The
Golden Rule has been around a while. Some think it was first taught by Confucius. Yet, according to religious scholar and worldwide compassion ambassador Karen Armstrong, this core idea, that you must not do to others what you would not want done to you, is at the heart of all religions. And she thinks this unifying thread is the secret to saving our world, if only we’d remember to follow it. Of course, we want to raise compassionate kids, and there are tips and resources below. But we also must consider how we, the adults, are doing. Are we compassionate only to our children, house plants and those who pay us well or smile back at us at the customer service counter? Is compassion bigger than this? Are we compassionate with our investments? Compassionate shoppers? Is compassion something people must earn from us? It’s easy to get teary-eyed over pictures of starving children, but what about angry inmates? What will it take for compassion to change the world?
First, some religious history: Karen Armstrong, a former nun and now a global compassion advocate, is fascinated with the question of why our world is full of “religious” people who do bad things. She argues that we’ve let the core tenet of “Do Unto Others” take a back seat to beliefs and dogma, and that’s dangerous. As Armstrong says, we’d much rather be right than compassionate. It turns out, religion as a system of beliefs that must adhered to is a very new idea. Armstrong claims the concept of adhering to set of beliefs has slowly eroded what religion was originally all about: practice, a way of life, a system to guide you. And at the core of most religions was the law of compassion, of treating all people, even strangers and enemies, the way you want to be treated.
[For more of this story, written by Andrew Andestic, go to https://compassionjournal.stan...mpassion-for-adults/]
Comments (0)