"It can hurt to go through life with your heart open, but not as much as it does to go through life with your heart closed." -- Jim Doty
Growing up, Jim Doty had many strikes against him: an alcoholic father, a mother with depression, a family living in poverty. But somehow—in a journey he recounts in his new book, Into the Magic Shop—he managed to overcome them.
Dr. Doty is now a clinical professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University. He founded and directs the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE), where the Dalai Lama was a founding benefactor. As a philanthropist, he has given millions of dollars to support health care and educational charities around the world.
I (Kira M. Newman) interviewed Doty about the importance of teaching compassion along with mindfulness, the crisis of compassion in health care, and what’s coming next in compassion research.
Kira M. Newman: You believe that mindfulness without compassion—what you call in your book “opening the heart”—is problematic. Why is that?
Jim Doty: If one looks back on Buddhist philosophy, mindfulness without compassion can be hollow. In fact, the crux of Buddhist philosophy is the combination of these two practices, which together allow one to develop wisdom.
KN: With CCARE, you’re on the cutting edge of research on compassion. What do you see as the biggest upcoming areas of study?
JD: They’re actually several that are quite fascinating. One is this understanding that there are genes that are affected when we act compassionately or not, and that many of these are associated with inflammation. And we know now (and are learning more every day) that inflammation has a huge effect on disease, whether it’s cardiac disease, peripheral vascular disease, and many others. The work of Steve Cole and others is giving us insights into how genes and epigenetic phenomena associated with being compassionate or not are so, so important.
To read the entire interview by Kira M. Newman with Jim Doty, please click here.
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