• A Spirituality of Living: Henri J. M. Nouwen presents meditations on solitude, community, and being in compassionate service.
  • Self-Compassion: Kristin Neff takes an enlightening and inspirational look at the important spiritual practice of compassion.
  • Enlightenment to Go: David Michie explains the spiritual insights of Shantideva's Guide to Compassion, the Bodhisattva's Way of Life.
  • Animals and World Religions: Lisa Kemmerer presents a helpful survey of the attitudes, practices, and core teachings about animals of the world's religions.
  • The Compassionate Life: Marc Ian Barasch offers a compelling book on cultivating the seeds of love and compassion in our lives, especially for our enemies.
  • An Open Heart: His Holiness The Dalai Lama delineates the art of cultivating compassion as developing empathy, closeness, and recognition of the nature of suffering.
  • Compassion: Christina Feldman envisions this practice as a simple but profound willingness to be present, with a commitment to end sorrow and contribute to the well-being and ease of all beings.
  • The Rhythm of Compassion: Gail Straub discusses the four qualities of this spiritual practice: a quiet mind, an open heart, presence, and radical simplicity.
  • The Lost Art of Compassion: Lorne Ladner enriches our understanding of compassion by discussing it in terms of key insights from Tibetan Buddhism and psychology.
  • A Spirituality Named Compassion: Matthew Fox delineates compassion as a sensitivity to all aspects of creation, an appreciation of the interrelatedness of all living things, and a passion for making justice and doing mercy.
  • Lovingkindness: Sharon Salzberg affirms equanimity and generosity as keys to developing a compassionate heart.
  • No Time to Lose: Pema Chodron offers commentary on the classic text about compassion, The Way of the Bodhisattva.
  • Discovering Kwan Yin: Sandy Boucher examines the ways women have responded positively to Kwan Yin, the Celestial Bodhisattva of Compassion and the most revered goddess in Asia.
  • My Grandfather's Blessings: Rachel Naomi Remen presents stories from her work with terminally ill people and their physicians to reveal how compassion serves as a healing force.
  • Altars in the Street: Melody Ermachild Chavis demonstrates the practice of compassion in a rough neighborhood taken over by drug dealers.
  • A Dream of the Tattered Man: Randolph Loney incarnates the radical compassion of Jesus Christ in his ministry to prisoners on Georgia's death row.
  • The Food Revolution: John Robbins argues that every food choice we make has to do with compassion for our bodies, for animals, for the hungry people of the world, and for future generations.
  • The Great Transformation: Karen Armstrong makes a convincing case for having Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims working together on compassion projects and seeing each other as loving brothers and sisters.
  • The Compassionate Life: His Holiness the Dalai Lama covers the far-reaching consequences of this spiritual practice which puts the happiness of others first.
  • The Places That Scare You: Pema Chodron presents techniques to help us cultivate compassion as we cope with our demons and frustrations.
  • Buddha Is As Buddha Does: Lama Surya Das explains the ten transformative practices behind the Bodhisattva path of compassion.
  • Compassion: Geshe Tsultin Gyeltsen presents his commentaries on two Tibetan Buddhist texts about compassion.
  • The Death of Innocents: Sister Helen Prejean speaks out against the barbarity of capital punishment and calls instead for compassion.
  • Another Day in Paradise: Carol Bergman ponders the stories of humanitarians workers who often put their lives on then line through their compassionate service of those who are suffering.
  • Compassion in Action: Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush spell out the nature, meaning, and obstacles to compassionate service of others.

Fiction

Raymond Carver's Cathedral is a collection of short stories about individuals confronted with unexpected disasters — marriages that break down, jobs that vanish overnight, tragedies that drive people to drink, to isolation, to states of incalculable sadness. In "A Small Good Thing," a woman orders a $16 birthday cake for her young son, but he is hit by a car and dies. The baker, upset that the mother has failed to pick up the cake, harasses her. Angry and anguished, she and her husband go to the bakery. The surprise ending of the story reveals the meaning of compassion.

Audio

Pema Chodron teaches on compassion in a 45-minute audio program; this box also contains 59 cards with the lojong slogans used in Tibetan mind-training.

More Books about Compassion