Compassionate Happiness and Service

In "Compassion and the Individual," Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, describes a good person as a person who is compassionate towards everyone and everything. Towards the end of his essay, Gyatso states, “I believe that at every level of society - familial, tribal, national and international - the key to a happier and more successful world is the growth of compassion.” He says that people should be compassionate to not only friends but enemies too. This is a very superior quality for a good person, although, I believe there are certain exceptions. Also, towards the end of the middle it states, “We should begin by removing the greatest hindrances to compassion: anger and hatred.” If a person removes ager from their life, then they

Barbara Lazear Ascher writes a well formed essay on the concept of compassion. Compassion is something that we do for others out of the kindness of our hearts. She focuses more on the poor, just how we show them sympathy, why do we do such things. Is showing empathy from our hearts or just for them to go away. I enjoyed this essay due to the fact, that she gives humanistic reasons on why people are compassionate, she doesn’t sugar coat anything, and lastly she breaks down the compassion that she sees everyday.

A Harvard study conducted across 100 countries found that whether rich or poor, people who give to charity are happier. Perceived happiness increases, even more, when we see the impact of our gift has on someone.

Are people born with a complete quandary when it comes to compassion or is it something that has always been there? Barbara Lazear Ascher, born in 1946, writes, “On Compassion.” Having lived in New York City, Ascher is able to take first hand examples from the city to show the affection people have towards each other. Ascher is able to illustrate that compassion is something that has to be taught because of the adversity at people’s heels by including tone, persuasive appeals, and the mode of comparing and contrast in her essay, “On Compassion.”

Compassion is learned through experience and seeing those less fortunate; it brings out sympathy because one cannot ignore it when unfortunate people are everywhere.

Compassion, by definition, is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. In our modern society, compassion plays a major role in the act of kindness. Many people believe that doing a good deed is a selfless act since they do not get nothing in return. Others believe that doing a good deed to make you feel good about yourself is selfish. It is a theory that causes you to ponder on the purpose of compassion. In Barbara Lazear Ascher’s essay, On Compassion, she contemplates this theory. By using a variety of writing techniques, Ascher is able to share her views on compassion in way that speaks to the audience.

Ascher’s essay describes the ways she has seen compassion showed, through voluntary donations, food, shelter. She openly questions what drives humans to be compassionate to each other. As a successful author who

Within literature, Compassion has been described in many ways though very few descriptions have agreed on how it is best identified (Volpintesta 2011). Crowther et al (2013) describe compassion as a deep emotion that is felt by the individual practitioner allowing them to understand what the patient may be experiencing. Nussbaum (2003) argues that compassion goes beyond just understanding and identifying that emotion, it requires the practitioner to produce a response to the feeling or emotion in order to improve the situation. Dewar (2011) points out that compassion is not only about the recognition of the patients suffering but includes small

Compassion can change lives and it can change

Dalai Lama once said “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” But how does one learn how to love or feel compassion for others? People all around the world wonder why the feel compassion for others. Most people feel compassion because it helps them understand how others are feeling so they can respond appropriately to a certain situation. Barbara Lazear Ascher, a former attorney and a current author, focused on compassion and how it is developed by people. Ascher’s purpose is to show that compassion is not something that you are born with, it is something that you have to learn and practice throughout your lifetime. A way to practice compassion is when you see homeless. Ascher’s reaches her

Compassion has little to no boundries. In almost every great story there is a specific character or a group of characters that help the protagonist because they feel bad for them. Compassion is the most important aspect of a functioning society; therefore, Elie Wiesel’s Night, 12 Angry Men by Reginald Rose, and the generosity of spirit shown by the average citizen after the recent shooting in Las Vegas are all perfect examples.

The definition of compassion is sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. Another definition of compassion is from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 33). This quote is from Atticus Finch, who is a moral character in the novel. Source A describes two people with lots of compassion. One of the people was very generous and had the opportunity to steal a man’s wallet, yet he chose to help the man by replacing the ruined bills and cleaning up his cards.

A man can give money to the homeless on the same day as …... . Barbara Lazear Ascher wrote a piece called “On Compassion” stating that through people's own experiences, they learn compassion with the trouble right next to us. An argument that has merit, but only to a certain extent. Experiences of the individual will have them learn compassion on their own, but having the unfortunate in our faces will not guarantee a person to learn compassion. In fact, it may do the opposite and create hostility as all of us are imperfect.

Compassion is a very complex, and often times, confusing aspect of human nature. Compassion is thought by some to be an innate human emotion that is the separating force between humans and animals. Others would argue that compassion in humans is influenced by the environments and situations in which they are exposed to and can be mistaken for selfish ulterior motives or fear. The essay On Compassion by Barbara Lazear Ascher tells her view of compassion through events she has experienced with homeless people, compassion shown towards them, and how these experiences shaped her opinion on the emotion. Ascher explains her perspective on compassion through her thesis in the passage stating “Compassion is not a character trait like a sunny disposition.

What is compassion? As the dictionary defines it ‘sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.’ But the act of being compassionate is about being selfless and thinking not only about yourself, but the well-being of others.