"Matthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk who went
from a scientific career as a molecular biologist in France (working
under French Nobel Laureate François Jacob) to the study of Buddhism in
the Himalayas 40 years ago. He has been the French interpreter for the
Dalai Lama since 1989."
TED
Matthieu Ricard: How to let altruism be your guide
"What is altruism? Put simply, it's the wish that other people may be
happy. And, says Matthieu Ricard, a happiness researcher and a Buddhist
monk, altruism is also a great lens for making decisions, both for the
short and long term, in work and in life."
Transcript:
"If altruism and compassion are really two expressions of the same sort
of same fundamental benevolence. Empathy is slightly different.
Empathy is something that helps you to know that someone else needs
this or that to be happy or that someone else is suffering. Because if
you don't even notice, then why should you be concerned, you'll be
indifferent, you'll ignore it.
So there are several aspects of empathy.
One is the affective resonance.
You come with a big smile full of joy, I sort of have this affective
resonance. Which I know is you, it's not pure contagion. I know because
you are joyful I become joyful. But if you suffer, and if I have this
empathic resonance, effective resonance, then I suffer because you
suffer. So it's not like a distress contagion, but it's like I suffer
because I'm not happy to see you suffer. That is the affective empathy.
Then there is the cognitive empathy.
Which is to think, 'Oh, event thought I don't feel this strong emotional
response, but what is that person feeling now? Why is that person seems
so distressed and anxious, even I'm not distressed.
She has an airplane and a flight fear. I don't have it, but I see she is
so much disturbed. So I feel concern because I know that she is in that
state.. So I can either try to imagine what she feels. Or it's
something that I might feel myself I will try to imagine what I would
feel if I was in the place of that person. That is slightly different.
So, both affective and cognitive empathy allows you to know the
situation of the person in terms of experience. So that for instance,
is what will trigger the transformation of altruistic love and
compassion. It will be catalyzed by empathy because you know that
personal is suffering through either affective resonance or by imagining
what the person feels. So it is a very important catalyst to relate to
others and if you are concerned by others, it helps you do the right
thing".
Differential pattern of functional brain plasticity after
compassion and empathy training
Olga M. Klimecki, Susanne Leiberg, Matthieu Ricard, and Tania Singer
Although empathy is crucial for successful social interactions,
excessive sharing of others negative emotions may be maladaptive and
constitute a ,source of burnout. To investigate functional neural
plasticity underlying the augmentation of empathy and to test the
counteracting potential of compassion, one group of participants was
first trained in empathic resonance and subsequently in compassion. In
response to videos depicting human suffering, empathy training, but not
memory training (control group), increased negative affect and brain
activations in anterior insula and anterior midcingulate cortexbrain
regions previously associated with empathy for pain.
In contrast, subsequent compassion training could reverse
the increase in negative effect and, in contrast, augment
self-reports of positive affect. In addition, compassion training
increased activations in a nonoverlapping brain network spanning
ventral striatum, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex and medial
orbitofrontal cortex. We conclude that training compassion may reflect a
new coping strategy toovercome empathic distress and strengthen
resilience.
Is Compassion Meditation the Key to Better Caregiving?
(VIDEO)
Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we
meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain,
we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering. Neuroscience has
proven that similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person
who suffers and in the one who feels empathy. Thus empathic suffering is
a true experience of suffering.
When some empathic caregivers are exposed to others' suffering day after
day, their continuous partaking in this suffering might become
overwhelming and can lead to burnout. Other caregivers may react by
shutting down their empathic feeling and drawing an emotional curtain
between themselves and their patients. Both these reactions are far from
optimal.
Could mind training and meditation on altruistic love and compassion
serve as an antidote to burnout? An example of this is the caregiver who
naturally displays overflowing kindness and warmth toward his patients
and does not experience any burnout.
Experienced Buddhist meditators have reported that when they focused for
some time on what they called "stand-alone empathy" (visualizing intense
suffering affecting someone else and resonating empathically with that
suffering) without allowing compassion and altruistic love to grow in
their minds, they soon experienced burnout.
HuffingtonPost:
Is Compassion Meditation the Key to Better Caregiving? Matthieu
Ricard "Empathy is the faculty to
resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is
joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in
resonance with his or her suffering. Neuroscience has proven that
similar areas of the brain are activated both in the person who suffers
and in the one who feels empathy. Thus empathic suffering is a true
experience of suffering.
When some empathic caregivers are exposed to others' suffering day after
day, their continuous partaking in this suffering might become
overwhelming and can lead to burnout. Other caregivers may react by
shutting down their empathic feeling and drawing an emotional curtain
between themselves and their patients. Both these reactions are far from
optimal."
