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The Kindness of Strangers
Two images: First, as a 6-year-old boy growing up in New York City, I am walking with my father on a crowded midtown street. The rush of pedestrians suddenly backs up before me as people narrow into a single lane to avoid a large object on the sidewalk. To my…
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The Science of Compassion
It is indeed a paradox that so many from what are considered developing countries wish to come to the West, where we have an epidemic of depression, isolation, and loneliness, while the U.S. alone consumes 25 percent of the world’s resources. However, it is often these “third-world” cultures that offer some of the…
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The Science of Compassion
Why, in a country that consumes 25% of the world’s resources (the U.S.), is there an epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety? Why do so many in the West who have all of their basic needs met still feel impoverished? While some politicians might answer, “It’s the economy, stupid,” Based…
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Stanford Compassion Cultivation Training Registration
CCARE’s Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) is an eight-week course designed to develop the qualities of compassion, empathy, and kindness for oneself and for others. CCT integrates traditional contemplative practices with contemporary psychology and scientific research on compassion. The program was developed at Stanford University by a team of contemplative scholars,…
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What Does Compassion Look Like?
Can you tell who is compassionate just by looking at them? According to a new study, yes. Imagine this: you walk into the laboratory, and are a shown a series of 20-second video clips. In each clip, a different person is listening to someone else speaking. You can’t hear what…
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The Compassionate Instinct
The Dalai Lama has been telling us for years that it would make us happy, but he never said it would make us healthy, too. “If you want others to be happy,” reads the first part of his famous formula, “practice compassion.” Then comes the second part of the prescription:…
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James R. Doty, M.D. to Participate in Unique National Forum Around 10th Anniversary Innovative Program Explores Ways to Break “Conflict Gridlock” to Create Peace
On Sept. 8th and 9th, a diverse group of some of the nations leading thinkers from science, religion, arts, and business, will gather in N.Y. around the 10th anniversary of 9-11 to reflect on a new way forward, by sharing their wisdom through traditional stories both sacred and secular, and…
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Watch the TEDxGoldenGateED COMPASSION Conference LIVE
You’re invited to watch the live webcast of TEDxGoldenGateED on Saturday, June 11th from 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) in the United States. An incredibly diverse and impressive field of speakers will tell us about the new science of compassion. We’ll also see how compassion helps…
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Hugging Yourself Reduces Physical Pain
Cheaper than a massage, and fewer side effects than popping pills: A new study reports that crossing your arms can significantly relieve pain. Twenty brave participants (12 of them women) allowed scientists to inflict pain via pulses of radiant heat from an infrared laser. The laser was aimed at the…
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Is Being Compassionate Healthy?
Compassion is defined as the embodiment and recognition of another person’s suffering coupled with a sincere desire to alleviate that suffering. Every one of us has suffered, is suffering or will, at some point, suffer. It has been stated many times that survival is of the fittest, but when one…