Other Books Related to the
  Understanding of Compassion
Last Updated:
September, 2007
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Title: How May I help? - Stories and reflections on service
Author: Ram Dass and Paul Gorman
Publisher/Date: Alfred A. Knopf
Book Summary: One might be inclined to place this book into the Eastern religion or self help category.  But there are many other features that give it a more eclectic presentation. The book is filled with mini-stories which are followed by reflections on the nature of helping.  The book is free flowing and often more poetic than "how to".  There are many gems scattered throughout the text regarding the nature of compassion. There are discussions about ego versus unity, letting go, the importance of knowing your own suffering, barriers to knowing suffering (such as denial, abstraction, pity, professional warmth), meditation, breaking through our own "prison" of helping definition, dealing with burnout and expanding our understanding on offering a helping service to society.
Comments:  Although the book contains many gems of wisdom, one needs to search for them. Some readers might find the free flowing style difficult, but then others might enjoy it.  Scattered about, the authors frequently use the phrase "natural compassion" implying that compassion is inherent to our nature.  There is scattered mention of empathy, but nothing in depth.  There is little mention of the development of compassion except in the final chapter with the phrase "growth in true compassion".  There is also little discussion of passing it on, although it is implied in many places.  The book's strength lies in it's efforts to show the problems with the "modern" view of helping. It is view that is both systemic and cultural, but it is also in our heads.  The book offers beginning steps we can take to change that view. 
Title: Resonant Leadership - Renewing yourself and connsecting with others through mindfulness, hope, and compassion.
Author: Richard Bpyatzis & Annie McKee
Publisher/Date: Harvard Business School Press, 2005
Book Summary:  This is the first book I have read that uses the phrase "culture of compassion". It is used in connection to a leader's responsibility for promoting this culture - through mission statement, continual discourse and modeling.  The author's also propose that by doing so productivity, inovation and happiness increase. Leaders who do this well "resonate" with the people.  This is a great book for anyone who is in the position of leadership.
Comments:  This book speaks to all of us about the importance of building a culture of compassion and that is has been done, and that each if us can take steps to do so.  Although most of the book is oriented toward business, the basic principles can be applied to any group of people (even families).  It is an easy read with many exercises and stories.
Title: Field Notes on the Compassionate Life - A search for the soul of kindness.
Author: Marc Ian Barasch
Publisher/Date: Rodale, 2006
Book Summary: This ranks at the top of the most easy to read books on compassion.  It also contains one of the best informal reviews of "instinctual compassion".  Is compassion a part of human nature? The book includes a nice mix of story telling, journalist writing, philosophy, science and religion. Tossed within this salad is the ever present dressing of doubt, as if asking the questions the reader might be thinking. It is like taking the journey with the author.
Comments:  The book I think attempts to show a journey from doubt to something less than doubt regarding compassionate living.  It's loose free flowing style at times gets off track, sort of like real life.  The author states, "Compassion is not just a gift, but a path". Following the path involves a "shift of perception, a transformation art, that takes some practice."  Glimpses of this path are hard to find, but at least the possibility is presented and the author seem genuine in both his search and his doubts.  This is a great book for early seekers, and for anyone asking questions about the instinctual nature of compassion.
Title: Oneness: Our heritage, our path, our destiny
Author: Bill Bauman
Publisher/Date: World Peace Institute, 1993
Book Summary: The author's main focus is his concept of the term oneness. "Deep in the heart of each of us lies an inner reality.  I have chosen to call this reality oneness. It is our inner most source of knowing... a little voice from within the depths of each of us." Author suggests that people perceive life in one of four ways: spirit, myth, energy, or reality. "The focus of life on earth is individuality. The tools of human life are power, love and consciousness.  The purpose of earthly life is to create." (p. 58).  The author's vision for us is as follows: 1) realizing our power, 2) feeling ourselves as worthwhile, 3) seeing we are a unified whole, a united consciousness, 4) vision ourselves as a human family, 5) we have a deep inner knowing, 6) based on the above we shall create a world commited to peace, 7) a new sensitivity for each other, 8) movement toward healing, 9) consciousnes of responsibility, and 10) return to oneness.  The author is calling for world peace through visualizing our oneness, our collective "family".
Comments:  Although this book doesn't directly speak to compassion, or many of the eight assumptions, it does make a stab at the idea of oneness - a collective way of thinking about our living.  Oneness is a topic that this reviewer has explored in several writings having to do with compassion.  It is also a theme presented by other writers.  This author's approach is a nice beginners look at the topic and might help readers before they move to more advanced writings. One CAUTION - many of the suggestions in the author's vision list need to be used with the proper intent of DO NO HARM and the intent to promote well being.  Without this intent it is easy to go down the trail of war, something which the author seeks to prevent.
Title: Compassion: Listening to the cries of the world
Author: Christina Feldman
Publisher/Date: Rodmell Press, 2005
Quoting the author, "Compassion is the most precious of all gifts.  In times of sorrow and bewilderment, it is what restores us and offers us refuge.  It is the force of empathy in your own heart that allows you to reach out and touch the broken heart of another... It is our commitment to compassion and our willingness to nurture it in every moment that gives meaning to life." Another quote, "We are always beginners in the art of compassion, no matter how advanced or refined we believe our understanding to be".  Something I have stated in saying that we can always improve our compassion. "True compasion is not forged of a distance from pain but in its fires". Which I have supported through the idea of sitting with suffering.  "Compassion has a ferocity born of the capacity to unflinchingly identify the causes of sorrow and pain. compassion is vaster than a feeling; it finds its expression in wise action".  This is the call for the strong voice of compassion along with the development of wisdom (as I have defined, compassion = empathy + wisdom).  The focus (like most Eastern oriented books) is on developing the "mind" to be meditative and to contain the qualities that form the foundation of compassion - tolerance, resilience, equanimity, patience, receptivity, awareness, honesty, forgiveness, understanding and courage. I really enjoyed the authors saying "inching toward forgiveness".
Comments: Although this book has an Eastern foundation it is written in an easy, free flowing style great for any beginner.  It doesn't read like most Eastern books and this is why it is placed in the "other books" section.  Sometimes the ideas are a bit loose in their links, requiring the reader to concentrate to see how the writing made the links. There are stories throughout the text, and the language is for a modern Western culture, that adds to its general appeal.  There is a good section on empathy and a beginners section on emptiness in connection to compassion - probably one of the best I have read. Although the author says "compassion is an invitation to cross the divide that separates 'us' from 'them", the book (like most with such Eastern orientation) has litle attention to the relational qualities of the compassion phenomena (and thus little focus on passing it on). There is a brief disussion of the universal nature of compassion.   The section that deals with anger seems confusing and lacks depth of awareness.
Comments below address the basic
assumptions of compassion -> -> -> ->
Reviewer: Dr. W. David Hoisington
Reviewer: Dr. W. David Hoisington
Reviewer: Dr. W. David Hoisington
Reviewer: Dr. W. David Hoisington
Reviewer: Dr. W. David Hoisington
Title: The Healer's Way: Bringing hands on compassion to a love starved world
Author: Earnis Larsen w/Carol Larsen Hegarty
Publisher/Date: Conari Press, 2007
Book Summary: This author comes to the topic of compassion form the AA model, with considerable sponsor experience and apparently some understanding about the important relational features of compassion.  He says the book developed after someone came to him to be "mentored" and asked the simple question "Is there some secret to what you do?" (I can relate to this, having been asked the same many times.) But he says there is no magic that "you need new eyes to clearly reveal what it is you are looking at... it will come to you as naturally as breathing if you alow the vision to sink into your soul."  The author speaks often about "love" (caution needs to be applied in interpreting this word) and perhaps is speaking about "listening to the dance" that is "always the essence before action".  The author uses analogies like "the bent tree" and "the hoop" to describe the healing path some people follow. The hoop represents a circle that starts with "core needs" and goes through "get lost", "get hurt", "get stuck", "get called", "get up", and "get going".  Then the loop starts again.  He touches here and there on the heroic aspects of doing healing work.
Comments:  It is important to remember the AA orientation when reading this book, but it is very easy to read and is often quite frank, direct, and self reflective. But the writing is also at times poetic in nature as the author seeks to describe the intangible aspects of "the healer's way", of making those compassionate connections that facilitate well being and of the spiritual mysteries encountered.  There are many stories throughout the book which help to make it easy for the beginner.  The innate nature of compassion, the nature of empathy, developmental levels, and passing it on are not discussed in detail.  But one could argue that the detail given to relational characteristics is a testimony to the work of passing it on.  The frequent use of the word "love" and his position on self compassion (doing you own healing work) can be confusing.
Reviewer: Dr. W. David Hoisington
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