Andrew Dreitcer, PhD, Director of Spiritual Formation; Co-Director of the Center for Engaged Compassion; Associate Professor of Spirituality, Claremont School of Theology.
Christian spiritual/contemplative practice traditions highlight a number of key perspectives (carried as beliefs and behaviors) on compassion, including (1) particular understandings of compassion, (2) certain notions of the relationship of compassion to ethics and virtue, (3) experience-based convictions about the kinds of practices that form compassion, and (4) wisdom concerning what dimensions of these practices are especially effective in the cultivation of compassionate lives. In this session, explorations of these four perspectives on compassion will include attending to historical-conceptual/theological contexts; explications of significant compassion-formation practice traditions (e.g., Ignatian, Jesus Prayer/Prayer of the Heart, Centering Prayer, the Compassion Practice); analyses of “basic contemplative capacities” (e.g., awareness, attention, grounding) and additional “compassion capacities” (e.g., imagination, emotions, relationality) that the practice traditions have embraced as crucial in the formation of compassionate lives; and an examination of the viability/desirability of possible goals, expectations, or purposes (e.g., happiness, Christ-likeness, imago Dei, ecstasy, union, ethics, virtue) embedded within the practices. Discussion possibilities: What do these Christian perspectives (beliefs/behaviors) have in common with (analogous?) Buddhist/other perspectives? What are the sources/shapes of differences between the perspectives? What light might science shed on these commonalities/differences? What adjustments might science need to make in view of these/other transreligious perspectives?
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