discussion Questions
1. How has a lack of self-compassion affected your life? When are you least compassionate toward yourself? What traits do you most criticize yourself for?
 
2. We are all imperfect. We are all influenced by our reptilian brain that reacts instinctively to real or imagined threats and can cause us to behave badly. We are all influenced by environmental factors that affect our behavior toward others. And we all have a “dark side.” (pp. 78–79) How does knowing this help or hinder your ability to cultivate and practice compassion?
 
3. Armstrong discusses how suffering is a part of life, yet “in the West we are often encouraged to think positively, brace up, stiffen our upper lip, and look determinedly on the bright side of life” (p. 81). Discuss your experience navigating a difficult or tragic time in your life. What would have been most helpful to you at that time? How important was having someone just listen to or be with you? What is your experience offering help to others in difficult times? What helps or hinders you from being fully present when those around you face difficulties?
 
4. “When people attack us, they are probably experiencing a similar self-driven anxiety and frustration; they too are in pain. In time, if we persevere, the people we fear or envy become less threatening, because the self that we are so anxious to protect and promote at their expense is a fantasy that is making us petty and smaller than we need to be” (p. 88). What does it mean to remove yourself from the center of your world?
 
Idea from the field:
In Dubai, participants were asked to take the self-compassion test at www.self-compassion.org, record their score, and then use the resources on the site, as well as tools they learned from one another, to increase their level of self compassion over a two-month period. At the end of the two months, each participant will be encouraged to take the test again to gauge their progress.
 
Actions
1. Make a list of your positive qualities, good deeds, talents, and achievements.
 
2. Our own suffering often increases our compassion for others. Acknowledge the difficulties and suffering you’ve endured and how you used or might use your experience to help others. For instance, if you’ve experienced a serious illness or took care of someone who did, consider volunteering to help others navigate a similar circumstance.
 
3. Practice the Buddha’s meditation on the four immeasurable minds of love, on page 85.

4. Empathy

Discussion Questions
1. Commenting on the futility of the Buddha’s father’s attempt to shield him from suffering, Armstrong writes, “As long as we close our minds to the pain that presses in upon us on all sides, we remain imprisoned in delusion, because this artificial existence bears no relation to reality” (p. 91). What defenses do you use to shield yourself from suffering? Do these defenses help or hinder your capacity for compassion?
 
2. “Art calls us to recognize our pain and aspirations and to open our minds to others. Art helps us—as it helped the Greeks—to realize that we are not alone; everybody else is suffering” (p. 98). Discuss a piece of art, a performance, book, or movie that has helped you develop empathy toward others.
 
3. Armstrong shares the story of Patty Anglin who “always claimed that the misery she experienced in a harsh boarding school, where she had learning difficulties, prepared her for her life’s work” (p. 101) caring for children abandoned by their parents. Was your choice of an avocation or vocation influenced by difficulties you experienced? Share your story.
 
Actions
1. Spend a day “tuning into” how people around you are feeling.
 
2. It is often difficult to witness suffering and to engage with someone in distress, especially when we are preoccupied with our own concerns. Notice, over the next month, when you want to turn away. Instead, remember how it feels to be hurt, depressed, angry, helpless, and distraught. Then remember what it was like to have someone be kind and caring toward you. Offer that person a kind gesture (pp. 101–102).
 
3. Follow the instructions on page 102 to add three more stages to the meditation on the “immeasurable minds of love.”

5. Mindfulness

Discussion Questions
1. For this session, it would be helpful to identify someone in your group or your community who regularly teaches or practices mindfulness and/or meditation. Invite that person to provide information about their practice and to lead the group in a guided meditation.
 
2. “The purpose of mindfulness . . . is to help us detach ourselves from the ego by observing the way the mind works” (p. 105). Ask if anyone in your group who has practiced mindfulness techniques or who meditates would be willing to share how these practices have affected their life.
 
3. “This is not a meditation that we should perform in solitude, apart from our ordinary routines. In mindfulness we mentally stand back and observe our behavior while we are engaged in the normal process of living in order to discover more about the way we interact with people, what makes us angry and unhappy, how to analyze our experiences, and how to pay attention to the present moment” (p. 106). How often have you noticed your reactions as they arise, rather than allowing your emotions or reactions to control you? Spend the time between this meeting and the next practicing mindfulness and report on your experience during the next meeting.
 
Actions
1. If you are not familiar with mindfulness meditation, check out one or more books listed in Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life’s Suggestions for Further Reading on page 213.
 
2. A number of online resources may be helpful. The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Mindful Awareness Research Center has a series of downloadable meditations of varying lengths at http://marc.ucla.edu/body.cfm?id=22. Set a time each day to try one or more of these meditations.
 
Idea from the field:
In Seattle, one group set a mindfulness bell (http://www.fungie.info/bell/#) to chime every twenty minutes during the discussion on mindfulness. Group members were encouraged to bring their attention back to their breath and to the moment each time the bell chimed.
 

6. Actions

Discussion Questions
1. Think of “spots of time” in your life “when somebody went out of his or her way to help” you. Share some of those stories (p. 112).
 
2. Also, share “the effects of the unkind remarks that have been a corrosive presence” in your mind (p. 113).
 
3. How often are you conscious of thinking or behaving in a hurtful way? Has this consciousness helped you to stop or shift your thoughts or actions?
 
4. How often are you aware of or do you act on the positive or negative version of the Golden Rule? How might you incorporate it more consciously in your life?
 
Actions
1. “Make a resolution to act once every day in accordance with the positive version of the Golden Rule: ‘Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself’” (p. 114).
 
2. “Resolve each day to fulfill the negative version of the Golden Rule: ‘Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you’” (p. 114).
 
3. Visit http://community.charterforcompassion.org/stories/ to read others’ stories of compassion and/or add one of your own.
 

7. How Little We Know

Discussion Questions
1. Armstrong writes that “when we cling to our certainties, likes, and dislikes, deeming them essential to our sense of self, we alienate ourselves from the ‘great transformation’ of the Way, because the reality is that we are all in continual flux, moving from one state to another. An unenlightened person, [Chinese philosopher and mystic] Zhuangzi explained, is like a frog in a well who mistakes the tiny patch of sky he can see for the whole; but once he has seen the sky‘s immensity, his perspective is changed forever” (p. 122). How do you interpret this lesson? How might you put it into practice?
 
2. Discuss what “Socrates meant when he said, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’” (p. 129).
 
3. Discuss the concept of the mystery of life that was underscored in this chapter. How does acknowledging and honoring the mystery of life and of each other contribute to our capacity for compassion?
 
4. Do the exercise on page 129: “conduct a debate in which everybody argues for a position that is the opposite of what he or she believes. Then discuss your experience.”
 
Actions
1. Follow the three steps Armstrong lays out on pages 128–130.

8. How Should We Speak to One Another?
 
Discussion Questions
1. “Plato described the dialogue as a communal meditation . . . [and believed] each participant should make a ‘place for the other’” (p. 132). How does this view of dialogue fit with current social discourse? How do we move toward this ideal?
 
2. “Confucius always developed his insights in conversation with other people because in his view we needed this friendly interaction to achieve maturity” (pp. 132–133). What do you think he means by this?
 
3. What habits do you bring to personal and professional discussions or arguments? Do you make a “place for the other” or simply try to advance your argument?

Actions
1. Read through Armstrong’s questions on pages 141–142 to help you analyze and be more mindful of the way you approach discussions and arguments.
 
2. During the time between reading group meetings, observe how you speak to others. Observe how those around you speak to each other and to you. Notice when your own emotions and reactions arise in each situation and how they affect your interactions.

9. Concern for Everybody

Discussion Questions
1. “Think carefully about the concept of a just war. Find some examples of a just war in the past and then ask yourself how many of our current conflicts fit the just-war criteria. Can you detect the tribal spirit in any of them? Is military action improving the situation or is it increasing hostility” (p. 147)?
 
2. “Can you apply some of Gandhi’s ideas to a modern conflict? How would a nonviolent campaign work, and what qualities of mind and heart would it require” (p. 147-148)?
 
3. Read Sufi philosopher Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi’s warning against religious exclusivity on page 155. Do you practice this kind of nonattachment to religion or beliefs? How can you maintain your own worldview of your religion or beliefs without becoming attached to them?
 
Actions
1. Follow Armstrong’s suggestions on pages 148–149 for expanding your mindfulness practice to encompass the way you think and speak about people from other countries, cultures, ethnic groups, or religions.
 
2. “Incorporate a new Buddhist exercise into your mindfulness practice” as noted on page 151, which is designed to “help you to appreciate how dependent you are on people you have never met and who may live far away.”

10. Knowledge

Discussion Questions
1. Each of us has likely been the recipient of an ignorant remark about our nationality, religious or cultural traditions, physical or mental disability, etc. Share with the group something about yourself or your background that has been misunderstood and the reality behind that misunderstanding or ignorance.
 
2. Identify some of the nationalities, religions, cultures, etc., that are represented in your reading group. Share, as you feel comfortable, something about the backgrounds, traditions, and practices that define you, but that others may know little about. Use this time, and the safety of the group, to ask each other about your backgrounds, traditions, or practices.
 
3. Talk about what you don’t know about your own country, your own faith tradition, or your own culture, or what about them you would like to know more about.

Actions
1. Follow Armstrong’s suggestions on pages 159–160 to “expand your sympathies” to those from other countries, religions, or cultures.
 
2. Complete the second exercise recommended for this step on page 162.

11. Recognition

Discussion Questions
1. Christina Noble’s story on pages 164–166, illustrates how we are all inextricably connected to one another, from the pain and devastation of being abandoned as a child to seeing herself in street children in Vietnam. Discuss a moment in your life when you saw yourself, or your suffering, in another. Were you able to acknowledge it? Were you moved to act? If not, what held you back?
 
2. When Noble decided to help street children in Vietnam, some of her friends said that she alone couldn’t make a difference. But, she said, “when I was a child I only needed one person to understand my suffering and pain” (p. 166). Describe a time when one person’s actions made a difference to you.
 
3. Reflecting on the story of Yaakov and Esau on pages 174–175, Armstrong writes, “If we want to achieve reconciliation, not only do we have to struggle with the enemy, but we have to struggle with ourselves. And in the struggle, this myth tells us, we may find ourselves blessed and embraced by the presence of something greater” (p. 176). Have you experienced this in your life? If you have, describe the experience.
 
Actions
1. On pages 168–169, Armstrong invites us to allow media images of suffering to touch and move us. Reread this passage and follow Armstrong’s instructions to employ the Golden Rule and act on these feelings.

12. Love Your Enemies

Discussion Questions
1. What do you think Gandhi meant when he said, “A love that is based on the goodness of those whom you love is a mercenary affair” (pp. 181–182)?
 
2. Armstrong points to the words and deeds of some of the world’s great moral leaders in describing the difficult practice of loving our enemies. One of them, Martin Luther King, Jr., said, “Every word and deed must contribute to an understanding with the enemy and release those vast reservoirs of goodwill which have been blocked by the impenetrable walls of hate” (p. 182). How might you begin doing this? Have you been able to get past feelings of hurt, fear, or hatred to humanize an “enemy”? If so, how did you do it? If not, what holds you back?
 
3. Who inspires you to want to “love your enemies”?
 
4. How has participating in this reading group affected your life?
 
Actions
1. Use Armstrong’s guidance on pages 184–185 to direct your meditation on the immeasurables to an “enemy.”
 
2. Follow the directions on page 186 to “investigate your enemy.” Notice how you feel before and after the exercise. Do you view your “enemy” any differently? What has changed?
 
3. Share a personal story of compassion at charterforcompassion.org.

Content provided courtesy of the Charter for Compassion. Visit charterforcompassion.org to find out more.

(For a complete list of available reading group guides, and to sign up for the Reading Group Center enewsletter, visit www.readinggroupcenter.com)

Editorial Reviews

Rich with wisdom and provocative ideas that stimulate deeper thinking and encourage individuals to identify a particular contribution to the global effort.” —Christian Science Monitor

“Leaning on the wisdom of disparate faiths and belief systems, Armstrong lays out a pluralistic and, ultimately, secular way to spread compassion that’s easy to believe in.” –Washington Post
 
“Charming. . . . Exquisitely intelligent.” —Financial Times
 
“Impressive. . . . She seeks to retrain us from an ego-fuelled outlook of partiality and prejudice to an informed, expanded humanity.” —The Globe and Mail

“When I hear that Karen Armstrong, the widely respected religion scholar…has a new book called Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, I figure it’s about big stuff—and she does not disappoint.” —Laurie Abraham, Elle
 
“[An] important and useful book that will help many readers take on humanity’s most important task: creating a better, more compassionate world.” —Tricycle

From the Publisher

The prolific, well-informed, and passionate Armstrong (The Case for God) writes a somewhat different book this time out, stemming from her winning a ,000 prize in 2007 to promote an idea worth spreading. She always has a thesis in her books as she sweeps over the historical development of world religions, but this is a book with an agenda: you ought to be more compassionate, and here’s how. So instead of being her usual somewhat academic teacher of religious history, she is more of a personal spiritual teacher, in the vein of the Dalai Lama. That task, and corresponding tone (“Be patient with yourself during this meditation”), is not her long suit. Still, this slightly self-help-y book is deeply grounded in what Armstrong knows, and presents, well: the core teachings of all religions that can make us better, more compassionate humans. The former nun pulls ideas and references from religions Eastern and Western with aplomb and respect for all sources. This counter to the religion-is-homicidal-and-superstitious school of invective passing for thought is well-informed, welcome, and practical. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

In early 2008, religious historian/New York Times best-selling author Armstrong was awarded a substantial cash prize from the nonprofit TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) to promote an idea that could "make a difference" in people's lives. Late the following year, after seeking input from leading thinkers of various faiths, she unveiled the Charter for Compassion (www.charterforcompassion.org), a collaborative public project calling for the restoration of "compassion to the heart of religious and moral life." Here, she lays out 12 steps she feels are necessary to cultivating and expanding our capacity for compassion, e.g., "learn about compassion" and "love your enemies." Part religious exploration and part self-help tract, this timely and engaging work, gracefully read by the author herself, is a very important addition to all library collections. [The Knopf hc also received a starred review, LJ 1/11; the Anchor pb will be released in December 2011.—Ed.]—Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib.

Library Journal

A call for compassion based on the teachings of the world's religions.

After a fruitful career studying and writing about comparative religion, Armstrong (The Case for God, 2009; etc.) attempts to synthesize what she has learned in one manageable and practical volume. Her goal is to increase awareness that compassion is at the heart of all major world religions and to encourage her readers to practice this virtue. Compassion, she writes, is "an attitude of principled, consistent altruism," most often expressed in some variation of the Golden Rule. As the unifying tie of the world's religions, compassion is the one practice most able to bring about peace in the world. Armstrong structures her book as a 12-step guide toward becoming a more compassionate person. The author begins by giving readers the task of learning more about compassion and how it is practiced across the world and across time. She exhorts readers to become more self-aware and to love oneself ("The Golden Rule requires self-knowledge; it asks that we use our own feelings as a guide to our behavior with others"), and she encourages the realization of how little we really know about other people and other cultures, and to use that insight to more fully practice empathy. Armstrong also calls upon society to practice more effective communication: "We need to ask ourselves whether we want to win the argument or seek the truth, whether we are ready to change our views if the evidence is sufficiently compelling." Her steps conclude with the appeal to love one's enemies. Though the author realizes that her book may not result in a newly enlightened populace, she hopes to inspire readers to at least begin the process of becoming more compassionate. For those committed to the task, she cautions that "the attempt to become a compassionate human being is a lifelong project." As always, Armstrong weaves together the teachings of diverse religions in a graceful, approachable manner.

A commendable effort well-executed.

Kirkus Reviews