Mindfulness and compassion have been historically linked for a long time. Wikipedia defines compassion as: “Compassion is the feeling of empathy for others. Compassion is the emotion that we feel in response to the suffering of others that motivates a desire to help.[1][2]Compassion is often regarded as having an emotional aspect to it, though when based on cerebral notions such as fairness, justice and interdependence, it may be considered rational in nature and its application understood as an activity based on sound judgment. There is also an aspect of compassion which regards a quantitative dimension, such that individual’s compassion is often given a property of “depth,” “vigour,” or “passion.” The etymology of “compassion” is Latin, meaning “co-suffering.” More involved than simple empathy, compassion commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another’s suffering.
For fun, let’s take a look at the “chicken or egg” relationship between mindfulness and compassion. There are those who would say that mindfulness gives rise to compassion and those who would say the reverse. To make this discussion even more fun I will take the side of the egg as being first. There are many reasons for this but in an effort to keep this blog simple I will say that the shape of an egg is more primal and from a cosmological/mathematical/quantum standpoint would be easier to spring from the “nothingness of black space” than a chicken.
From here I will jump to my conclusion in order to stay true to simplicity. My experience has been that compassion can gradually lead to mindfulness, but that mindfulness always leads to compassion. The key ingredient is actually mentioned in the Wikipedia definition, “interdependence”. My experience with mindfulness has been that the deeper I go into the present moment, the more obvious it is that everything is interconnected and interdependent to the point of the realization of the feeling of oneness with all. It’s easy to see how the flow of everything is moving together. As that realization/feeling matures and unfolds it becomes natural to have compassion with/for everyone, everything and of course, oneself. Now that we have had our fun, we can freely admit that the answer to this question of what came first really doesn’t matter…..as the chicken and the egg discovered long ago!