Judith Simmer Brown The Science and Practice of Compassion ***** Hello. And welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. I'm your host, David Divine. And itŐs a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions - Naropa is the birth place of the modern mindfulness movement. [MUSIC] Today we welcome Archira Judith Simmer Brown. Distinguished professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies. Thank you, Judith, for joining us today. JUDITH: Thank you so much. Delighted to be here Dave. [00:00:55.20] DAVID: Awesome. So, uh just go ahead and give us a brief introduction to yourself. [00:00:59.20] JUDITH: Thank you. Uh I am a Naropa professor in the Religious Studies department. I have been here in the same job basically for 40 years. In December, it will be 40 years since I came to Naropa. At the very beginning of the launch of the religious studies program. And I am one of the last of the founding faculty members to still be teaching at Naropa. Uh which has been a great gift. During my years here uh I came to Naropa as a - uh a Buddhist. I had been practicing Zen Buddhism and had uh - recently been exposed to the teachings of Chšgyam Trungpa Rinpoche and I became his student and had the great opportunity to uh study with him for uh actually it was about 15 years from that point until he died. I came to Naropa uh in 1977 as a faculty member. So, one of the things that was distinctive about Rinpoche's vision for Naropa is that it would not be a dharma center where you would just do kind of Buddhist teachings and practice, but that it would be a great place where east and west could come together and the sparks will fly. And its definitely been my experience of being here joining academic disciplines along with contemplative practice. [00:02:19.06] DAVID: Yes, awesome, I am so excited to see our sparks fly. JUDITH LAUGHS [00:02:22.20] DAVID: Ok so, thank you so much for joining us. Really excited to hear about your topic and you're going to be speaking on the science and practice of compassion. So, without any further ado - go for it. [00:02:31.23] JUDITH: Thank you so much. So, one of the core things that I learned in my years of Buddhist practice was compassion practices. And those practices have been a back bone of my training and of my daily practice for many, many years. As uh time has gone on - and uh the mindfulness movement developed and has become so popular in America, one of the things that really has come to the fore is the importance and centrality of compassion and the importance of developing compassion practice as well. So, as uh time has passed its become clear that we need further training and support in order to keep from trying to withdraw from the world and hide from the problems of the world. There is so much suffering in the world. There is so many difficulties in the world. And, people think that they - the only way to develop a stable mind is to run away. But what I learned in my own training is that that's not the answer. There is no secret uh quiet place away from everything where everything is going to be ok. We are all connected with each other. As long as there is suffering the world, I will be affected by that suffering. And so, a group of us became very interested in uh the centrality of compassion practice. And, uh - I developed an undergraduate course on wisdom and compassion, which I uh teach as a study of the science, neuroscience and humanities of compassion along with the actual compassion training that I have received in my - in my own training. [00:04:10.12] DAVID: Nice. [00:04:10.13] JUDITH: I see the origin of this course as really going back to the 1990s. And uh - when you look at uh some things that happened in the 1990s - in 1995, the Dalai Lama got together with six scientists in Dharamsala - near his home. And, they had a kind of dialogue about science and Buddhism. And as a part of that dialogue he asked the question, "you scientists, you've spent all of these years studying uh human frailty, anxiety, depression, fear, extreme emotions - why not study something about human goodness?" Human compassion. And these scientists they were made up of a developmental psychologist, a neuroscientist, a social psychologist, an economist, and a historian of science, and a philosopher of biology. And they say that that conversation in 1995 just switched things a bit. Because they realized that they're always looking for what's wrong with humans. Rather than looking at what's right with humans. [00:05:25.22] DAVID: Yes. [00:05:26.03] JUDITH: And so, it has generated what uh is being called the new science of compassion. That is going hand in hand with discoveries of Tibetan Buddhism for all of these years. Tibetan Buddhism as a culture has had a very different view of human potential, and human capacity than we have in the West. There is a fundamental view in Tibetan Buddhism that human beings are basically good and fundamentally kind. And that of course they have developed incredible aggression and competition and not always the very best of human capacity for lots of reasons. But that if - if we actually go back to the basics we return to that fundamental goodness and kindness. And in contrast to that, we find in the West there is uh a fundamental suspicion of human nature. It comes from lots of sources. Some people say it comes from uh a - an Abrahamic heresy uh some people that the teachings of original sin got featured much more than teachings of original grace, which is much more scriptural in Christianity. And so, from early times we developed a really negative sense of human beings. And then, in the 17th century Thomas Hobbs in his most famous work, Leviathan, talked about uh human kindness and human goodness as uh a fundamental weakness and very suspicious. He called it a Christian absurdity. So, since Thomas Hobbs there's been a sense that to be kind or to be - to be compassionate is to be weak. And itŐs really not a fundamental strength of humans to be kind and good. So, we have deep in our culture a suspicion about human nature, a suspicion about human behavior and human relationships and uh these scientists began to ask questions about that. Began to say ok what is this about? Could it be that we have operated on some fundamental principle that is really uh wrong? And also, destructive for the future of human kind? So, some of them went back and began to relook at the biology. They looked at primate research and they looked at all the research that showed that primates are fundamentally violent and brutal and they looked at the research again with fresh eyes and they began to see that primates are very kind to their young. And very collaborative within their tribes. And while they do have uh survival based aggression toward outsiders, there's a much more documentation of kindness and collaboration among primates than previously has been noticed. Same thing for young children. Previously research on young children said that young children were fundamentally violent and self-centered, but they've gone back and looked at the research and found that young children have a tremendous desire to be helpful and they're much more - they're responsive to kindness. So, a lot of these areas of research have begun to say hey to what extent did we already jump to the conclusion that human beings are violent? And, as -- his holiness the Dalai Lama said, "what skills do we need for this phase in our development?" Certainly, we needed the amygdala and we needed uh a more uh - survival based approach when we were so close to extinction. But at this phase in the human race what about interdependence? What about the connection between human beings? Isn't there something there that suggests that the more primitive aspects of the human brain have outlived their usefulness for the most part? And could we not look at developing the other parts of the human brain that are much more about connection and about uh - kindness and about collaboration. So, this has launched a whole new field of science where there is brand new science about warfare. About what happens on the battlefield. About what happens in conflict zones around the world. About what happens between people when they enter into conflict. There is much more uh study of what actually is going on. Raising the question over and over again are humans fundamentally kind? Or are they fundamentally violent? And this has just been a very exciting area of research as -- as things have gone along. In my course, we study the - science. The social science and neuroscience of violence and also of compassion and kindness. But we also are uh - looking at compassion training and looking at what it takes to cultivate this fundamental kindness that human beings uh possess. Recognizing that we may not come to it very naturally based on our culture and the way our culture is - has been geared and so uh - I teach a 12 to 13 step uh step by step compassion training - uh for my students over a 15-week semester. Where we work with identifying the fundamental tenderness and soft heartedness at the part - at the heart of who we are. And then work on cultivating that toward ourselves. Cultivating that toward our benefactors, our loved ones, our dear ones - and then towards strangers and neutral people and then toward the difficult people in our life. And then toward people who might be even enemies and really go into the really intense social issues of our time. How do we develop compassion in the face of threat? And uh attack from others? And really the whole sense is how do expand and develop the muscle of compassion in our experience. So, the course is really all about that. And along with this we really look at uh our own experience and see what's challenging, what's difficult about this. So, uh its interesting in uh - some of the contemporary sources on Buddhism they say that we are born with a certain capacity for kindness. And then we have rough things happen in our life and we uh develop reactions and defenses based on the rough things that happen to us, but the Buddhist training is all about the cultivation of character. Character is not what you're born with and itŐs not what happens to you. ItŐs about what you do with that. And so, Buddhist meditation has at the core of it a sense of empowerment that we can actually shape who we are. We cannot change our genes. We cannot change our previous life experiences. But we can change our reaction to life experiences. We can change our reaction to our genetic heritage and what we do with that makes us very deep human beings. The spiritual journey is all about what you make of what you - what you've got. And so, beginning to distinguish between genetic heritage, what we - what's happened to us in the past and what we can do about it. Is the core of contemplative training. So, this is really the core of what we do in this class. We do a lot of experiential stuff. We do things like taking a moment with my students just two days ago I asked them to take a moment and think over the last 24 hours. Just you know contemplate the last 24 hours. And identify...a moment when someone was kind to you. And maybe you didn't notice it at the time. Maybe it was so inconsequential that it could be somebody uh let you in in traffic in front of them. Or somebody in the grocery store smiled at you. Uh - maybe it was uh just an interaction with a roommate who maybe did the dishes when it was your turn or something like that. Some little thing. What - when was somebody kind? And, then how did it feel to receive that act of kindness? Did you even notice at the time? So, we spend some time talking about that. Because our - our habit is to think about the bad things that happen to us. Our habit is to think when people slight us or insult us or ignore us. And we ignore all of the kind moments that make our days possible. That even being in school there's enormous kindness from family and from university and from the environment that helps you. So, we are - so habituated to thinking about the negative things that have happened to us when somebody has insulted us or slighted us or ignored us and we ignore all of the wonderfully kind things that make it possible for our day to go on and uh for my students in school - their parents - the sacrifices that have been made for them to be able to be in school and all of that. So, our - my students were very struck by oh my goodness there were kind things that happened to me. And uh - hmmm that's very interesting. And, it wasn't when I think about it it wasn't easy to accept that kindness. I - you know I accustomed to defending myself against attack, but how am I - how open am I to accepting the kindness from others? So, this is really a kind of orientation thing about how we as we retrain our brain we recognize that our human life is woven with interconnection and kindness. We could not be breathing this moment if it weren't all of the interconnected kindness we have received. [00:16:08.21] DAVID: Yeah. [00:16:09.08] JUDITH: So that's really - that's really a kind of core -- of what we're doing with the class is beginning to consider kindness. Consider goodness. Consider compassion - as something that's there in our life. And itŐs in us. And we haven't paid attention to that in the past. [00:16:29.17] DAVID: Yes. Sounds like quite a class. [00:16:31.09] JUDITH: Yeah, itŐs fun. ItŐs fun. [00:16:35.04] DAVID: Wow, ok so I had a couple questions come up. So, - what it seems like to me is uh when you're talking about the researchers and they were - they were researching like what's going wrong and how things vibrate in a weird way and they're doing all this research in a field of study, but it was the lens in which they were looking through to do the research. So, it sounded like his holiness was offering another way of doing the same research but just looking at it through a different angle. So, itŐs like if you have a color spectrum you're just looking at a different color, but you're not changing the spectrum. So -- [00:17:12.02] JUDITH: Exactly! [00:17:12.09] DAVID: So, like we both wear glasses. So, if we switch glasses we're going to see different things. Our reality is going to be a bit different. So -- [00:17:19.06] JUDITH: Exactly! [00:17:20.16] DAVID: So, uh yeah just changing our lens - that really struck me and I've been working with that personally and I see - I can totally see how that can shift how we are like what serves us now is working from what is compassion? How do we show more compassion? How - how can we develop compassion? [00:17:42.10] JUDITH: Absolutely. [00:17:42.10] DAVID: It is a characteristic. It is something we build on so I really like listening to you say that. [00:17:48.16] JUDITH: And it is really true that uh - scientists pride themselves on objectivity, but his holiness coming from a different culture that has a different value system and a whole different sort of spiritual infrastructure - he was able to point out the blind spot that scientists themselves couldn't see. And the blind spot is assuming human frailty, human flaw, human problem and by opening that up its made better science. And so, the scientists are saying that now things like neuroplasticity for example - the fact that our brains can change - 15 years ago we thought the brains were set in adult hood. We thought that we - once we became adults we just have to cope with what we've been given, but we have found through the study of meditation, or mindfulness and now compassion that everything that we do as adults shapes our brains and our brains are constantly changing right up until we die. That is a radical change in science. The notion that change is hardwired into who we are. And uh the - our lifestyle is shaping our tomorrow. Always. Always. Its radical. [00:19:10.02] DAVID: It is pretty radical. [00:19:11.01] JUDITH: And Naropa was founded on that. It's just that we didn't think of it in this scientific way. But the notion that we can shape and uh craft our future based on our meditation training we're now finding that science holds that up completely. [00:19:27.12] DAVID: Yeah. Wow. LAUGHS. That's awesome. [00:19:29.23] JUDITH: It is. [00:19:29.23] DAVID: So, you were talking about the compassion muscle? [00:19:33.00] JUDITH: Yes! [00:19:33.17] DAVID: Uh, and the muscle we are using to show compassion is our brains. [00:19:38.01] JUDITH: Yes! [00:19:38.01] DAVID: Uh, is compassion located in a certain spot of the brain or is compassion kind of like one of those things where itŐs all over the brain. It can be activated uh like the neurons can be activating all over your brain or is it actually located on the left side or the right side? [00:19:57.18] JUDITH: ItŐs not so much left and right and again I am not a neuroscientist so I can't really tell you the names for the different parts of the brain, but they found that uh more on the front part of the brain is whether our feelings of overwhelm and paranoia and a kind of shutting down quality but a little bit more toward the crown of the head and is where the compassion is if we learn to open to intensity and negativity in our world without losing the quality of warm heart - we have the ability to be more resilient, have enormous stamina, have a feeling of connection rather than overwhelm and burn out. So, one of the most important things they have found is the importance of compassion training to prevent burn out and it is something we're working with very actively in some of our research projects here at Naropa of recognizing the compassion training could help activists uh not burn out. And uh so we're doing some research projects based on that. [00:20:59.15] DAVID: Yeah. Isn't it weird how love can make you go so far? [00:21:03.19] JUDITH: Absolutely. Absolutely. And of course, we tend to think of ourselves in terms of love as either we have it or we don't. And we don't realize that we can grow our capacity to love, which is what compassion training is. [00:21:16.13] DAVID: Yeah. I always like the idea of redefining a definition so the definition of love - what does love mean to you? And as you get older your characteristics set in, you're changing them, you're going through life - why aren't we changing our definitions? You know maybe changing the definitions is part of becoming a better character and developing our characteristics and - [00:21:38.16] JUDITH: Very much so. [00:21:40.22] DAVID: And part of compassion you know itŐs like as a young child you realize what compassion is at a young age and then as you get older you develop more uh you entwine with more interactions with people, your society, your community and then you can kind of redefine what that means to you. What does compassion mean to me? You know? [00:21:58.21] JUDITH: And itŐs true that if without training we can close down and be much more brittle. But with some kind of training we become more and more flexible and more and more open. So, in order to really fulfill our human capacity, we need to begin to explore the expansion mode more than the contraction mode. [00:22:20.18] DAVID: Yes awesome. Ok. [00:22:21.05] JUDITH: That's what neuroplasticity is all about. [00:22:23.12] DAVID: Yeah. Yeah. I really like that idea. I've done some like neuro looking into and its really interesting to think the neurotransmitters are like creating a rut kind of like a car creating a rut in the mud, but the car can go any direction itŐs just choosing to like follow this one all the time so if - if we can kind of like conceptualize what is a neuro take a different route? [00:22:47.18] JUDITH: Or could you open the road to more possibilities? So that you could actually - and not be in such a narrow path, but in a wider path? [00:22:55.16] DAVID: Yes. Cool. [00:22:57.01] JUDITH: Yeah, its really great. [00:22:58.12] DAVID: All right, so I got one more question for you. [00:22:59.21] JUDITH: Sure. Please. [00:23:01.01] DAVID: So, we talk about it seems like lately there's this talk of the mindful movement. It's this new thing. It's this - new science uh a lot of people are working with it. A lot of people are talking about it. Where do you think it started from? Why do you think the mindful movement started? Where do you think itŐs coming from? Why now? Could you speak on that? [00:23:21.20] JUDITH: Well there's some scholars that have done some tracing of the origins of the mindfulness movement and they trace it to the first summer of Naropa in 1974. And uh - a scholar from Oxford University Press has cited that Naropa 1974 first summer was the birth of the mindfulness movement. Part of it was that some of the people who had been classically trained began to have a broader exposure through places like Naropa so that they weren't just in some kind of little fringy cult but they actually had a chance to share mindfulness much more broadly. And its really Jon Kabat-Zinn when he began to join science and mindfulness working with chronic pain patients at the University of Massachusetts Hospital that it began to really catch on in the medical community. But then you have people like Thich Nhat Hahn who taught mindfulness very broadly to Vietnam vets and you know the whole thing began to grow in little pieces, but when science and meditation came together somehow, I think we as Americans don't believe something is true until science says so. And so, it helped it go mainstream. I think the same is true for compassion. That at the more we understand the science of compassion the more confidence we have in compassion meditation to really affect our world. [00:24:42.08] DAVID: Wow. That's so amazing. [00:24:44.07] JUDITH: Yeah, it is really amazing. So, I work in collaboration with scientists. I am not a scientist myself, but I am long time compassion practitioner and teacher and to be able to join these in conversation has just sort of awakened all kinds of new perspectives for me that has really been rich at this time in my teaching career at Naropa. [00:25:06.01] DAVID: That is so great. Thank you so much for sharing your kindness and your wisdom and your compassion. [00:25:10.10] JUDITH: Thank you so much Dave. This has been a great pleasure. [00:25:14.00] DAVID: Awesome. So, thank you to our distinguished professor of Contemplative and Religious Studies Judith Simmer Brown. Thanks again. [00:25:21.13] JUDITH: Ok. Bye bye. [MUSIC] On behalf of the Naropa community thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates. [MUSIC]