more compassionate, we have to let go of our eagerness to become so. This is, however, a
delicate issue because motivation and a clear sense of direction are, of course, required to engage
in regular practice.
Finally, as Margaret Cullen writes in
compassion training is not only about teaching
something new. It is rather “a way of uncovering, revealing and reconnecting with what is already
there.” Much of the work of cultivating compassion requires working with obstacles such as fear
(see
) or difficult emotions (see
before we can tap into our innate dispositions
of love, care, and benevolence (the “care system,” see
and
.
To summarize, training compassion requires motivation and clear intentions but should not be
based on competitive or purely achievement-oriented motivations. It should rather be understood
as reconnecting to innate resources and nurturing them, guided by the acquisition of knowledge
that helps to deepen our understanding of ourselves, others, and the nature of reality. The Pali and
Tibetan words for meditation,
bhāvanā
(cultivation) and
gom
(to become familiar with something),
actually capture these notions better which is why many authors of this book use such formulations
in the following chapters. Given these explanations, we hope that the term “training”, which is
sometimes more practical to use, will be understood in a similar light.
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