Empathy vs compassion: A Buddhist perspective
Living Dharma
Compassion is one of the qualities that draws people to Buddhism. The wish to free others from suffering, is how the texts define it. Compassion is a heartfelt outflowing of loving kindness, a phrase constantly used by the Dalai Lama to describe the essence of Buddhist teachings.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the Tibetan Buddhist group I belong to here in Perth, Australia, as well as those I know in other parts of the world, attract many people from the caring professions. There’s always a disproportionate number of doctors, nurses, vets, physiotherapists, acupuncturists, and psychologists, as well as teachers, HR professionals and advocates for the vulnerable, human or animal. I remember one meditation retreat I went on, of the 40 or so people attending, 15 were psychologists or worked in some aspect of mental health care. Hardly representative of the overall population!
In any such group, there’s a question which almost inevitably arises: how do you cope, trying to help those who are enduring intense suffering, without being overwhelmed yourself? If you’re working day after day with severely disabled people who will never get better, taking care of an elderly parent with dementia, or in an animal refuge dealing with a never-ending stream of frightened and abused animals, how do you stay mentally afloat?
On a recent retreat at our Buddhist centre, over the lunch table a therapist told us how she’d confided, to a visiting lama, her fears about burn out. The distress she encountered, day in day out, had been leading her to a state of overwhelming hopelessness. How was it possible, she asked, to wade through so much sadness without drowning?
His answer had surprised her. With a twinkle in his eye he had advised her to be like a garbage bin. Let people off-load all their misery and unhappiness, he said. Then as soon as they go, unfasten the bottom of the garbage bin and let it all fall out.
She initially thought that sounded almost callous. Like you didn’t really care. But as she reflected on the advice, it began to make more sense.
Here it’s helpful to consider the three terms, sympathy, empathy and compassion. These words are sometimes described as close cousins, but their meanings are quite different. Sympathy is when you understand what someone else is feeling. Empathy is when you feel as they do. Compassion is your willingness to relieve their suffering.
The distinction between empathy and compassion, in particular, may not be a subject we’ve thought about very much. I hadn’t until recently. But it’s well worth pausing to, because the more we consider the two, the clearer we perceive the profound difference. And if, like the therapist, we are at risk of empathetic distress, the more self-evident our route to freedom becomes.
Empathy is what happens when we experience another person’s emotions as if they were our own. When they feel relief, joy or elation, we do too. When they feel depressed, ditto. Neuroscientists tell us that, with empathy, the same parts of our brain are activated as if we were going through the same thing as the other person. Their feelings become ours.
Is it any surprise that if we’re surrounded by the chronically miserable, desperate, or anxious, as empaths we are going to suffer from their torment? But in so doing, we face exhaustion, maybe the impulse to flee, and ultimately perhaps even to lash out at the source of our vicariously induced distress.
Compassion, by contrast, comes from a very different place. Our wish to help the other person is motivated by love, which in Buddhism is defined as the wish to give happiness to others. We understand their suffering because we have suffered too. And based on that empathetic foundation, our wish is to help them get out of their pit, to whatever extent that may be possible. We are not taking on their pain as our own. In fact our experience of reality is ideally one of boundless peace and wellbeing.
As benevolent and calmly objective carers, we can offer far more than if we are caught up in empathetic emotion. Interestingly, this is something that seems to come with medical training. I have no doubt that the medics and psychs who come to our Buddhist centre are compassionate people, but I also know from observation over the years that, in a crisis, they keep their heads. The ability of someone to emote is quite different from their ability to take compassionate action. Emoting may very well be an obstacle!
Neuroscience shows that very different networks of the brain are activated when we focus on the wish to benefit someone else, versus empathising with their suffering. Ground-breaking work by Dr. Richard J. Davison of the University of Wisconsin-Madison using an fMRI machine, showed that when we focus our compassionate attention on the wellbeing of others, we ourselves are likely to experience a state of profound wellbeing.
Two caring people, in other words, may be working in similar circumstances helping others, and while one of them faces despair and exhaustion, the other thrives. The difference could be empathy versus compassion. So, how to shift gears from one to the other?
Self-awareness lies at the heart of this paradox. Simply becoming clear about the difference between empathy, compassion, and how they function, can help us reflect on our own mind management if we feel overwhelmed.
Mindfulness, that time-honoured Buddhist practice, is another helpful tool. In a calm and reflective state we may have decided to practice compassion rather than empathy, but back in the real world it’s all too easy for our good intentions to evaporate into irrelevance as well-worn mental habits take hold. By cultivating mindfulness of our own thoughts, which I sometimes think of as ‘the lama in my mind,’ we have a better chance of catching ourselves before we’ve spent too long in a state of unchecked empathy and shifting instead to a place of compassion.
The basis of all healing – wholeness - of mind and body is meditation. The better acquainted we are with the true nature of our own mind, the more we identify with that, rather than the thoughts and emotions constantly passing through it. In such a state, not only do love and compassion arise quite effortlessly, so too does peace, clarity and insight. We have let go of our usual sense of self, and see all things for the temporary, subjective and illusion-like phenomena that they really are.
For me, one of the most inspiring aspects of Tibetan Buddhism is that in addition to insights and practices, we also live in the presence of those who embody such wisdoms. I am often struck by the fact that the Dalai Lama was forced to flee into exile from Tibet in 1959 as a young man, narrowly evading capture by the ruthless Red Army who were pursuing him. In the name of the Cultural Revolution, ninety percent of all Tibet’s monasteries and nunneries were destroyed, their residents murdered, treasured libraries burned to the ground, and genocide inflicted on the Tibetan people.
His Holiness has been able to do little about all this, besides raising international awareness for the Tibetan cause and caring for his people from neighbouring India. Committed to meeting all Tibetans who successfully flee through the forbidding mountains to freedom, he continues to be deeply moved by the tragic stories of loss and disaster suffered by his people. This has been his ongoing experience for the past sixty years.
If there were ever causes for a person to feel defeat, despair and empathetic distress, it would be these. And yet that is self-evidently not the case. Rather, His Holiness is a beacon of hope and inspiration to millions of people, whatever their religion or lack of one. Such is his power to communicate benevolent compassion that even in a crowded sports arena of tens of thousands of people, a heartfelt response may be felt even by those in the furthest back stalls.
While never undervaluing the importance of sympathy or empathy, our true power to help others arises from compassion. As the Dalai Lama shows, even in the midst of hopelessness and horror, it is possible to live with lightness, humour and benevolent wellbeing.
When we are familiar with the true nature of our consciousness as boundless and peaceful, we may feel a more heartfelt resonance with that ultimate statement of compassion, expressed by Shantideva with such transcendent beauty:
For as long as space endures
And for as long as living beings remain
Until then may I, too, abide
To dispel the misery of the world.
(From: A Guide to the Bodhisattava’s Way of Life)
I discovered a very helpful seven minute video on the difference between empathy on compassion on BBC reels. I highly recommend it. You can watch it here.
You may like to read my post on a related theme:
I feel that this post you have written for us, is probably one of your best. it substantiates something I had to learn as a nurse working in our critical care unit. Compassion but detachment without this understanding I don't think I could have continued working in this field as much as I loved it. Your superb post has confirmed this for me. Thank you again David for your lucidity.
Thank you!
Again very useful insights and clarity. As someone who works a lot with cancer patients it is useful to be reminded of the subtle but powerful definitions of sympathy, empathy and compassion.I am no help to any one if I get pulled into the abyss! I also find, doing a nightly ritual of prayer , meditation and lighting a candle for those that I know are struggling, that helps to "empty the bin" for me.
I love the concept of the "lama in my mind" I am going to run with that too.... mine keeps reminding me to breathe......
Also thanks for the links