The dictionary defines “compassion” as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Compassion is the wish to free all living things from suffering and the causes of suffering. What this definition doesn’t mention is how very easy it is to practice compassion in everyday life and how good it feels to bring loving kindness into the lives of others.

Choosing Compassion
It’s easy to forget our own power to make positive change in the world when we are constantly inundated with disturbing news about natural and political disasters, human greed, cruelty, and injustice. In the midst of all this bad news, it’s important to remember that most people are kind, caring individuals.

Each of us has the power to determine what we choose to make of our life. How we choose to interact with family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, and strangers is up to us. With today’s fast-paced lifestyles, it can be hard to find a moment for ourselves, let alone time to give of ourselves to others. What’s so amazing about embracing compassion is that you don’t need to find any extra time to practice it. By heightening your awareness of those around you and choosing to interact with them in a more patient, kind, caring, understanding, and loving way, you will find yourself embracing compassion as a way of life.

Marcel Proust wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” You don’t need to actively seek out opportunities to be compassionate; they are all around you in your everyday life. Simply awaken your own instinct for goodness and help alleviate suffering wherever you encounter it.

Practicing Compassion With Others
You may wonder how sympathy and compassion are different. Sympathy is seeing suffering and saying, “I’m sorry.” Compassion is seeing suffering and saying, “I’ll help.” Compassion not only acknowledges suffering but actively tries to alleviate it.

Kathleen Brehony, author of Ordinary Grace, notes that it’s important to start where you are; expressing compassion “doesn’t require anything more then a commitment to do so.” Once you’ve made the decision to practice compassion in your everyday life, it’s time to put that belief into action. Brehony wisely states, “Each moment is ripe with the opportunity to reach out with love to others and to extend our compassion to all sentient beings and the earth herself.”

Compassion can be practiced most frequently and to best effect in little acts of kindness. If someone you know seems down or stressed, take a moment to inquire how that person is doing. Often just being willing to listen, without trying to solve the problem, will make the person feel better.

Brehony notes that “ goodness often reveals itself quietly.” See a stranger rushing through a store? Offer to let that person go ahead of you in line. Have a neighbor who’s ill or know someone caring for a sick relative? Offer to pick up groceries on your next market run. Sometimes the smallest gestures of kindness make the biggest impact. Practicing compassion is really just paying closer attention to the people around us and noticing opportunities to take a step toward alleviating their suffering and making their lives better.

If you have time to spare outside of family and work commitments and want to practice compassion at the community level, think about volunteering with organizations like local or children’s hospitals, hospices, soup kitchens, food banks, literacy projects, tutoring programs, community gardens, elder assistance, child advocacy, or animal shelters.

On a larger scale, you can donate money or time to victims of natural disasters here and abroad or to causes that are important to you closer to home. There are myriad ways to practice compassion. So many, in fact, that you’ll never run out of opportunities to help alleviate suffering while also recharging your own batteries by doing good.

Practicing Compassion With Ourselves
While focusing our attention externally, it’s easy to forget to practice compassion with ourselves. In our rush to get everything done on our to-do lists, we often place our own needs last. It is imperative that you take time to care for yourself: eat a balanced diet, get adequate sleep, make exercise a part of your routine, and take time for fun. By taking care of yourself, you are also indirectly taking care of those around you.

When we are well fed, well rested, getting adequate exercise, and have joy in our own lives, we function better. By practicing self-directed compassion, we create more energy to spend on ourselves and others. You’ll find that by being compassionate toward yourself, you will have more patience when dealing with the everyday bumps that inevitably arise on life’s road. By taking the time to replenish your physical “well,” you’ll find your emotional “well” replenished too.

A Path to Happiness
At the end of the day, practicing compassion and helping others should feel like a privilege, not a service. The Dalai Lama explains, “If you engage in some service to others, give at least a short moment of happiness to others, including animals … then you get deep satisfaction. You get fulfillment of your existence.” It’s when we don’t expect anything in return for our kindness that we benefit from it most. There is no better day than today to decide to embrace compassion and start on a path toward greater happiness.

Resources

Online Volunteer Clearing House

Points of Light

Books on Compassion

Marc Ian Barasch, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness

Kathleen A. Brehony, Ordinary Grace

Tenzin Gyatso and the Dalai Lama, The Compassionate Life

The Dalai Lama and edited by Nicholas Vreeland, An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life

Stephen Post and Jill Neimark, Why Good Things Happen to Good People

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