Compassion Listening to the Cries of the World

by Feldman, Christina

• ISBN13: 9781930485112
• ISBN10: 1930485115
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-11-10
• Publisher: Rodmell Press

Summary

Compassion in the face of pain, anguish, or unspeakable evil often produces confusion and bewilderment: How can someone endure such unjust suffering with such calm? Wouldn’t it be more natural, and more proper, to not be calm at all? In Compassion, Christina Feldman draws over 30 years of experience as a Buddhist to explain how ordinary people are able to use compassion to overcome negative feelings like tragedy, pain, and terror. Feldman first examines compassion itself, using Buddhist texts and real-life stories to explain precisely what this strange force is, and argues that it is the most precious of all gifts. Feldman then proceeds to show, in six separate chapters, how compassion can be used in the face of adversity, mapping out meditations and strategies that can overcome the dark thoughts that everyone experiences. Compassion is for anyone who has ever felt helpless in our own turbulent, uncertain times.

Author Biography

In the early 1970s, Christina Feldman spent several years in Asia, studying and training in the Buddhist meditation tradition. She has led insight meditation retreats in the West since 1974. A cofounder of Gaia House, in Devon, England, she is a regular teacher at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts and at Spirit Rock in Woodacre, California. In addition, she leads retreats in Europe.

She is the coauthor (with Jack Kornfield) of Soul Food and the author of Quest of the Warrior Woman, Ways of Meditation, and Buddhist Path to Simplicity, as well as Silence and Woman Awake. She lives in Totnes, Devon, England.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(6)
Chapter 1 Listening to the Cries of the World	7	(10)
Chapter 2 Suffering	17	(22)
Chapter 3 Compassion for the Blameless	39	(22)
Chapter 4 Compassion for Those Who Cause suffering	61	(22)
Chapter 5 Compassion for Ourselves	83	(24)
Chapter 6 Compassion for Those We Love	107	(16)
Chapter 7 Compassion in Adversity	123	(18)
Chapter 8 Compassion and Emptiness	141	(16)
Notes	157	(2)
Appreciations	159	(2)
About the Author	161	(2)
From the Publisher	163	(2)
Index	165