Huston Smith talks about the importance of empathy
Video taped on May 3, 2010 at his home in Berkeley, California.

Initial Interview Outline

• Introduce yourself?

  • I'm a seeker after truth,

  • truth about the big picture

  • the qualitative understanding of who we humans and I am

• What was your experience with learning empathy?

• Going through your life story of what you learned about empathy?

• For me empathy is at the heart of love

  • we humans are empathetic creatures

  • in England Ion Seti- researched infants

    • he found Freud was wrong

  • Freud said human drive is sex and aggression

    • he was wrong

  • but the fist need is bonding

  • looking into the adoring eyes parent

  • Baby will drop the  nipples

  • I see empathy at work both ways

  • for a relationship there have to be 2 parties

  • empathy is encouraging this relationship

• Empathy is the Well Spring of human life

  • tragically - like wells and springs, they can be clogged

  • in a normal healthy life

  • toddlers and on up they know empathy is at arms reach

  • if they fall, there will be someone that will empathize with their sorrow

  • the tears will quickly be replaced with a smile

  • all of that I experienced in my childhood

• My father was a missionary in China

  • mother was a piano teacher

  • mother was a professional woman

• I had a Chinese nanny -Ama

  • there was the same kind of empathetic relationship

• As I grew older -Friendships

  • friendships are build on empathy

  • friendships don't work if we don't know where each other are coming from

  • Empathy powers our lives - in normal development

  • if no empathy something sours

• Apex of this is marriage

  • the bedrock of our relationship is recognizing and validating the feelings of the other

  • problems are often a misunderstanding that blocked the capacity of empathy

  • I did not recognize the pain I was causing - I did not empathize

• Playmates have to know about the other - recognize the feeling of others

  • problems spring out of a self centeredness

• We're you empathetic as a child?

  • I was the favorite child of my parents and I sought that

  • that is a confession

  • good for the soul and bad for the reputation

  • the empathic relationship was palpable with the parents

  • had a close relationship

  • wish it had been evenly divided with brother

Part 2

• This assignment has me ponder the subject of empathy

• Kindra, my wife told me a story

  • a friend (Sharon) was studying under a mediation teacher

  • meditation allows an opportunity for stuff to come up

  • if you do not recognize the negative impulses they are sure to come out

  • deal with them reflectively

  • she worked in hospital

  • man came in with a battered infant

  • Sharon told father you are not the only one to have negative impulse

  • the man relaxed

  • it is a paradigm example of empathy -

  • the nurse empathized with the father who battered the child

    • instead of scolding or lecturing

• I tried to extract with a definition of empathy

  • it is the capacity to sense the other persons feeling as in oneself

  • on balance feelings are more positive than negation

• This leads me to Daniel Goldman who introduced Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

• EQ is emotional intelligent

  •  it can recognize all the factors

  • it can put together all the factors

  • and get a sound judgment

• A group occasion I attended

  • The EQ - I had to size up the situation

  • an everyday situation to show what EQ involves

• A definition

  • the capacity to experience the feelings of others  as if they are your own

  • feeling what they are feeling

  • without rating as good or bad

• Love involves empathy - but empathy does not necessarily involve love

  • for love I need to feel her love for me

  • empathy does not mean approval

  • love presupposes empathy

• How to build a culture of empathy?

  • you could dream no little dream

  • if would could increase empathy a Pico meter it would increase the happiness of our culture

  • Two steps to rasie empathy and compassion

  • 1. slow down - go slower

    • we are trapped in a culture of speed

    • TV is just selling things - with speed

  • 2. Listen - more than you speak

    • speak when you are spoken to or questioned 

    • people are desperate for listeners

  • Meditation as a way of slowing down

  • Stop, Look and Listen  - not bad advice

  • Did you follow the Obama Campaign?

    • yes, this is a time for pride

  • Build recognition of empathy into the education system

  • I don't think legislation is he answer

  • Noise it about and get the topic into the public conversation

  • you are a pioneer in my this your life works

• Are there questions you have about empathy?

  • bring our minds back to it every day

  • recognizing EQ - will get us further than introducing the word empathy

• A metaphor of empathy?

  • do unto others

  • a well and spring

• What is the opposite of empathy?

  • selfishness

  • emotional

  • obtuseness

  • self-centeredness

• A metaphor for selfishness?

  • maybe the force in physics that attracts object to each other

  • gravity

  • magnetism

• that fountain ever on - gushing forth empathy

• What is the relationship between empathy and justice?

  • need to empathize with the victims of injustice

  • the foundation of justice

  • to feel the impact of the law in question on all that it will affect

• Empathy as bias in justice?

  • when it's accurately in place - EQ brings into view the consequence for everybody

  • empathy does not mean approval

  • empathy is always in order - it is enlarging our understanding of the situation

• Who do you know that's very empathic?

  • 35 year friendship with Aldus Huxley

  • he was remarkable

  • an encyclopedic intelligence

  • he was an empathic human being

  • had humility

  • the human condition - only advice is to just be a little kinder

• To live empathically is to live wisely

• I commend you  for raising the empathy quotient with this documentary project