In my new book Wisdom: A Very Valuable Virtue That Cannot Be Bought (learn more) or (visit Amazon.com), compassion plays a major role. In fact, Chapter Four is titled “The Wise Perceive the World with Empathy and Compassion.” This blog is dedicated to describing why I believe compassion is related to wisdom, why that matters, and how in general it is ideal to think of wisdom as being composed of differing constituent parts, aspects, or values.
In a word, it is wise to be compassionate.
Compassion is when one “suffers together”—that is, when one individual feels the pain of another person or animal. It’s the feeling a good or normal person feels when they behold another being’s suffering—and feels motivated to play a constructive role in relieving the suffering they are witnessing.
The compassion-wisdom connection might seem a bit counterintuitive since wisdom is thought of as abstruse, heady, and “cognitive” by many people. On the contrary, compassion seems more like a feeling; it is soft, feminine; it’s related to things such as empathy, caring, and love.
It is my contention (and this actually isn’t really my original idea) that the best way to understand the potentially complex, somewhat unwieldy concept of wisdom is to posit what values, lifestyle, beliefs, and virtues are possessed and pursued by the wise.
That is actually the origin of the approach to personal development, self-help, and applied philosophy/psychology I named values of the wise back in 2004.
Indeed, there are ostensibly certain values that wise persons are drawn to and seek to cultivate within themselves, and certain virtues they possess (wisdom being the cardinal virtue for these enlightened individuals, perhaps).
This is largely theoretical, of course. But at the end of the day, certain values and virtues are demonstrably more prized and utilized by wise people than other values and virtues. Compassion is one of these values—and certainly empathy is allied to compassion (along with things such as care/caring, love, kindness, and mindfulness/spirituality).
For some interesting reason, the motto of the 80’s behemoth, Hard Rock Cafe, is: “Help Ever; Hurt Never.”
Can you imagine a wise / evil person? A wise / greedy person? A wise / duplicitous person? When you see a manic Rudy Giuliani, or some smarmy megachurch preacher, do you think wise? We know what Hitler or Putin or Trump are all about; do they strike you as also wise?
How about the 14th Dalai Lama, or Helen Keller, or your grandmother, or that person you saw on the news who helped those veterans (or at-risk kids, or abused spouses, or hungry families)? See where I’m going with this?
A person who “gets” wisdom also gets that compassion is the best way to live—both for moral reasons, but also for internal/emotional ones.
As the psychologist John W. Santrock put it, “People [who are determined to have] higher [scores for] wisdom have values that are more likely to consider the welfare of others than to focus solely on their own happiness.”
Here is a source for a definition of compassion called The Greater Good Science Center
That is, it is wise to be compassionate because it is the right way to be—it engenders love and kindness in return; it makes the world a better place; it reduces the suffering of others and makes the world breathe a little easier…
As well, human beings are social creatures, and we have a remarkable potential for goodness, peace, cooperation, love, generosity, generativity, helpfulness, and so on. Empathy and compassion are core values that make a person feel good when the experience or employ them.
If you’ve ever left a movie theater, having watched a wonderful and inspirational movie, feeling excited, invigorated, powerful, enlightened, and eager to make changes that you know will make you a spiritually better; a religiously more devout; or a humanistically more dedicated person, then you know what I’m talking about.
A person living a good life, one who is moved by the beauty of grace or humane values, knows that compassion is simply the way to be. Suffering is not good, and people who have experienced it (and not been mentally ruined by it) wish to see the suffering reduced or obviated. Wise people get this.
While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose. This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the “bonding hormone” oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, caregiving, and feelings of pleasure light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people. (Greater Good Science Center)
Studies indicate that a mere few minutes of meditating on the idea of “loving-kindness” increases social connectedness. Religious traditions (at their best) foster empathy, compassion, and social cohesion. As well, humanists make values such as compassion part of their guiding principles and worldview. I would even say that all good people tend to be compassionate and many of them also have an intuitive grasp of what it is to be wise.
The prominent author of a wonderful book on wisdom, Stephen S. Hall, points out that compassion is just part of human nature (as much or more than the evil and the greed that we sometimes assert are simply part of “human nature” (my words). He shows that:
“In a 2004 experiment, people who experienced pain—which produced activity in the [parts of the brain known as the] anterior cingulate cortex and insular cortex—showed activation in those same parts of the brain when they viewed a loved one subjected to the same pain.” This is one of the ways in which he believes we are “hard-wired for the ‘other-centeredness’ that is so essential to wisdom.”
As the pioneering researcher on wisdom, Vivian Clayton, Ph.D., wrote:
“What emerged from my analysis [of ancient texts] was that wisdom meant a lot of different things. But it was always associated with knowledge, frequently applied to human social situations, involved in judgment and reflection, and was almost always embedded in a component of compassion.”
And author Richard Carlson believes it is “something you can develop with practice. It involves two things: intention and action. Intention simply means you remember to open your heart to others; you expand what and who matters, from yourself to other people. Action is simply the ’what you do about it.’” Carlson advocates “slowing down” in his 2009 book of the same name, and that is only likely to foster one’s wisdom I would say!
One can always turn to The Dalai Lama for advice on either of these two virtues. He has written, for example:
All the suffering in the world arises from cherishing oneself…. [and] all the happiness in the world arises from cherishing others. Treating other people gently, sincerely, compassionately–this is the source of true personal happiness.
Caring is not uniquely human, but we do excel at exhibiting it just as remarkably as we do at displaying darker emotions, such as jealousy and vengefulness. Indeed, without a propensity to deeply care about offspring, thanks in part to intimacy-related hormones, our species would never have developed as successfully as it did. Wisdom is more associated with the better, brighter, more beautiful aspects of humanity, not the evil and the selfish and the war-making.
What could we ask for that is greater than true personal happiness? Living wisely, living well, and living a moral life are the mother of happiness, fulfillment, contentment, and goodness.
In sum, take another look at the photo of the newborn who is in trouble. Or think of food animals on a factory farm. Imagine being in Ukraine when that monster Putin rains down hell upon it.
Compassion is trying to stop the suffering, to offer succor and sanctuary. This is the basis of the (myth, or the reality, depending on your perspective) of Jesus Christ.
One can easily see the wisdom in reducing suffering, and for example trying to ensure that infant stops hurting and continues on its upward trajectory toward the bigger and better things that life has to offer. Ω
Below are a few additional quotations that place compassion in the orbit of wisdom, and are featured in the 2022 book, Wisdom:
“Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.” (Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha)
“Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.” (Hubert Humphrey)
“Seen from the eye of compassion, there is no one to be disliked. One who has sinned is to be pitied all the more. There is no limit to the breadth and depth of one’s heart. There is room enough for all. That we still worship the sages of the three ancient kingdoms is because their compassion reaches us yet today. Whatever you do should be done for the sake of your lord and parents, the people in general, and for posterity. This is great compassion.” (Yamamoto Tsunetomo)
“The Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are so proud to be Americans.” (Robert Kennedy)
