Cultivating Compassion

Cultivating Compassion offers an effective and highly sensitive psychodynamic approach for working with ADHD children and their parents. Conway seamlessly interweaves theory and practice to present a step-by-step guide to psychodynamic treatment that focuses on facilitating compassionate relationships with ADHD children. Also exploring neuropsychological and behavioral approaches, this text offers a balanced and inclusive analysis that will appeal to therapists with or without psychodynamic orientations and encourage them to go beyond observable behaviors to address underlying emotional hurts and conflicts. Therapists will be able to explore, understand, and facilitate the development and resolution of inner psychic matters that are pertinent to the ADHD child’s mental health. Comprehensive and insightful, Cultivating Compassion is an ideal guide for practitioners, social workers, mental health counselors, and those in training.

Research demonstrates that even if empathy – the capacity to perceive or share emotions with other beings or objects – is not part of a person’s communication skill set, it can be taught. Empathy can, therefore be viewed as an acquired communication skill. Cultivating and practicing the skill of empathy among health care providers enhances the quality of care experienced by their patients which, in turn, can even improve work satisfaction for health care providers. Many communication textbooks or manuals for care giving professions primarily focus on specific communication skills and techniques. Cultivating Empathy takes a different approach; the book sets empathy as the foundation of all therapeutic interactions and teaches the reader to learn the art of empathy by using constructive approaches and research findings from social sciences and neuroscience. --

Compassion Counts! What are the secrets to cultivating a compassionate way of being that can make life easier and more enjoyable for ourselves and others? The Compassion Counts survey set out to explore the best life hacks from caregivers across Canada, Central America, China, the United Kingdom and United States. All around the world, people find ways to make sense of their lives, workplaces and communities. Many of us ask ourselves, "How do I stay strong during times of such unprecedented change and uncertainty?" We asked 100 caring professionals what they are grateful for and appreciate most in life. How do we recognize when we are running on empty? What lifts us up during tough times? How best to evade overwhelm? Essentially, what strategies can we share, as caring global citizens, to continue to be our best selves during these uncertain times? In this beautiful, inspiring and evocative book, we are invited to pause and open ourselves to inquiry: What sustains us? How do we remain centred and compassionate during challenging times? This book provides insights to lighten our journey by making small changes, which are possible even when we are just one small part of this complex play. This collection invites us to recognize the strengths and resources that we already possess, and provides inspiration to integrate a host of new wellness strategies. Whether you decide to read this book from start to finish or simply decide to open a page at random for your daily wellness inspiration, you will be grateful that you did.

The Buddhist approach to death can be of great benefit to people of all backgrounds—as has been demonstrated time and again in Joan Halifax’s decades of work with the dying and their caregivers. Inspired by traditional Buddhist teachings, her work is a source of wisdom for all those who are charged with a dying person’s care, facing their own death, or wishing to explore and contemplate the transformative power of the dying process. Her teachings affirm that we can open and contact our inner strength, and that we can help others who are suffering to do the same.

Warning: Using this book could be hazardous to your ego! The slogans it contains are designed to awaken the heart and cultivate love and kindness toward others. They are revolutionary in that practicing them fosters abandonment of personal territory in relating to others and in understanding the world as it is. The fifty-nine provocative slogans presented here-each with a commentary by the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa-have been used by Tibetan Buddhists for eight centuries to help meditation students remember and focus on important principles and practices of mind training. They emphasize meeting the ordinary situations of life with intelligence and compassion under all circumstances. Slogans include, "Don't be swayed by external circumstances," "Be grateful to everyone," and "Always maintain only a joyful mind." This edition contains a new foreword by Pema Chodron.

This book explores how digital storytelling can catalyze change in healthcare. Edited by the co-founders of the award-winning Patient Voices Programme, the authors discuss various applications for this technique; from using digital storytelling as a reflective process, to the use of digital stories in augmenting quantitative data. Through six main sections this second edition covers areas including healthcare education, patient engagement, quality improvement and the use of digital storytelling research. The chapters illuminate how digital storytelling can lead to greater humanity, understanding and, ultimately, compassion. This collection will appeal to those involved in delivering, managing or receiving healthcare and healthcare education and research, as well as people interested in digital storytelling and participatory media.

“Compassion is the heartfelt wish that all sentient beings be free from suffering. We have a responsibility to each other; we cannot act out of mere self-centeredness.” What compels some people to act compassionately without giving it a second thought, while for others it almost seems against their nature? And what will become of our society if compassion dwindles? According to Buddhist thought, compassion is society, and esteemed Buddhist scholar-practitioner Jeffrey Hopkins knows that by learning to live from a more compassionate viewpoint, we can create a better life not only for ourselves but for others. Cultivating Compassion is his eloquent, practical guide to tapping our own potential for caring and processing the thoughts and beliefs that interfere with our ability to interact with others in a meaningful, positive way. Through Buddhist meditations (including the Dalai Lama’s favorite), visualizations, and entertaining recollections from his personal journey to more compassionate living, Hopkins guides us in developing an awareness of the capacity for love inside us, and learning to project that love into the world around us. The meditations presented here stem from a central Tibetan practice used to develop deep-seated compassion and altruism, and build on each other to culminate in a strong sense of empathy for all beings. By incorporating these simple yet powerful meditations into your life, you will open your mind to the sensibilities of care and concern for others—what Hopkins refers to as the seed of Buddhahood. Delivering a potent message with the power to change our relationships and improve the quality of our lives, Cultivating Compassion is the ideal book for an age in which our dealings with each other seem increasingly impersonal—and even violent and aggressive. Anyone seeking release from negative emotions such as anger, or simply wanting to increase the love and caring among us, will welcome this timely vision for humanity. From the Hardcover edition.

Guan Yin Bodhisattva is the Bodhisattva who “hears the cries of those suffering and rescues them” (Universal Door Chapter, The Lotus Sutra). The Bodhisattva is widely revered in the East, where many Buddhists pray to and invoke Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s name. In this booklet, Lingyen Mountain Temple seeks to introduce Guan Yin Bodhisattva to both English and Chinese-speaking audiences. We look to Guan Yin Bodhisattva–not simply to solve our everyday woes; rather we must constantly recite the Bodhisattva’s name with sincerity and respect, as the Sutra teaches. That will reduce our greed, anger, and ignorance and nurture our pure Bodhi minds. Then we will find a deep accord with Guan Yin Bodhisattva and, like the Bodhisattva, reach out with empathy and compassion toward all sentient beings. Cultivating Compassion with Guan Yin Bodhisattva indicates which sutras to study to learn more about Guan Yin Bodhisattva and clarifies frequently asked questions about the Bodhisattva’s form, merits, and virtues, and aspirations for the liberation of sentient beings. Relying on Guan Yin Bodhisattva’s meritorious virtues and sincerely reciting the Bodhisattva’s name, or the Great Compassion Mantra, can also lead to rebirth in the Pure Lands of Ten Directions, including Amitabha Buddha’s Western Pure Land. Focus on both Amitabha Buddha and Guan Yin Bodhisattva and you can be assured a future life of Ultimate Bliss. Lingyen Mountain Temple invites readers to open their hearts to the compassion of the Bodhisattva. May we learn to hear the cries of the world like Guan Yin Bodhisattva and deliver all sentient beings to the Ultimate Bliss of Buddhahood.