Sustainable Compassion Training: Integrating Meditation Theory With Psychological Science

Abstract

Meditation programs continue to proliferate in the modern world, with increasing participation from scientists and many others who seek to improve physical, mental, relational, and social flourishing. In developing such programs, the meditation practices have been adapted to meet the needs of modern cultures. However, through that adaptation, important contextual factors of traditional contemplative cultures are often dropped or forgotten. This article presents a system of compassion and mindfulness training, Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT), which is designed to help people cultivate increasingly unconditional, inclusive, and sustainable care for self and others. SCT aims to recover important contextual factors of meditation that flexibly meet the diverse needs of modern secular and religious participants. SCT draws on Tibetan Buddhism in dialogue with caregivers, other contemplative traditions and relevant scientific theories to inform meditative transformation for secular contexts. We provide an overview of SCT meditations that includes both contemplative and scientific theories that draw out important features of them. Each meditation includes novel hypotheses that are generated from this dialogical process. We also provide links to audio-guided meditations.

Recovering the Relational Starting Point of Compassion Training: A Foundation for Sustainable and Inclusive Care

“…The relational starting point for compassion training can be adapted for modern accessibility from traditional patterns of practice that are informed by the theories and research findings reviewed in this article. One such program is sustainable compassion training (SCT; also called innate compassion training; Condon & Makransky, 2020). SCT provides access to one’s innate human capacity for care and compassion first by recalling a simple moment of caring connection from any time in one’s own life, with any person or being, and then by reinhabiting that moment to reexperience oneself as seen and loved within it.…”

“…Deepening-mode contemplations enhance the felt sense of secure base that supports the other two modes of contemplative practice by preventing or helping to heal the barriers to compassion training noted earlier. SCT, then, exemplifies one way of establishing a relational starting point for compassion training analogous to that in premodern traditions (for a more detailed description of SCT practices, see Condon & Makransky, 2020).…”

Compassion: From Its Evolution to a Psychotherapy

“…However, it has only been in the last 30 years or so that we have seen substantial research on the neurophysiological, psychological, and social dimensions of compassion and compassion training (for reviews see Weng et al, 2013;Gilbert, 2017a;Seppälä et al, 2017;Stevens and Woodruff, 2018;Petrocchi and Cheli, 2019;Singer and Engert, 2019;Di Bello et al, 2020;Kim et al, 2020a). This work has been accompanied by the development of various forms of general compassion training (e.g., Jazaieri et al, 2013;Singer and Engert, 2019;Condon and Makransky, 2020) and cultivating compassion to address personal problems like self-criticism (Neff and Germer, 2017) and mental health issues (Germer and Siegel, 2012;Kirby and Gilbert, 2017). Among the latter, the most well-developed and evidence-based is mindful self-compassion of Neff and Germer (2017) to address self-criticism, and also cognitivelybased compassion training, which combines the elements of cognitive therapy with Buddhist practices (Mascaro et al, 2017).…”

Compassion practices

“…21 Meditations on compassion from contemplative cultures follow that very pattern, and can be adapted for secular application in caring professions. 22 This pattern of care, then, begins by experiencing oneself as embraced in a field of caring support, which increases one's capacity to extend care to others. That pattern is shared not only across the world's spiritual cultures but is also prominent within attachment theory, one of the most influential perspectives in developmental and social psychology.…”

“…Through the lens of attachment theory, we assert that communal and ritual practices prominent in spiritual traditions throughout the world function to help practitioners develop an unlimited secure base that they can return to again and again for replenishment, healing, and empowerment. 21,22 Through such patterns of practice, these contemplative practitioners experience themselves and their world as held within the unwavering support of their spiritual ancestors and benefactors, which empowers them, like their spiritual benefactors, to extend care to others in increasingly inclusive, unconditional ways.…”