instance, they are encouraged to start with a good friend instead of oneself if that seems easier
and then extend the intention from there. Ways of integrating the practice into everyday life are
discussed (e.g., cultivating benevolence in the subway) and partner exercises are used to foster
the transfer of the cultivated qualities into interpersonal situations.
Perspective
This module focuses on the cognitive aspects of compassion. Particularly, participants learn to
take perspectives on thoughts, on their sense of self and on other people. In the case of thoughts,
the perspective is one of witnessing without identification. This way of relating to thoughts creates
“space” around the formation of a thought and reactions to the thought in the form of emotions,
action tendencies or more thoughts. Participants also observe more macroscopic dynamics within
themselves, that is, their inner “parts”, “roles” or “self-aspects”
They try to cultivate a similar
perspective on these parts as on thoughts, that is, not fully identifying with them and remaining
aware of their transiency. Finally, the module aims at strengthening the ability of the participants to
detach from their own perspective and take the perspectives of other people, trying to understand
their thoughts, motives and feelings even when these are very different from their own.
The first core exercise in this module is a meditation called “observing thoughts”. The second is a
partner exercise, in which one partner learns to switch between self parts, while the listener
practices cognitive perspective taking on others, trying to identify from which of these parts the
other is speaking.
Perspective Core Exercise 1: Observing Thoughts
During this practice, which is common in many contemplative tradition
,
, the meditator
observes thoughts as mental events. This means looking at thoughts in similar ways as one
would look at natural phenomena. The meditator can observe how an event comes up, lingers for
a while and then dissipates or blends over into the next event. As part of this practice,
participants use mental labels to classify the content of their thoughts to retain an observational,
non-identified perspective on them. These may be labels such as “remembering”, “planning” or
“judging”.
The objective of the practice is to de-identify from thoughts and get a metaperspective on them,
thereby gaining insight into the workings of the mind, and greater flexibility with regard to reactive
feelings and actions.
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