Written by Becky Bach.
Mediatation master and author Sharon Salzberg showed her recent Stanford audience that she could field even the toughest questions about the nature of compassion.
“What about the beheadings in the Middle East?” one audience member called out. Is it really possible to feel compassion for the perpetrators?
“It’s not easy,” Salzberg admitted. “But I also think it’s possible and important… Hatred will never cease with hatred.”
For models and proof it can be done, there are examples of great leaders who have suffered deeply such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, Salzberg and James Doty, MD, pointed out.
Salzberg joined Doty, the director of the Stanford Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, at a Conversation on Compassion last week on campus.
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