Rick Hanson

because the warmheartedness in compassion and the sense of connecting with others that often follows are supportive factors of individual resilience.

Compassion also supports relationships, and that then confers benefits typically, not perfectly, but often they reverberate back to individuals.

And there's a place for self-compassion, which, for example, increases ambition.

because self-compassion is a great buffer against harsh internalized criticism.

So people then become more willing to take risks, good risks in their career, swing for the fences because they know that if they strike out, and let's remember that Hall of Fame hitters strike out two out of three times, they won't be so devastated by it.

So compassion is really good in that way.

And there's even some really interesting research

that is suggestive of the fact that the ways in which compassion is eudaimonically fulfilling, in the ways that it brings a sense of meaning and purpose to one's life, distinct from eudonic rewards that are fine, but ordinary pleasures, well, eudonic, eudaimonically,

rewards tend to be protective of the telomeres, these little caps at the end of chromosomes whose degradation over time and decay is associated with diseases of aging.

So who knows?

Having a warm and caring heart could actually have benefits in terms of the lifespan.

So that's part one.

Part two, how do we cultivate it?

That's really the question.

So we have states and traits.

We have momentary states of compassion.

And then how do we develop trait compassion?

and also factors of compassion, such as empathy, self-regulation, so we can tolerate that empathic sense of suffering, and other things within us.

Well, I come from a contemplative tradition, Buddhist tradition, particularly early Buddhism, that's quite deliberate about the cultivation of kindness, which does not presuppose suffering, but can be a response to suffering.

as well as the cultivation of compassion, which is a response to suffering.