Compassion as a Skill: A Comparison of Contemplative and Evolution-Based Approaches

Abstract

The editors to this volume posed a series of fascinating questions relating to how seeing compassion as a skill can help us understand its nature, cultivation and effects within secular contexts. This paper addresses these questions by comparing evolutionary with contemplative approaches to compassion. Recent scientific approaches have explored the evolved roots and biopsychosocial manifestations of compassion and their impact on mental states and prosocial behaviour, particularly in regard to both its facilitators and inhibitors. In contrast, we discuss how the contemplative traditions have approached the origins and cultivation of compassion through observing the mind (e.g. meditation), with a focus on gaining insight into self-transcendent experiences, the nature of inter-connectivity and non-separate existence (also referred to as non-duality), through which compassion arises naturally. Both evolutionary and contemplative perspectives have the same focus which is to understand and prevent the causes of suffering, including the suffering we cause ourselves because of our harmful potentials. However, in terms of training the mind in compassion skills, this paper considers how training approaches linked to the evolutionary model often use thinking, empathising, reflecting and guided behaviour change to activate psychophysiological systems linked to caring and compassion. In contrast, the contemplative traditions focus less on thinking and reflecting and more on creating conditions for direct experiencing. A key reason for doing so is to settle the mind so that subtler levels of consciousness can enable the experience of self-transcendent compassion to arise. Thus, both evolutionary and contemplative approaches can focus on developing mind awareness and the importance of practise, but evolutionary approaches such as compassion focused therapy do not pursue transcendent wisdoms or insights.

Full text

Vol.:(0123456789)
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Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-023-02173-w
ORIGINAL PAPER
Compassion asaSkill: AComparison ofContemplative
andEvolution‑Based Approaches
PaulGilbert1 · WilliamVanGordon2
Accepted: 10 June 2023 / Published online: 3 August 2023
© The Author(s) 2023
Abstract
The editors to this volume posed a series of fascinating questions relating to how seeing compassion as a skill can help us
understand its nature, cultivation and effects within secular contexts. This paper addresses these questions by comparing
evolutionary with contemplative approaches to compassion. Recent scientific approaches have explored the evolved roots
and biopsychosocial manifestations of compassion and their impact on mental states and prosocial behaviour, particularly
in regard to both its facilitators and inhibitors. In contrast, we discuss how the contemplative traditions have approached the
origins and cultivation of compassion through observing the mind (e.g. meditation), with a focus on gaining insight into
self-transcendent experiences, the nature of inter-connectivity and non-separate existence (also referred to as non-duality),
through which compassion arises naturally. Both evolutionary and contemplative perspectives have the same focus which is
to understand and prevent the causes of suffering, including the suffering we cause ourselves because of our harmful poten-
tials. However, in terms of training the mind in compassion skills, this paper considers how training approaches linked to the
evolutionary model often use thinking, empathising, reflecting and guided behaviour change to activate psychophysiological
systems linked to caring and compassion. In contrast, the contemplative traditions focus less on thinking and reflecting and
more on creating conditions for direct experiencing. A key reason for doing so is to settle the mind so that subtler levels of
consciousness can enable the experience of self-transcendent compassion to arise. Thus, both evolutionary and contempla-
tive approaches can focus on developing mind awareness and the importance of practise, but evolutionary approaches such
as compassion focused therapy do not pursue transcendent wisdoms or insights.
Keywords Skillful compassion· Buddhism· Biopsychosocial· Meditation· Interconnectivity· Nonduality· Prosociality·
Evolutionary origins· Motivation· Social mentality· Dark side· Mindfulness
Compassion asaSkill:
AnEvolution‑Informed Biopsychosocial
andSecular Approach
The editors invited us to address a number of fascinat-
ing questions about the nature of skillful approaches to
compassion.
A number of important papers in this Special Issue have
explored skillful compassion from a number of perspectives,
including a Buddhist historical point of view (Condon &
Makransky, 2022; Dunne & Manheim, 2022; Quaglia, 2022;
Simmer-Brown, 2022). This paper touches on a few of these
themes and examines some of the similarities and differences
between evolution-derived and contemplative approaches to
compassion. We contextualise our approach to compassion
in the efforts to alleviate and prevent suffering, including the
suffering we ourselves cause through our callousness and
cruelty (Gilbert, 2005,2019; Plante, 2015; Taylor, 2009).
We then explore an evolution and biopsychosocial approach
to compassion skills followed by consideration of contem-
plative approaches (see also Gilbert etal., 2023).
* Paul Gilbert
p.gilbert@derby.ac.uk
1 Centre forCompassion Research andTraining, College
ofHealth, Psychology andSocial Care, University ofDerby,
Kedleston Road, DerbyDE221GB, UK
2 School ofPsychology, University ofDerby, DE22 IGB,
Derby, UK
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2396 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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Setting theBackground: AnEvolutionary
Journey andChallenge
Compassion, like altruism, is a form of prosocial behav-
iour that is designed to help others (Penner etal., 2005;
Ricard, 2015). Our understanding of prosocial behaviour,
in terms of its evolutionary origins, facilitators and inhibi-
tors, and neurophysiological mediators has developed
extensively in the last 20 years, as outlined in a major
overview by Wu and Hong (2022). The general findings
are that prosocial behaviour has many positive benefits on
our epigenetics, physiology, physical health and mental
well-being (Brown & Brown, 2015; Wu & Hong, 2022)
and the quality of the social relationships we create and
are embedded within (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2014). As a
form of prosocial behaviour, the focus of compassion is on
the identification, alleviation and prevention of suffering
(Dalai Lama, 1995; Gilbert, 2020a; Gilbert & Choden.,
2013; Mascaro etal., 2020; Seppälä etal., 2017; Stevens
& Woodruff, 2018). One approach to understanding the
various forms and functions of compassion is to explore
its changing use as a solution to different evolutionary
challenges (Gilbert, 1989, 2005; Gilbert, 2020a; Gilbert,
2020b; Gilbert & Simos, 2022; Goetz etal., 2010; Keltner
etal., 2014; Slavich, 2020) with various psychophysiologi-
cal mediators (Favre etal., 2021; Kim etal., 2020; Petroc-
chi etal., 2022; Seppälä etal., 2017; Stevens & Woodruff,
2018; Vrtička etal., 2017; Weng etal., 2018).
However, our dispositions towards prosocial behaviour,
including for cooperation, altruism and compassion, also
have many evolutionary rooted and socially constructed
inhibitors (Gilbert, 2005, 2020a, b, 2021; Gilbert etal.,
2011; Gilbert & Mascaro, 2017; Kirby etal., 2019; Van
Lange & Rand, 2022; Workman etal., 2020). Humans are
arguably an incredibly tragic species. On the one hand,
we have some extraordinary, inbuilt and socially enhanced
prosocial motives to be compassionate, address suffering
and create “the good”, yet on the other hand, we are the
cause of much suffering to us and other animals. The last
few thousand years have seen our vigorous pursuit of wars,
holocausts, torture, slavery, oppression, exploitation, eco-
nomic inequalities, and willing support of psychopathic,
divisive leaders. Furthermore, the treatment of women in
many patriarchal cultures and religions has been, and in
some places still is, controlling, suppressive and abhorrent.
Viewed together, it is clear we have the potential to be the
most vicious, callous, cruel and nasty species that have ever
existed on this planet. We are a species of extremes capa-
ble of extraordinary compassion but also with a terrible
and very frightening dark and harmful side (Baumeister,
1996; Black, 2016; Gay, 1993; Gilbert, 2005, 2019; Marsh,
2019, Taylor, 2009; Zimbardo, 2008). Our harmful side is
not only responsible for harm to others and our ecologies
but also underpins many forms of mental health difficulty
including self-anger, depression, suicidality, substance
abuse, paranoia and psychosis (Gilbert, 1989, 2020a; Gil-
bert & Simos, 2022). Taking the aims of compassion to
reduce and prevent suffering, then, we have to address that
which stimulates our personal and collective harmfulness
(Gilbert, 2005, 2019; Taylor, 2009; Zimbardo, 2008).
Tragically for us, there are many personal, social and bio-
logical sources of human harmfulness. Both evolution-based
and Buddhist approaches recognise that if compassion is
going to address the causes of suffering, then it has to address
the causes of human harmfulness. Buddhism sees the causes
of harmfulness as arising from the afflictions of the mind
such as ignorance, greed and attachment. Western psychol-
ogy approaches to our harmful side have explored sources
such as genes for callousness (Moore etal., 2019); ecological
challenges such as famines and diseases (Volk, 2023); and
personality traits (Jones & Figueredo, 2013), our child rearing
environmentsand relationships(Narvaez & Bradshaw, 2023;
Mikulincer & Shaver, 2017;Siegel, 2020)history of physical
and mental trauma (Taylor & Hocken, 2021), social political
contexts (Black, 2016; Gilbert, 2019, 2021) and economic
contexts that support materialistic self-interest (Kasser, 2016).
Be it via fights and contests over resource control, dominance
and intragroup conflicts, tribalism and tribal violence, or more
basic forms of vengeance and seeking retribution, callousness,
as indifference to the harm and suffering we cause, and cru-
elty as causing harm and suffering on purpose, are evolved,
and at times easily triggered potentials within us (Buss, 2019;
Gilbert, 2019; Wrangham, 2018). If unregulated, by the rule
of law or motives for prosocial behaviour and compassion,
our harmful dispositions pose serious challenges to humanity
(Gilbert, 2019;Ho etal., 2012).
In contrast, to self-focused competitivenessof “control and
hold”(Gilbert,2021) is an evolved strategy for care and share
that promotes egalitarianism. Itemerged partlyas subordi-
nates began to gang up and shun, exclude or even kill aggres-
sive controlling (mostly) males (Boehm, 1999). Caring and
sharing became especially adaptive during the human shift to
hunter gatherers (Narvaez, 2017; Narvaez & Bradshaw, 2023;
Spikins, 2015). Indeed, many psychophysiological changes
occurred in this period including to our hormone systems (e.g.
oxytocin; Carter etal., 2017; Kucerova etal., 2023) the auto-
nomic nervous system (Bornemann etal., 2016; Petrocchi &
Cheli, 2019;Porges, 2021) and brain (Vrtička etal., 2017).
These, along with major changes to our cognitive competen-
cies (Byrne, 2016), supported our evolution into having poten-
tials to be highly social, caring, sharing and cooperative, with
a strong desire for helpfulsocial connectedness, at least for
ingroups (Camilleri etal., 2023; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2014,
2017;Spikins, 2022).
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2397Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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One way to consider these extremes is to recognise the
evolved and contextually sensitive strategies that underpin
our compassionate versus harmful sides. Given that evolution
generates adaptations to psychophysiology systems as
solutions to the challenges of survival and reproduction,
and given that some of those challenges relate to access
and competition over resources, then how we deal with
conflictcompetition is where we find many ofthe origins
of our helpful vs harmful extremes (Buss, 2019; Workman
etal., 2020). Many species including primate groups (but
excluding bonobos) are intensely stratified and hierarchical.
Threat, aggression and the induction of fear (in subordinates)
are the means to uprank-linked power forcontrolling access
to resources and hold onto them. Many primate groups
also have violent intergroup clashes. Hence, there are
different evolved solutions in response to the competitive
challenges of life. Two major ones are anti-egalitarian, to
gain control and hold access to resourcesat the expense
of others (Basran et al., 2019; Ho et al., 2012) versus
cooperative, andtocare and share resources (Buss, 2019;
Camilleri etal., 2023; Gilbert, 2021).Hence, like us,many
primates(and other species)havecomplex repertoires and
motivesforbothpro and anti-social behaviour. A key
question is what social, contextual and cognitiveprocesses
can shift us one way or theother (Gilbert, 2005,2019, 2021)?
In societies and cultures which have exceeded certain
group sizes, with opportunities to seize wealth and control, the
means of that control is typically threat and violence based and
involves the induction of fear to suppress intragroup conflict
and subordinate opportunity (Black, 2016; Ho etal., 2012).
Some of the worst tortures and depictions of hell realms have
emerged from hierarchical societies that use threat and fear to
control group dynamics for the benefit of the power of elites.
In many of the empires, stretching back many thousands of
years, the extent of the wealth discrepancy was/is huge (Black,
2016). To maintain their power, elites were able to tap into
our archetypal psychology for submissive obedience and
deference and employ individuals as “henchmen and women”
to instigate regimes of threat and terror on their behalf. Even
today, some political elites use their police forces and armies
to suppress populations and torture and kill protesters. When
it is not an actual physical threat, competitive societies create
vast disparities in wealth, overstimulate the need to strive,
achieve, control and hold, and with the poor being in constant
fear of lack of opportunity as well as suffering the deprivations
of poverty (Gilbert, 2021; Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015;
Ryff, 2017). Competitive cultures can advance competitive
individuals into leadership positions, who are focused on their
own self-promotion and control (Basran etal., 2019) and hold
anti-egalitarian views (Ho etal., 2012).
Unregulated competitive societies that lack a
compassionate framework are problematic for humans
because our bodies and brains basically function best in
safe, caring and sharing environments (Brown & Brown,
2015; Gilbert, 1989, 2019; Keltner etal., 2014; Narvaez &
Bradshaw, 2023; Petrocchi & Cheli 2019;Slavich, 2020).
As noted above, our ancestors began to evolve different
solutions to resource control which was to reduce threat-based
hierarchies and replace them with egalitarianism and resource
sharing, in what were to become hunter-gatherer lifestyles
(Boehm, 1999; Dunbar, 2014, 2022; Spikins, 2015, 2022).
In hunter-gatherer groups, where group size was rarely above
150, people knew each other from the day they were born
to the day they died and where resources were/are scarce,
and caring, sharing and egalitarianism were/are essential for
survival (Boehm, 1999; Narvaez & Bradshaw, 2023; Ryan,
2019). These changes were also associated with changes in the
need for cooperative birthing and child rearing (Hrdy, 2009).
This profoundly affected the caring environments children
grew up in and orientated them to social trust and sharing
and caring (Narvaez & Bradshaw, 2023). Social power
hierarchies and those that sought to take more than their fair
share were shunned. Rather, taking an interest in the welfare
of others was deemed to be crucial for one’s own reputationto
be accepted and valued. In addition, when others prosper it
increases one’s own chances to prosper.
Part of our problem is that we are a species with potentials
for helpful versus harmful extremes that can be triggered by
contexts. Hence, although we can indeed be callous, cruel
and vicious, we are also strongly motivated to be caring of
others and have created multiple ways to address and prevent
suffering, in humans and non-humans. Clearly, there are
individual differences in the activation of these two potentials
within us. Importantly, there are many secular activities such
as medicine, social services, teaching, police and rescue
services, along with everyday behaviours where the way
people try to help each other would fit most definitions
of compassion. In addition, we are an extraordinarily
cooperative, interdependent species, which has given rise
to the complex societies we now enjoy. From the food on
our table, to the heating in our houses, to the chips in our
mobile phones, to surgeries to remove cancer, all of these
rely on our interdependency and the shared accumulation
of knowledge over many generations and from the efforts of
billions of people (Ricard, 2015; Van Lange & Rand, 2022).
Furthermore, there are now many studies showing that
prosocial behaviour, in the form of taking an interest in others,
wanting to make a contribution to others wellbeing, showing
gratitude, and developing playfulness and friendliness all have
major impacts on a range of physiological systems health,
sense of meaning and well-being (Wu & Hong, 2022)
Importantly, most individuals are not aware of the degree
to which their culture stimulates and patterns these two
evolvedbrain organising strategies within them, guiding their
adopted values and pursued self-identities. Since care and
share versus control and holdare two very different ways of
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2398 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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regulating group dynamics, both within and between groups,
mind awareness training, allied with orientating people towards
compassion values practises and identities, are important anti-
dotes to offset self-focused competitiveness. The importance of
mind awareness and compassion training to offset the harmful
sides of the mind is of course ancient. More recently, German
philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), who was very
influenced by Buddhist thought, saw compassion not for seek-
ing happiness but to prevent suffering.
We have taken this slight diversion because although many
people in the Western middle classes have been attracted to
compassion, they see it as means of helping them with personal
problems and to become happy. Rather, we want to stress a different
focus for compassion, in tune with early Buddhism and also
philosophers such as Schopenhauer.This is that oneof compassion’s
most important functions is to address our harmful side and the
“human” causes of suffering and unhappiness, including the
cruelties and callousness that we jointly perpetrate or do not stand
against collectively. Compassion then is a way of stimulating
egalitarian mindsets within communities that are associated with
health and well-being, but also having the courage and wisdom
to take on the power and terrors that are inherent in the harmful
side of ourselves, individually and collectively. Clearly,this points
to important issues of skilled, politicallyand community focused
compassionate behaviour (Ekman & Ekman 2017; Ricard, 2015).
Definitions
A key part of skillful compassion is having clarity as to its
functions and definition. On these issues, there is still some
debate, with slightly different views on how to concep-
tualise and measure compassion (Condon & Makransky,
2020;Crocker etal., 2017; Gilbert, 1989, 2017, 2020a;
Goetz etal., 2010; Mascaro etal., 2020; Neff, 2003; Strauss
etal., 2016). Most current definitions have been derived
from Buddhist concepts (Condon & Makransky, 2022;
Ricard, 2015; Strauss etal., 2016). For example, Buddhist
scholar Geshe Thupten Jinpa (2015; translator to the Dalai
Lama) and colleagues, who helped develop the Stanford
Compassion Cultivation Training, define compassion as:
a multidimensional process comprised of four key
components: (1) an awareness of suffering (cognitive/
empathic awareness), (2) sympathetic concern related
to being emotionally moved by suffering (affective
component), (3) a wish to see the relief of that suffering
(intention), and (4) a responsiveness or readiness to help
relieve that suffering (motivational). (Jazaieri etal., 2013)
Strauss etal. (2016) offered a systematic and integrative
review of a number of different, mostly Buddhist, approaches
and came out with their overlapping but also different set of
competencies and skills. They concluded:
A range of definitions from Buddhist and Western psy-
chological perspectives were considered and five com-
ponents of compassion were identified: recognition of
suffering; understanding its universality; feeling sym-
pathy, empathy, or concern for those who are suffering
(which we describe as emotional resonance); tolerating
the distress associated with the witnessing of suffering;
and motivation to act or acting to alleviate the suffer-
ing. Each of these components has been articulated by
several published definitions of compassion, although
no single existing definition explicitly includes all five
of them. (p. 25; italics added)
In listing these qualities as ways of being compassionate,
they also point to the skills that need to be developed. In a
more descriptive but still Buddhist approach, mindfulness and
compassion scholars Feldman and Kuyken (2011) highlight
the multifaceted textures of compassion: They suggest that:
Compassion is the acknowledgment that not all pain
can be ‘fixed’ or ‘solved’ but all suffering is made
more approachable in a landscape of compassion.
Compassion is a multi-textured response to pain,
sorrow and anguish. It includes kindness, empathy,
generosity and acceptance. The strands of courage,
tolerance, equanimity are equally woven into the
cloth of compassion. Above all, compassion is the
capacity to be open to the reality of suffering and to
aspire to its healing. (p.143; italics added)
They go on to add:
Compassion is an orientation of mind that recognises
pain and the universality of pain in human experi-
ence and the capacity to meet that pain with kind-
ness, empathy, equanimity and patience. (p. 145)
As we will note shortly, if compassion is to take on the harmful
side then two qualities are essential: courage and wisdom. One of
the key distinctions requiring clarity therefore is what compassion
actually is. For example, is it a motive, a feeling state or an attitude,
and can we distinguish it from ways of being compassionate?
Simmer-Brown (2022) relates how some Buddhist scholars think
the West sees compassion as an emotion, and some definitions
include an emotional or affective state component (Goetz etal.,
2010). However, Simmer-Brown (2022) notes that the Tibetan
language does not have a term that maps closely to concepts of
emotion or affective state. Here we note that most approaches regard
compassion as a “motive and an intention” and that emotions,
thoughts, attitudes and behaviours are ways of being compassionate
and guide compassion. In other words, just as depression is a mood
disorder, with many different possible manifestations, so we can
see compassion as a prosocial motive that has many different ways
of beingexpressed. This enables us to distinguish the basis of
compassion from ways of being compassionate.
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2399Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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A Biopsychosocial andEvolution Approach
The evolutionary and biopsychosocial approach to compas-
sion argues that compassion can be usefully understood in
terms of a motive with evolved functions, facilitators and
inhibitors, underpinned by biological, psychological and
social regulators (Gilbert, 1989, 2005; Gilbert, 2020b; Gilbert
& Mascaro, 2017; Keltner etal., 2014; Petrocchi etal., 2022;
Seppälä etal., 2017; Stevens & Woodruff, 2018). Compassion
focused therapy (CFT) suggests we can use the basic structure
of psychological science to identify four basic functions of
the mind: motives, emotions, competencies and behaviours
and how they are patterned and co-regulated incompas-
sion(Davey, 2019a; Gilbert, 1989, 2014; Gilbert, 2022a).
These are outlined in Fig.1 and described below.
Motives
We can start the explorations with motives and needs at the top
of Fig.1. Motives are the essential guiding processes of the
mind that coordinate other functions. Baumeister (2016) says:
The primacy of motivation emphasizes that cognition,
emotion, agency, and other psychological processes
exist to serve motivation. (p. 1)
Psychological theorists should therefore devote consid-
erable respect and attention to motivational processes.
Broad theories that combine multiple processes should
generally give priority to motivation as fundamental,
because the full causal chain that leads to behavior
and beyond will generally start with motivation. (p. 3)
Motives (including ones for compassion) evolved from
the challenges of survival and reproduction to orientate
and stimulate organisms to seek out what they need to do
to sustain life and reproduce (Buss, 2019; Davey, 2019b).
There are three major motives and life tasks:
1. Avoiding harm; all organisms have to be able to iden-
tify threats to their existence and take defensive action
(LeDoux, 2022).
2. Seeking out resources that are necessary for survival
such as food, shelter and opportunities for reproducing
(Buss, 2019; Davey, 2019b). Animals have conflicts with
each other over these resources. Hence, the motivations
to engage in such conflicts and also to avoid serious
injury are endemic to many species (Gilbert, 2000).
3. Seeking out and responding to opportunities for resting
and digesting — because animals cannot be constantly
active, defending against threats or seeking resources
24/7. The psychophysiological states associated with
resting and digesting are associated with contentment
and feeling safe and socially connected (Petrocchi
etal., 2022). These states are related to health (Brown
& Brown, 2015; Slavich, 2020) and prosocial behaviour
(Keltner etal., 2014; Wu & Hong, 2022). They may also
be linked to experiences of self-transcendence and inter-
connectedness which can underpin Buddhist motives
for compassion (Kitson etal., 2020; Stellar etal., 2017;
Yaden etal., 2017).
These three “basic” motives give rise to many sub-
motives, such as wanting to pursue a career, have a family
and children, become famous or become a hermit and seek
enlightenment, as well as small motives such as wanting to
go to a party. There are different social motives called social
mentalities, such as being caring, cooperating, competing
and gaining control over resources, even at the expense of
others (Gilbert, 1989, 2020b, c). Social mentalities differ
from other basic motives because they require skills in the
Fig. 1 Four basic psychological
functions © Gilbert (2022b)
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2400 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
ability to understand social communication for role enact-
ment. For example, an individual has to be able to identify
any one signal from another as, say, a sexual signal or a
threat signal, or a signal of caring or friendship and then
respond appropriately. Social mentalities therefore require
feature detectors for certain types of social signal, with pro-
cessing systems to interpret those specifics signals that carry
information about intent and emotional state. They also
require the ability to send reciprocal dynamic information
thus creating a particular social role relationship (Gilbert,
2017; Gilbert, 2022a, c). Through reciprocal, dynamic inter-
actions, individuals create roles for caring (compassion),
help seeking, cooperating, sexuality, competing and so forth.
Motives andAlgorithms andtheNature
ofCompassion
All motives are supported by if A then do B (stimulus response)
algorithms, where A is dependent on evolved feature detectors
that trigger B, action responses (Davey, 2019b; Deckers, 2014).
Whether it is protecting from threats or seeking food or sexual
encounters, understanding the algorithms of a motive is
essential to exploring its biopsychosocial manifestations. Harm
avoidance motives need feature detectors for threat that trigger
physiological systems (such as the amygdala) to deal with
threat such as fighting, running away or hiding. In contrast,
feeding motives need feature detectors to identify edible foods
and how to find them, and prepare the body for consumption
and digestion. Sexual motives need feature detectors for sexual
opportunities that stimulate bodily processes for courting and
mating behaviour. Motives could not evolve without feature
detectors, and they would be relatively useless without being
linked to output and response systems. The evolution of feature
detectors means that the brain can monitor for the presence
or absence ofcertain stimuli and signals. It follows therefore
that care and compassion evolved with feature detectors for
detecting signals of distress and need, which then trigger
physiological, cognitive and behavioural responses to address
them. The stimulus detection of suffering, in contrast to
the activation of responses to be helpful, is underpinned by
different physiological systems and search routines (Di Bello
etal., 2021). Individuals who are sensitive to distress (to self
or others) but do not know what to do, or feel constrained in
acting, can experience high personal distress.
We may wish to get fit and know how to get fit, but still
not do what we need to do to get fit. Poulin (2017) noted
that we can be quite capable of detecting suffering and know
what to do, and even appear to be motivated to do it, but then
do not actually perform the actions necessary. Motivation to
take action, the wisdom of what action to take and actually
taking action are therefore different processes and skills (Di
Bello etal., 2020). In addition, people can take actions to
address suffering and needs in others but not necessarily
from a compassionate motivation. Instead, it is to be liked or
to harness a good reputation (Böckler etal., 2016; Catarino
etal., 2014). In fact, most of our behaviours have multiple
and different motivations behind them rather than one, and
many are unconscious to us anyway (Bargh, 2017). Hence,
it is possible to behave compassionately both from a genuine
wish to be compassionate and also to be liked or rewarded.
The evolution of caring and compassion motives have
different roots with different functions and therefore com-
passion cannot be regarded as a single skill or process. We
can roughly identify three interacting evolved pathways into
compassion.
1. One early routewas byrescuing and helping the sick and
injured. Kessler (2020) highlighted that this behaviour is
noted in ants and many other species and can underpin
certain forms of human caring. Spikins (2015, 2022)
suggested that rescuing and caring for sick and injured
individuals was a major element of hunter-gatherer soci-
eties and is key to our evolution for compassion. Indeed,
humans are highly motivated to rescue others and care
for them when ill. The medical and rescue professions
depend on this. Importantly, unlike other forms of caring
this form of caring is less tribally constrained in that (for
example) in disaster areas, and even in war, people will
rescue and try to heal the injured regardless of whether
they know them or not.
2. A second route to care and compassion was via
attachment and the care of offspring (Bowlby, 1969;
Cassidy & Shaver, 2016; Gilbert, 1989; Hrdy, 2009;
Narvaez & Bradshaw, 2023; Porges, 2021). The
parent, primarily the mother, is highly sensitive to the
distress and needs of her infants and will provide them
with physical resources (food and warmth) and also
psychological guidance (Mayseless, 2016). Insight
into the evolution of physiological systems such as
oxytocin (Carter etal., 2017; Kucerova etal., 2023)
and various neurocircuits (Stevens & Woodruff, 2018;
Vrtička etal., 2017) and the vagus nerve (Di Bello etal.,
2020; Porges, 2021) that support caring attachments
have progressed extensively in the last years and are
often seen as a template for many forms of caring. This
kind of caring however can be limited to kinships and
(ingroup) similarity relations and may not transfer so
well to out-group strangers or people we do not like.
In fact, oxytocin might increase aggressiveness to
outgroups in some contexts (De Dreu etal., 2011). We
can note too that we lavish extensive resources on our
own children while knowing that on the other side of the
world children are starving, lack clean water and basic
medicines. A preparedness to share resources and make
sacrifices for others may be under different regulators
than rescue behaviour. Partly because this form of caring
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2401Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
evolved interpersonally and face to face, our abilities to
feel and extend compassion can be related to the numbers
of people who are suffering and sense of kinship with
them(Butts etal., 2019).
3. A third challenge and route to caring and compassion
were noted above in relation to hunter-gatherer lifestyles,
such that those that shared and gave to others built
reciprocal helpful relationships as well as obtained
positive reputations status and belonging within the
group. Narcissistic non-sharers were excluded and
shunned (Boehm, 1999; Ryan, 2019). Hence, altruism
and the motive to be attractive and desired became
traits that had advantages in terms of sexual and
alliance formation (Workman etal., 2020). In addition,
the socially affiliative, friendly, playful and helpful
interpersonal interactions have profound effects on
physiological systems such as oxytocin, the immune and
autonomic nervous system along with associated health
benefits (Carter & Kinsbury, 2022; Slavich, 2020; Wu
& Hong, 2022).
Over hundreds of millions of years, various caring
motives have been evolving around these basic algorithms
and processes of [A] evolved feature detectors (enabling
attention sensitivity) for stimuli and signals of suffering/
need that then [B] trigger appropriate actions to alleviate and
prevent suffering and address needs. Following these steps
enables us to see how we arrive at a definition of compassion
as a basic algorithm which is:
[A] sensitivity to suffering in self and others with [B] a
commitment to try to alleviate and prevent it. (Gilbert,
2014, p. 19)
This definition is informed by evolution and Buddhist
thinking, and with slight variations is fairly typical of most
definitions (Mascaro etal., 2020). However, it is recognised
that just because individuals have the potential to be sen-
sitive and take action does not necessarily mean they will
(Poulin, 2017). In fact, even if people have compassion skills
they may, for various reasons, be fearful or resistant to using
them (Gilbert etal., 2011; Gilbert & Mascaro, 2017; Kirby
etal., 2019). Thus, as noted above the competencies, skills
and processes to be sensitive, moved by and understand suf-
fering need to be distinguished from the competencies, skills
and processes that guide and enable taking action.
We also drew attention to the motive to prevent suf-
fering which has two dimensions to it. First, we have to
address needs because if needs are not addressed individu-
als will clearly suffer. To put this another way, compassion
looks to the future in the sense that we act now to minimise
future suffering. Indeed, we train in skills not just to help
us in this moment but to help us in the futureand create a
desired future. Second, prevention also involves preventing
others from causing harm. This takes us into a complex
area about the use of the rule of law and law enforcement.
It raises complex questions about defensive aggression,
asfor example today Ukraine is trying to defend its ter-
ritory. It raises questions about how war is conducted. If
compassion is to address our harmful side then it has to
addressthe prevention of those who stimulate and enact
harmful callousdesires and behaviours in their communi-
ties — be this criminal gangs or international leaders.
Emotions
Emotions are different to motives and are in the service of
motives (Baumeister, 2016). In his book on the evolution of
emotions, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, Nesse (2019) says:
Emotions are specialized states that adjust physiology,
cognition, subjective experience, facial expressions, and
behaviour in ways that increase the ability to meet the
adaptive challenges of situations that have reoccurred
over the evolutionary history of a species. (p. 53)
Emotions come and go, and their basic function is
to change physiology and the orientation of attention,
thinking and behaviour to meet the challenge of pursu-
ing motives. Hence, we can identify particular types of
emotion associated with the three basic life tasks and life
motives. Emotions that are associated with harm avoidance
and threat include those such as anxiety, anger and disgust.
Emotions associated with seeking and achieving resources
tend to be what we call positive emotions such as joy,
excitement and pleasure. Emotions associated with rest
and digest, and with sources of satisfaction, are associated
with a sense of peacefulness, safeness and contentment.
There have been many models which point out that how
we understand our emotions significantly impacts our behav-
iour towards ourselves and others. For example, Irons (2019)
highlights stages associated with emotion such as aware-
ness of changes in the body, awareness of triggers, ability to
label and recognise emotion including that we can have more
than one emotion at the same time, and ability to understand
and make choices about how to behave in any particular
emotional state as opposed to being controlled by it. Some
individuals will avoid certain emotions both on purpose and
also non-consciously, which can make compassion difficult
if they are engaging with suffering that stirs up painful emo-
tions. Key skills of compassion will therefore be attention
sensitivity allied with emotional tolerance and empathic
insight in the face of suffering which support wise action.
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2402 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
Competencies
Competencies are a third class of evolved functions. These
are processes that facilitate action and emotion regulation. For
example, birds need wings to fly and a brain that will navigate
their flight. The motives for and reasons they are flying could
be various, such as escaping a predator, looking for food or
returning to the nest, but the brain systems and competencies
they are using to fly will be exactly the same, regardless of
reason. One of the important distinctions between humans
and other animals is the degree of complexity of our cognitive
competencies (Gilbert, 2022a). These include competencies for:
1. Complex insightful reasoning, use of language andmeta-
cognition, problem-solving, and creating “science” with
the ability to accumulate knowledge generation to gen-
eration (Byrne, 2016; Stewart-Williams, 2018). When
these “thinking” competencies are used in the service of
compassion, they give rise to understanding the nature
and causes of suffering that guide ways of how to cope,
alleviate and prevent it. For example, scientists were
able to identify the virus that caused the symptoms and
then develop vaccines for COVID-19.
2. Using empathy and mentalising for understanding the
nature and processes of the minds of self and others
(Luyten etal., 2020). Empathy can be a crucial skill for
not only understanding the nature of suffering, connect-
ing to people’s experiences and being moved by their
distress but also importantly the ability to stand back
and work out what is likely to be helpful. Indeed, only
being empathic to distress without a focus on how to be
helpful can be overly stressful and lead to burnout.
3. Becoming aware of being aware or conscious of being
conscious, which is the basis of mindfulness and our
ability to “on purpose” observe, come to understand our
minds and travel the journey to “enlightenment” (Siegel,
2012, 2018; Williams & Kabat-Zinn, 2013). Mindful-
ness can be used in different ways; one of which is to
train the mind to settle and quieten the default mode that
can enable altered states of consciousness (Yaden etal.,
2017). The other is to be sensitive of what arises in the
mind and be discerning as to how to work with our dark
sides so we do not overly amplify them nor act on them
harmfully; in Buddhism, this is to distinguish the whole-
some from the unwholesome (Austin, 2009; Gilbert &
Choden., 2013; Huxter, 2016)
Together, these competencies offer the basis for knowingly
and intentionally, that is paying attention and knowingly devel-
oping intentions that enable a choice of action.Unfortunately,
they also come with built-in (non-conscious) biases and at
times deep irrationalities because the brain is not evolved to be
rational as such and uses many (jump to conclusions) shortcuts
(Gilbert 1998; Nesse, 2019). These built-in biases are partly
why we can be so harmful to ourselves and others and why we
need to learn to become mindful of them. In addition,indi-
viduals can be skilled in one competency but not necessarily
another. For example, individuals may be extremely intelligent
and win Nobel Prizes, but may be poor at empathy and vice
versa. Or they may practise a form of mindfulness but are still
not that empathic or sensitive to others. Indeed, developing
the skills for the different competencies supporting compas-
sion may require specific training such as empathy training,
mindfulness training or the use of imagery and metacognition
(Favre etal., 2021; Singer & Engert, 2019). Crucial, too, is
the motivation behind the use of competencies because any
of these competencies can be used to be helpful or harmful.
Empathy, for example, can be used to be deceptive or to ingra-
tiate oneself with others in order to exploit them. One of the
reasons we have designed such horrific tortures is because we
can use empathy to maximise pain and terror.
Behaviours
Behaviours depend on competencies to engage in actions,
and through actions we learn and change.In other words,
skillsgrow fromthe doing. In Fig.1, UCR stands for uncon-
ditioned response. These are the responses that are built into
us and are relatively automatic. For example, we suddenly see
a snake or somebody jumps out at us and we automatically go
into anxiety. CR stands for conditioned response. These are
the behavioural responses we learn through experience. To
some extent compassion requires us to be sensitive and mind-
ful to our UCRs and CRs especiallyif they link to impulsive
or unhelpful behaviours.
Many behaviours are not simple responses to
stimuli but emerge out of motives and goalsshaped by
variouscomplexcogntive competencies. For example, we
want to drive or play the piano but these require dedicated
practice behavioursintegrated with a knowledge of cars
androads,andfor the piano,music. To become skillfulwe need
both.No matter how much one studies and intellectually knows
about driving or playing the piano, unless one actually drives or
plays, one will not get better at it. Intellectual wisdom cannot
be translated into experiential wisdom. The same applies for
compassion, self-transcendent states and insight. People may be
highly motivated to engage in insight or compassion practices
or actions but do not follow through with actual actions (Poulin,
2017). Translating motives and “know-how” into behaviour
change is one of the challenges for many change-based
interventions. Knowing, intending and wanting to and actually
doing are different. At times it is doing things with others that
give us that push into action. This is what makes thesupport
of the “sangha” or community so important for facilitating
behaviour change.Skillful compassion arises then from the
integration of multiple processes.
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2403Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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Compassion andKnowing Awareness
The competencies for insight and knowing intentionality are
crucial for compassion because compassion is more than
just the caring “instinct”. Lions are clearly motivated to
hunt and kill but not knowingly. They cannot decide if they
need to train to run faster, lose weight or choose to become
a vegetarian because hunting causes suffering. Humans can
help or harm, with aware intention, with knowing,self-aware
insight into the nature, causes and experiences of suffering.
Partly because we have the three types of competencies
outlined above, we can work out what is likely to be causing
suffering and distress, and what is likely to be helpful or not.
For example, with empathy, “I know that you are suffering
today because it is the anniversary of the death of your
beloved partner”. Another empathic recognition for action
might be “taking you out to meet friends for support or
just being with you today”. It is when we knowingly and
intentionally orientate ourselves to be helpful to self and
others that we enact compassion. Without this, compassion
may become synonymous with more automatic caring. This
is depicted in Fig.2.
Hence, compassion can be viewed as the motive that
stimulates and guides us to knowingly notice suffering in
self and other sentient beings, knowingly and empathically
connect to make sense and understand the nature and causes
of the suffering, and knowingly use empathy and our basic
knowledge to search for and implement possible solutions
(Gilbert & Choden, 2013). These competencies may also
enable us to become aware of, and then override, our inhibi-
tors to compassion such as not being compassionate to stran-
gers (Kirby etal., 2022; Loewenstein & Small, 2007)
Compassion and caring differ in another way. We may
care for our gardens, prized possessions and cars. If they
become damaged, we will be upset about that, but we will
not have compassion for the garden or car because we
know they do not have a conscious experience of suffer-
ing. Compassion is what we feel for the conscious suffering
of a sentient other. Care alone does not require sentience.
Furthermore, we tend to attribute degrees of sentience and
compassion to different levels of biological complexity. For
example, we might have less compassion for worms and
slugs than for dogs and chimpanzees.
This bears closely on the concept of dukkha, which is
important in Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism. There are
different types of dukkha arising from the fact that we, as
self-aware conscious beings, have conscious experiences of
suffering that are (1) inherent in pain, disease and death;
(2) inherent in change and the arising of loss of the wanted
(i.e. grief) and the emergence of the unwanted; and (3) due
to being aware of the suffering inherent in existence itself,
including in other sentient beings. Indeed, these forms of
dukkha can only arise because of our consciousness aware-
ness. Clearly, artificial intelligence cannot experience duk-
kha. It follows, then, that the way we use our new brain
competencies impacts how we experience and cope with
fear,pain, loss andmisfortune.
The Power ofBeliefs
Linked to our evolved cognitive competencies is the way we
form beliefs that bring different motives, cognitive compe-
tencies and sources of information together. Our beliefs are
not just about things and people in the world, and our expec-
tancies, but also about ourselves and the kinds of minds we
have and the people we are and want to become. Beliefs arise
from, and also direct, our cognitive competencies, frame
how we see and think about the world, the minds within it,
Fig. 2 Adapted from Caring to
Compassion. From Living Like
Crazy (Gilbert,2019), with per-
mission from Annwyn House
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2404 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
and choose what values to pursue. Beliefs can guide us to
what we want to know, what we turn away from and hence
what is knowable. If we believe that Buddhism is (say) a
dysfunctional religion then it is unlikely we will want to
learn about it and discover its wisdoms and mind train-
ings. People can develop beliefs that support prosocial but
also very harmful behaviours (Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003).
Beliefs can fuel fear and avoidance of compassion; that
compassion is a weakness or is undeserved (Gilbert etal.,
2011; Kirby etal., 2019). Indeed, beliefs can guide us to
compassion or intense cruelty, as well as a sense of hope or
despair (Beck, 2002). Buddhism does not describe concepts
like beliefs as such but certainly has many; for example, the
four noble truths represent basic beliefs while the eightfold
path represents beliefs about the nature of ethical behaviour
(Huxter, 2016). Buddhism generates many beliefs about how
to liberate ourselves from the illusions of a separate self and
the benefits of doing so, but recognises that belief and faith
are not enough and these have to be experienced for wisdom
to really change the mind.
Buddhist psychology has key beliefs about the causes of
suffering as being linked to types of attachment that generate
ignorance, greed and grasping. The obvious antidote is to
guide people to develop non-attachment and non-grasping
on the basis that all things are impermanent (Austin, 2009).
In other words, the process of non-attachment is an essen-
tial compassion practise and skill because of how it under-
mines the threecauses of suffering. Western psychotherapy
approaches this issue of over attachment or clinging-grasp-
ing in slightly different ways. For example, Ellis (1979; see
Dryden etal., 2010), the founder of rational emotion behav-
iour therapy, highlighted that people get into trouble when
they turn a preference into a must a have to and awfulise. He
called it “mustabating the self” and highlighted that humans
make unreasonable “have to” demands on themselves, life
and the world that are impossible to meet for reasons linked
to not accepting limitation, and imagining catastrophic out-
comes. Mustabating and demanding can be linked to beliefs
such as “unless Isucceed I’m nothing”; “I must not upset
people or make mistakes”; “I have to be loved or admired
otherwise I will be alone”; and “it is awful and unbearable
to be alone or rejected and therefore I must at all costs stop
it from happening”. In fact, individuals can become highly
competitive and non-compassionate because they have a
fear of inferiority, being left behind and marginalised, or
are distrusting of others to help them (Gilbert etal., 2007;
Basran etal., 2019). Crucially, there is clearly a connec-
tion between motivation to avoid harms and these beliefs
(Gilbert, 1992). This indicates that the more threatened we
feel, the more such beliefs can dominate our emotions and
behaviours. Therefore, to address attachment and striving,
we have to address underlying fears which are mostly to do
with fear of rejection and marginalisation.
This approach does not stress the importance of non-
attachment, which can be easily misunderstood in the West
as non-engagement, but rather the importance of having
rational-helpful desires and preferences (not demands) sup-
ported by rational-helpful beliefs, with the skills to cope
with the ups and downs if the preferences do not work out.
Like a potential surfer who wants to ride the wave, first they
must learn how to swim and be OK with falling off. When
there is fear of falling off and drowning then they will grasp
the surfboard and fail to learn how to ride or not try at all.
There have been a number of fascinating comparisons
between Buddhist approaches and rational emotive behav-
iour therapy (Holt & Austad, 2013; Kwee & Ellis, 1998) and
other cognitive approaches (Tirch etal., 2016). In their dif-
ferent ways, they both address the way our recently evolved
cognitive competencies, such as the way we reason, the way
we empathise or don’t, and our ability to be mindful and
discerning of what is helpful versus unhelpful, play key roles
in our mental states. Western therapies might explore uncon-
scious fears or unprocessed trauma or look at the beliefs
that underpin “grasping and greed” or certain attachments,
because they are not always what they appear on the surface.
In Western psychotherapy, they may be revealed through
processes of therapist-guided discovery, Socratic inquiry,
reflection and behavioural experiments.
Rather than working through unconscious processes or
trauma, Buddhism places emphasis on mind training such as
with meditation and at times specific behavioural practises
and experiments. A classic story is of a woman experienc-
ing profound grief over the death of her child. Asking the
Buddha how she could cope, he advised her to find mus-
tard seeds from a house that had not been touched by grief.
Searching high and low for such a house, she encountered
many stories of grief and in that way understood the nature
of common humanity and the reality of suffering. Monks
must rely on the charity of others to provide their food and
in this way understand the importance of interdependence
and gratitude. Interestingly, insofar as one of the primary
fears of humans is social disconnection and aloneness which
can give rise to “grasping”, if people have an experience of
self-transcendence associated with interconnectedness and
love, then that could settle that fear system in a way quite
different to Western psychotherapy.
Courage andWisdom asCentral toCompassion
Being motivated and having cognitive competencies and
beliefs that guide and inspire compassion require other char-
acteristics for compassion to be utilised. Central ones are
courage and wisdom, because compassion intention is not
enough to ensure appropriate compassionate actions (Gil-
bert, 2009; Jinpa, 2015; Ricard, 2015). If a person jumps
into a river to save someone but cannot swim, or enters a
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2405Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
burning house without proper safety equipment, they are
going to cause more problems than solve. Courage without
wisdom can be reckless. Equally, if a person knows how to
swim or firefight but is too anxious to act on that knowledge,
then their knowledge and wisdom are ineffective. So both
are necessary. In a fascinating interpretation of the way vari-
ous historical Buddha images began to emerge, Vessantara
(1993) indicates that they became associated with these dif-
ferent qualities and skills of mind:
as Buddhists over the centuries meditated on the
archetypal Buddha, more and more forms appeared.
They sprang up profusely like wildflowers in different
shapes and colours […] All these forms were expres-
sions of the life and vitality of the Dharma […]
To begin with, two new Buddhas appeared. These
expressed the two great aspects of Enlightenment –
Wisdom and Compassion. As people dwelt on these
qualities as embodied in, Skakysmuni, so they took
on a life of their own and became two new archetypal
Buddhas. (p. 62)
Compassionate courage and wisdom became sources
of meditation in their own right, with different bodhisattva
images representing courage and wisdom. One meditated on
them, imagining them flowing into oneself, and becoming
them to try and stimulate these qualities within oneself (Gil-
bert & Choden., 2013; Leighton, 2003; Vessantara, 1993). In
the secular approach to compassion, people practise different
skills of courage and wisdom relating to the different types
and contexts of suffering. Firefighters who risk their lives
or clinicians who risk COVID-19 infection need physical
courage but also specific skills and wisdoms for interven-
tion. Standing up against injustice and risking ridicule is a
different type of courage needing different skills. Working
in a hospice with end-of-life care again requires different
kinds of courage and skill. And being a good parent requires
special skills, too. Clearly, one might be good in one context
but not another. A courageous firefighter might not make the
most empathic friend or parent.
Courage and wisdom are also at the heart of people’s
journeys through psychotherapy because they often have to
engage with states of mind they find frightening and pain-
ful (Rachman, 1990). It is not uncommon for therapists to
work with veterans who have shown extraordinary physical
bravery, risking death and physical injury, but who struggle
when it comes to their own emotional pain. As one veteran
said, “I have the courage to die but not tocry”. Clearly, then
there are different forms of courage: one linked to physi-
cal risk and one linked to the ability to tolerate emotional
pain. Both Western psychotherapy and thecontemplative
approaches agree that mind training can be about fostering
courage so that we do not use our mental training to get rid
of emotional pain as a form of avoidance, but rather to be
able to accept, tolerate and work through the pain.
Zimbardo (2015) highlighted what he calls heroic com-
passion, where the “archetypal hero” knowingly engages
risks to achieve some goal. Hence, we could define courage
as the knowing engagement in risk of harm or loss to self in
order to pursue an intention. Motives are crucial in respect
of whether courage and wisdom are used to be harmful or
helpful. A skilled burglar may show courage in taking a risk
to climb through high windows, or a drug trafficker in risk-
ing detection. Forms of compassionate courage may involve
altruistic sacrifice when we give up some of our resources
and privileges to help those less fortunate than ourselves, for
example, donating a kidney to save someone’s life (Kirby
etal., 2022). Other forms, including assertiveness, risk tak-
ing, forgiveness, kindness and tenderness, are all ways of
being compassionate rather than compassion itself.Indeed
kindness has been shown to be different to compassion in
relationship to the emotions that are generated (when engag-
ing in compassion emotions are more threat focused) and
the courage and sacrifices involved (Gilbert etal., 2019).
Compassion asaMulti‑skilled Process
Seeing compassion as an algorithm, with two different com-
ponents of engagement and response, supported by the com-
petencies for (1) reasoning and conceptualising, (2) mentaliz-
ing, and (3) observing and mindfulness that facilitate knowing
intentionality, enables the distinguishing of different processes
underpinning compassion (Gilbert, 2009, 2014, 2022b). For
example, we can further differentiate specific competencies
that can be targets for therapeutic intervention. CFT has sug-
gested six competencies or processes underpinning our ability
to engage with suffering and distress. These include (1) being
motivated to address suffering and thereby (2) attune our fea-
ture detectors to be sensitive to distress; (3) being moved by
distress as in our personal sympathy reactions; (4) being able
to tolerate that distress from turning towards suffering; (5)
being empathically able to gain insight into the nature and
causes of distress; and (6) non-judgemental, condemning or
harshly critical.
When it comes to the action components, we have to (1)
switch our attention away from the nature suffering into
what is likely to be helpful; (2) run imaginary scenarios
in our minds that orientate us to helpfulness; (3) use our
reasoning and empathy skills for working out what is likely
to be helpful; (4) set out to act on our wisdoms, (5) when
needed, to ground ourselves in our body and that supports
helpful action; and (6) tolerate the feelings and emotions that
arise when we engage in action. For example, sometimes
helping people in some situations can involve threat to the
self and anxiety.
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2406 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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The twelve competencies are only guides that support
compassion cultivation. They are not meant to be exhaustive
lists. Rather they are identifiable trainable skills. In other
words, we can develop our own and our client’s skills for
paying attention, helpful reasoning, empathy, emotion tol-
erance, mindfulness and so forth. These competencies form
the bedrock for the core compassion qualities of the wis-
dom of how to understand and act, the courage of how to
understand and act, and the commitment to be sensitive to
suffering in self and others and take action (Gilbert, 2022a).
Importantly, all these competencies can also be expressed as
“flow” in the sense that there is the sensitivity, empathy and
helpfulness we give to others, that we can feel coming from
others, and we can direct to ourselves. Condon andMakran-
sky(2020) highlight the importance of the moral and ethical
principles of compassion, particularly the focus on compas-
sion for others for compassion to be sustainable.In regard to
training and therapy, some competencies may require more
efforts than othersbut training in these competencies and
skills in the context of a secure and safe therapeutic relation-
ship is at the heart of compassion focused therapy (Gilbert,
2010; Gilbert & Simos, 2022) (Fig.3).
In an effort to explore and measure competencies for
engagement and competencies for action, Gilbert etal.
(2017) developed the compassion engagement and action
scales (CEAS). We developed three complementary forms
for the flows of compassion that measure: self-compas-
sion, compassion to others, and compassion from others.
These were translated into a number of different languages
and have now been used in a number of studies (Arı etal.,
2022; Asano etal., 2020; Duarte etal., 2021; Matos etal.,
2021, 2022).In terms of the effects of CFT on harmful
behaviour, there is growing evidence that it is helpful
forthose who have harmed others and arebeing treated
inforensic contexts (Ribeiro da Silva etal.,2019, 2021).
Summary
In summary, an evolutionary and biopsychosocial approach
to compassion, and its benefits, views compassion as a basic
motive (Mascaro etal., 2020). Motives are different pro-
cesses with different functions from emotions, competen-
cies and behavioural dispositions. Motives orchestrate them
in different ways according to context (Gilbert, 2020a, b;
Gilbert & Simos, 2022). We can track the origins of care-
focused motives and their evolved psychophysiological pro-
cesses over hundreds of millions of years (Cassidy & Shaver,
2016; Mayseless, 2016; Seppälä etal., 2017) and how caring
became “compassion” when we evolved the competencies
for different types of “knowing” that made us able to (1)
reason and understand the relationships between cause and
effect and can have insight into how things work in the world
(Byrne, 2016; Stewart-Williams, 2018); (2) consciously and
knowingly empathically resonate with suffering in sentient
beings (Luyten etal., 2020); and (3) develop a form of mind
awareness from evolving self-awareness and “conscious of
being conscious”. These different skills and competencies
of compassion have become a focus for mind training in this
approach. The contemplative traditions that train the brain
and the mind overlap with these factors but also have a dif-
ferent focus and source of insight for cultivating compassion.
The Contemplative Traditions
andthePursuit ofSelf‑transcendence
and“Enlightenment” asPaths
toCompassion
One crucial distinction between secular and the more con-
templative traditions is that the secular traditions set out to
strengthen and develop cognitive competencies including the
importance of identity formation as a compassionate self.
The contemplative traditions do this to a degree, such as
with the concept of Bodhicitta, but at the same time teach
meditative exercises that tone down conceptual thinking, to
bring individuals constantly into the present moment, set-
tling the default mode, and thereby opening possibilities
for new states of consciousness. Creating the conditions
for experiencing different states of consciousness and self-
transcendence is not at the heart of Western psychotherapy
(although see Germer & Siegel, 2012; Siegel, 2018), but it is
in the contemplative traditions (Laukkonen & Slagter, 2021).
Mind Training inBuddhism
Although, compared with those of Western psychology, the
different schools of Buddhism have different ways of map-
ping our inner psychology, the issue of mind training is cen-
tral to both. A crucial focus of Buddhism’s mind training is
Fig. 3 Compassion process with engagement and action competen-
cies. From Mindful Compassion (Gilbert & Choden, 2013), with per-
mission from Little Brown
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2407Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
mindfulness (Brown etal., 2015; Germer & Siegel, 2012;
Gilbert & Choden, 2013) with a specialist journal Mind-
fulness dedicated to its study. Mindfulness has two crucial
aims. One is to become an observer of one’s mind so that
one becomes familiar with the arising of different, thoughts,
emotions and motives, keeping track of these in relationship
to intention particularly compassion intention. Then, rather
than unhelpfully ruminating on them or acting them out
impulsively, to be able to choose how to act helpfully not
harmfully.The second skill of mindfulness is to enable the
mind to settle, quieten the default mode, create the conditions
for more subtle awareness of the nature of consciousness and
eventually move into self-transcendent and non-duality states
(Kitson etal., 2020; Ornstein & Ornstein, 2021; Siegel, 2023;
Yaden etal., 2017). Mindfulness also supports compassion in
that it facilitates maintaining one’s behaviour on the eightfold
path (Huxter, 2016). As noted above, empathy is very impor-
tant for skillful acting with compassion. The eightfold path
has within it the notion of developing empathic awareness
because it requires us to be sensitive to the impact we can
have on other people so as not to cause them to suffer. Hence,
we can have empathy for what has happened to others, but
also empathy for our impact on others. These are regulated
through different processes.
Changing theExperience ofConsciousness
Whereas Western psychotherapy seeks to help people under-
stand and utilise basic biopsychosocial processes to shape
compassion and helpful mental states, the contemplative
traditions have a very different focus. This relates to ena-
bling people to experience new and enlightened states of
consciousness that dissolves illusions of a separate self and
generateprofound changes in the experience ofconscious-
ness itself. Indeed, one key route to the inspiration to pursue
compassion came from some (but by no means all) mystical
self-transcendentexperiences (Ornstein & Ornstein, 2021;
Yaden etal., 2017). As humans evolved self-awareness
and “consciousness of being conscious” minds, they could
knowingly explore questions about the nature and meaning
of their short existence in ways that no other animal could
(Dunbar, 2022). From the earliest known societies, humans
used substances and rituals to try to create experiences that
transcended their everyday ones and that gave insight into
alternative realities (Dunbar, 2022; Muraresku, 2020). Luke
(2019) and Muraresku (2020) outline the fascinating his-
tory of the use of psychedelics to deliberately create altered
states. Luke (2019) reviewed some of the typical paranor-
mal experiences people have and found that other practices
employed to produce such states include complex breathing
patterns, fasting, intense exercise and spinning. Common to
such altered states is losing a sense of a separate, individual
self to “being one withall”, such as one with nature, with
the universe, or with a representation of God. In addition,
these self-transcendent states were often associated with
feelings of overwhelming love,awe and joy that left indi-
viduals with a genuine increase in compassion for all beings,
partly through that sense of complete connectedness (Orn-
stein & Ornstein, 2021; Siegel, 2023; Yaden etal., 2017).
More recently, psychedelic-induced experiences have been
used to help people with depression, anxiety, trauma and the
fear of death, with promising results (Carhart-Harris etal.,
2018;Nayak & Johnson, 2021;Schimmel etal., 2022; Stel-
lar etal., 2017; Tagliazucchi etal., 2022). Again, it appears
to be the sense of loving, safe interconnectedness, “a merg-
ing of the self” and self-transcendence, which are crucial
(Stellar etal., 2017;Schimmel etal., 2022).
Another mystical experience that is attracting increas-
ing scientific attention is near-death experiences (NDE) and
the potential for “consciousness” to exist separately from
biology, typically referred to as an out-of-body experi-
ence (OBE). While some NDEs can be frightening(Cassol
etal.,2019) Greyson (2010) and Woollacott and Shumway-
Cook (2020) note that most are associated with a sense of
self-transcendence, cosmic unity and overwhelming joy.
NDE accounts also typically describe a form of uncondi-
tional love that is not like human love (see below). Cru-
cial to this paper, NDEs not only reduce the fear of death
but also increase a sense of compassion and connectedness
(Cavarra etal., 2022; Greyson, 2010, 2021). One of the cen-
tral controversies is the degree to which these experiences
are any more than complex neurophysiological changes and
(as science fiction writers show) our ability to create amaz-
ing fantasies (Dunbar, 2022), or do they offer windows on
more complex understanding of the nature of consciousness
(Greyson, 2021; Woollacott & Shumway-Cook, 2020)?
An increased sense of unconditional compassion is
also consistent with a pre-planned form of NDE invoked
through meditation, known as the meditation-induced NDE
(MI-NDE), that has been studied in advanced Buddhist
meditators (Van Gordon etal., 2018). As part of the key
features of the MI-NDE, such as an OBE, altered perception
of time and space, volitionally manifesting a non-corporeal
form, andhelping other beings was identified as both a
rationale for and an outcome of the practice. All these
experiences typically became referred to as self-transcendent
(Coxhead, 1985; D’Aquili & Newberg, 1993; Ornstein &
Ornstein, 2021;Wilber, 2007; Yaden etal., 2017), although
this term is now used in different ways (Kitson etal., 2020).
Neuroscientists are beginning to identify particular brain areas
that appear associated with particular experiences, such as self-
transcendence and timelessness (Ornstein & Ornstein, 2021).
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2408 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
Doors toNon‑duality
Related to self-transcendent experiences, as generated in
the ways discussed above, are the dimensions of non-dual
consciousness awareness that emerge out of mindfulness
and other mind trainings. One of the main aims of Buddhist
mindfulness and compassionate mind training is to facilitate
people’s experience of transcendental states, and experience
“the non-duality of consciousness” as the ground of all being
(Austin, 2009; Spira, 2008). Non-duality means that everything
is a property of one “process”, such as energy (Siegel, 2016,
2023). In this approach, consciousness is not created by the brain
or electrical chemical processes but is a property or dimension
of all things (Austin, 2009; Ornstein & Ornstein, 2021). One
of the functions of mindful “present moment awareness” is to
facilitate receptivity to non-duality experience (Austin, 2009;
Spira, 2008). Whether or not consciousness is only an emergent
property of the brainor not, meditative techniques are known
to use a range of practices that haveneurophysiological effects.
These are seen as able to facilitate the experience of the non-
duality of consciousness and of the interconnectedness of
all things (Austin, 2009; Ornstein & Ornstein, 2021; Siegel,
2023). This experience is different from Western psychotherapy
because it dissolves the distinctions between self and other,
object and subject, time and space.
Non-duality of consciousness is at the heart of Buddhist
approaches to insight and compassion (Anālayo, 2015; Van
Gordon etal., 2017). However, when we think about insight
we have to ask: insight into what? Van Gordon etal. (2021)
suggest that there have been three stages by which Western
science has become interested in Buddhism insight and
compassion. The first stage was interest in the relationship
of mindfulness and attention to mind states. This was of
special interest to those helping people with stress, painful
states and self-regulation (Germer & Siegel, 2012; Kabat-
Zinn etal., 1985). The second was concerned with ethical
and moral principles and the eightfold path. The third stage
is becoming interested in the dynamic of consciousness
itself, that is, the nature of emptiness (Sanskrit: śūnyatā),
the non-duality of consciousness as it underpins, and is the
source for, the arising and falling of all things (Austin, 2009;
Siegel, 2016, 2023; Van Gordon etal., 2017).
Siddhartha’s Journey This insight of non-duality as being at
the heart of all existence (śūnyatā) was the basis for placing
compassion as central to cultivating the mind (Vessantara,
1993). It is at the centre of Siddhartha’s journey into
enlightenment (Buddhahood). As a wealthy prince, he lived
his early life in ‘golden palaces’ shielded from the realities
of life. However (the story goes), when one day he did leave
the palace, and supported by a brave attendant, heventured
down into the local village, he was confronted by the realities
of disease, ageing and death. Coming from a background of
wealth and privilege, where he had had little contact with such
realities, he was overwhelmed with distress and so set out
to find solutions for such suffering. Originally, he joined the
ascetics, who (like the Jains) perceived the source of suffering
as linked to the body, bodily needs and processes. Hence,
freedom from suffering was through control and conquest
of the body. They followed a non-violent way of life and
focused on compassion (non-harm) towards all living things.
He may have been aware of mystical experiences generated by
various substances. Crucially, he was already highly oriented
to compassion motivation before his enlightenment.
Indeed, despite intense efforts that resulted in Siddhartha
almost starving to death, he realised this “body focus” did
not ultimately lead to any powerful insights. So, it is said, he
decided to sit under the classic bodhi tree and simply observe
his mind. Years of meditation had already developed in him a
capacity for deep mindful observation. In his emaciated state
(and such states have profound effects on the brain and mental
states), he began to sense a nature of consciousness that lies
behind all things. He became “enlightened” by entering a
completely new state of non-duality. In this (self-transcendent)
state of mind, there is the awareness of both the emptiness
and the fullness, the interconnectedness, timelessness and
spacelessness of consciousness itself (Anālayo, 2015; Spira,
2008; Van Gordon etal., 2017; Vessantara, 1993). He became
aware that it is from this domain of consciousness that all
things arise and fall in ever-changing patterns.
The difficulty with non-duality is that it defies description
and scientific dissections, and to be understood, has to be
experienced. Nonetheless, in a study involving advanced
Buddhist meditators, meditation on emptiness and non-
duality was found to outperform mindfulness meditation
against outcomes of non-attachment, mystical experiences,
compassion, positive affect and negative affect (Van Gordon
etal., 2019). Furthermore, compassionate farsightedness was
identified as a key component of the non-dual experience, with
one advanced meditator describing their experience as follows:
Existence is happening. It’s unfolding in front of you
and you’re watching it. But you’re also part of it. You
are it. You’re dancing with it. Oh, it’s so beautiful. All
things and life forms are included in your view. And
the sense of love and compassion is overwhelming. It
comes naturally. Do you see? You touch every mind
and atom with your heart and mind. (Van Gordon
etal., 2019, p. 269)
Scholars agree that emptiness is not a good English term
because it does not mean nothingness — nothing would mean
there is no consciousness at all to be aware of anything, whereas
śūnyatā is a heightened sense of consciousness of all things.
It really means empty of individual or independent existence;
that everything is a changing flux of patterns which scientists
suggest are energy patterns at some sub-atomic levels (Siegel,
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2409Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
2016, 2023). For this reason, emptiness can also be interpreted
as “fullness”, because if it is accepted that phenomena are
empty of an independent existing essence, then by default they
are “full” of all things (Van Gordon etal., 2017).
In this tradition, then, compassion arises from the
awareness of one’s true nature as being one of consciousness
of interconnectedness. This brings liberation from the sense of
an individual, separate self, allied with an expansive, boundless
and timeless experience of consciousness itself. The essence
of a snowflake is not a snowflake; rather, it is water, and the
essence of water is organised subatomic matter, then energy
and so on. Hence, self-transcendence is not a reduction but
an expansion, because we lose the blinkers and filters of our
biological created self-constructs that hide our true non-dual
self-transcendent nature (Hood, 2012). However, for some
unprepared individuals, the notion of emptiness and dissolution
of a self can be intimidating and difficult to grasp or accept.
Western psychotherapists, philosophers and neuroscientists
are also becoming increasingly interested in these different
states of non-dual experience and the nature and emptiness of
consciousness in relationship to quantum mechanics (Ornstein
& Ornstein, 2021; Siegel, 2016, 2023; Stellar etal., 2017;
Van Gordon etal., 2017, 2021; Velmans etal., 2021; Wilber,
2007). Until recently, it has been difficult to scientifically test
some of the predictions of quantum mechanics, but in 2022
three physicists won the Nobel Prize for doing exactly that
(Davis, 2022). In the quantum world, matter emerges out of
energy and as such can behave in ways that are unpredictable,
such as photons are affected by being consciously observed.
As Niels Bohr, one of the originators of quantum mechanics,
famously noted, “if we are not shocked by the implications
of quantum mechanics we have not understood it”. Many
scientists are also exploring how quantum mechanics has
implications for our understanding of consciousness, and
how what we take as reality, may well be illusionary (Khan,
2021; Velmans etal., 2021).
On the surface, it might be difficult to reconcile how
a state of non-duality, which transcends notions of “self”
and “other”, can propel compassionate action. However,
enlightened states of “acceptance of the is-ness of things”
do not reduce motivation to create positive change, or just
a laissez-faire attitude towards life. Indeed, this awareness
invigorates the motivations for wanting all other beings to
be enlightened and thereby free of suffering and the causes
of suffering (Dalai Lama, 1995). However, in this context,
the term “motivation” needs to be interpreted correctly,
because in the non-dual state, compassion is self-arising
due to it being a fundamental property of the enlightened
mind. Just as water does not try to be wet, the enlightened
mind does not need a goal of being compassionate in order
to relieve others’ suffering. In a sense, in the enlightened
state, compassion is spontaneous, and because there is no
separation between self and other, it is particularly potent
and direct — what needs to be done is done, at the right time
and in the right way (Shonin etal., 2014).
Hence, as an enlightened being, the Buddha dedicated his
whole life to teaching the benefits of meditation to enable
the mind to experience non-duality (insight) and how to
harness the mind for compassion. Helping others takes
one’s attention away from the self and stimulates a sense
of interconnectedness, which helps to create the conditions
for experiencing enlightenment. In addition, Buddhist
history has many examples of enlightened beings known
as bodhisattvas entering into the human realm purely in an
effort to bring enlightenment, as in the story of Chenrezig
(Gilbert & Choden., 2013).
Dangers
The editors invited consideration of potential dangers from
efforts at Buddhist and secular integration, such as the com-
mon danger due tothe translation of words conveying concepts
across languages and cultures. For instance, in some languages,
the word “compassion” does not actually exist, or can be seen
as pity, which is a completely different notion. Philosophers
Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche had heated
debates about the value of compassion to underpin morality
because Nietzsche defined compassion as pity, whereas Scho-
penhauer took the Buddhist view (Cartwright, 1988).
The use of the word “love” is another problem area. The
experience of enlightened states, particularly with their
sense of complete interconnectedness, self-transcendence,
joyfulness and “infinite oneness”, is sometimes described as
one of overwhelming “love” (Yaden etal., 2017). However,
this is very different to our evolved feelings of love linked
to liking, desire and dopamine, of “I love you and you love
me”, or “I love pizzas”. In addition, the Buddhist concept
of love is “a wish” or “desire for”, that is “the wish for all
beings to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering”. In
English, this is more closely related to the words “altruism”
and “benevolence” rather than the word “love”. A doctor will
try to operate as best s/he can whether s/he likes the patient
or not. The medical motivation is not based on “love” but
on the desire to alleviate and prevent suffering. That motive
can stand separate to the motive to love and to want to be
loved or feel affection and warmth. The definition of love is
therefore crucial. Indeed, Anālayo (2015) and others have
noted that, although now installed in Western approaches,
the term loving-kindness can be problematic for the same
reason. He argues it is better to focus on the concept of
benevolent wish, where benevolence is the wish for one (and
others) to be free of suffering, of the causes of suffering, and
to experience the causes of happiness (Dalai Lama, 1995).
As a modern take, compassion therefore emerges as insight-
ful empathic benevolence, which seeks to help us with the
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2410 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
suffering we are all caught up in. This suffering is partly
the result of being a DNA-built, without our consent, short-
lived, wanting and fearing, vulnerable-to-sickness, conscious
and self-aware, socially textured being. We exist as sepa-
rate beings in the boundaries of our skin. However from the
contemplative point of view — we suffer this too because
we are ignorant of our true interconnected, non-biological,
non-dual consciousness nature. It is unclear whether some
secular approaches to compassion that have now proliferated
on the internet and promoting “love” understand the differ-
ent meaning and experience of love from self-transcendence.
Instead, some may be engaging what the Dalai Lama (2001)
calls sentimentality. The problem with this is that individu-
als then start to try to create feelings of love which can get in
the way of benevolent self-transcendence and psychotherapy
(Gilbert & Simos, 2022). Research also shows that kindness
tends to drop away for people we do not like, whereas this is
less the case for compassion and addressing suffering (Kirby
etal., 2022). Hence, benevolence and altruism are better
terms to focus what underpins compassion (Anālayo, 2015;
Ricard, 2015).
As noted, the concept of non-attachment is also tricky
because it does not actually mean detachment or disengage-
ment. It is a much more subtle relationship between self and
world. In Western psychology, attachment relates to the way
we link our sense of ourselves to what we own or what we
achieve in the world, and the way we seek to form a self-
identity which we will then defend, reasons why Leary (2004)
called this the curse of the self and Hood (2012) the self-illu-
sion. Also as noted above, attachment refers to the way we
fixate on these things and turn them into “absolute musts and
have to’s”. The dialectical conflict between identifying with
a sense of self and not comes from developmental studies of
how a sense of self emerges through childhood. Without a
sense of self, of what hurts and what brings pleasure, what
brings acceptance and what brings shame and rejection,
what values to aspire to and live by, biological life would
become almost impossible. There is therefore a balance to be
struck. Thus, non-attachment does not mean that one is not
fully engaged in relationships; that one cannot fully love and
grieve with the loss of love. It seems easy for westerners to
use the concept of nonattachment as another vehicle to emo-
tional avoidance — seeking a simple protection against the
pain of loss or failure. Indeed, one would argue that it is the
courage, wisdom and emotional maturity to be able to tolerate
(potential) grief that allows one to love fully.
Another area where non-attachment can be confusing
is in the nature of self-transcendence. In a sense, if one has
experienced states of non-duality, where one phenomenon
embodies all phenomena, then the concept of attachment
to any particular thing seems irrelevant. Indeed, it seems to
be the experience of being part of, and one with, all things
that corresponds to self-transcendence and the loosening of
ego-based attachmentsthat loosens self-attachment identity
(Siegel, 2023; Yaden etal., 2017). In other words, once indi-
viduals experience that their existence is implied in all things
(and vice versa), the striving of a self-identity becomes less
important and one seeks the joys and freedom of non-duality.
Non-duality transcends the notion of being “inter-con-
nected”, which seems to imply “duality” on account of one
thing being connected to another thing(s). Hence, Siegel
(2023) refers to being “intraconnected”. Beyond being a func-
tional label, it is impossible to assign an absolute separation
between one phenomenon and the next. For example, it is
incredibly difficult to locate the exact separation line where a
valley connects to a mountain, where a wave begins,and argu-
ably it ismore accurate to say that the two phenomena exist
inseparably and flow into one another. Thus, notions such as
interconnectedness can constitute useful didactic means for
beginning to think about non-duality and self-transcendence,
but can also incur limitations.
As we have noted, the concept of emptiness is fundamen-
tal in Buddhist thinking but again easy to misunderstand
(Anālayo, 2015).In English, emptiness can also mean “noth-
ingless” or “without anything”. The Buddhist meaning how-
ever is empty of individual existence. Everything is pattern
generation. For example, brains are patterns of electrochemical
activity that is constantly changing. The atoms of our brains
may have been part of a mountain or dinosaur. Every 7 years
our bodies have completely regenerated the atoms they are
using to make us. So today the fascination is to try to explore
how energy gives rise to matter gives rise to a form of “self”-
awareness which is also at the heart of self-transcendence.
Self-transcendence is not annihilation but “expansion into” or
a “dissolving of boundaries” (Austin, 2009; Ornstein & Orn-
stein, 2021; Siegel, 2016, 2023). The question remains there-
fore if self-transcendent and non-dual states, and the urges to
compassion that arise from them, are simply the products of
neurocircuits or are of a brain that has an expanded awareness
of the domains of consciousness (energy fields) beyond bio-
logical, yet may also depend on the biological. For example,
in order to experience colour, we need eyes and a brain, but
the source of the experience lies in light frequencies falling
on the eyes. Furthermore, human vision is sensitive to only
a very narrow bandwidth of energy, hence a narrow range of
experienced colours; eyes cannot create colour experience out
of nothing. While neuroscientists debate the circuits that seem
important for consciousness, physicists are debating the impli-
cations of quantum mechanics and consciousness. How these
sciences, including those from the contemplative traditions,
unfold and reveal new insights will have major implications for
how we see ourselves as a species and want to relate to each
other to create a more compassionate world.
As noted throughout this paper, western psychotherapy
has as its focus helping people organise their minds and
brains to address mental health problems and promote
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2411Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
1 3
well-being. Creating the conditions for non-dual experience
and insight is not (usually) its focus. However, experienced
meditators and psychotherapists have explored these varia-
tions in therapeutic goals and how one can inform the other
(Gill etal., 2015). What is agreed is a need for better preci-
sion in terms of what different practises are designed to do,
in what context and for whom. This is especially important
for compassion research and when we are trying to develop
practises not only to help individuals develop compassion
but also for helping groups and communities.
Conclusion
Despite the dangers and different ultimate aims, there are
multiple areas where scientistsand psychotherapists, and
practitioners from the contemplative traditions, are pool-
ing their wisdoms and research efforts. The Mind and Life
Institute was set up specifically to facilitate such research.
In the field of psychotherapy, there has been much written
on how to integrate Buddhist and contemplative concepts
with psychotherapeutic interventions such as cognitively
based compassion training (Mascaro etal., 2017), how the
cognitive and other therapies relate to contemplative and
mind training practise (e.g. Gilbert & Choden., 2013; Holt
& Austad, 2013; Tirch etal., 2016) and integrate mindful-
ness and compassion (Germer & Siegel, 2012). These are
likely expanding research areas whicharerecruiting multiple
methodologies for measuring different psychophysiological
systems. The degree to which altered states of consciousness
can be induced to stimulate compassion is one of the major
growth areas. This relates to one of the most important ques-
tions facing humanity: What is the nature of consciousness
and mind in the universe?
The evolutionary model of the nature of compassion
and its sub-skills arise from very different routes when
compared with concepts and experiences generated by
contemplative awareness and altered states of conscious-
ness. Figure4 presents this overview in more detail. On
the left-hand side of the figure is an outline of how biolog-
ical minds evolve and with various states of consciousness,
and then later self-consciousness and then conscious of
being conscious. Clearly, these states of consciousness are
radically changed by altering neurochemistry, such as in
various psychotropic substances like psychedelics, but also
more tragically, brain injury. The issues of “conscious-
ness of consciousness” and in particular “self-awareness
and knowingness” are dimensions of consciousness that
are not easily described but are extremely important for
understanding how we become sensitive to suffering and
want to do something about it. It is also clear that we are
capable of this type of consciousness and self-awareness
because of the way our brain has evolved. It is clear, too,
that if we change our neurochemistry, then we can change
our experiences of the nature and the content of conscious-
ness. The big debates concern whether this dimension of
our minds is purely dependent on evolved physiological
systems or not. Given that we now know animals have
forms of self-awareness, the question would be, can they
experience self-transcendence, or is that a dimension ofa
certain type of self-consciousness? In that view more,it is
not that our brain is experiencing consciousness but that
our brain is creating experiences within consciousness. In
other words, we are streaming experiences into conscious-
ness. The colour red does not exist in the light frequencies,
but the experience of redness in consciousness is created
by the brain.
Fig. 4 Comparison of evo-
lutionary and contemplative
approaches to the nature of
consciousness in mind © P.
Gilbert 2023
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2412 Mindfulness (2023) 14:2395–2416
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The right-hand side of Fig.4 reflects the latter view, that
consciousness is a property of the universe itself; it is the
ground of all being but is itself empty, without content, so
we are not experiencing consciousness, consciousness is
experiencing us as manifestations of energy patterns which
constitute it. Experiencing these self-transcendent domains of
consciousness yields such radical changes in experience that
the sense of a grasping individual self becomes irrelevant.
Compassion, then, can arise because in training the mind,
we train a range of psychophysiological systems that have
evolved with and support caring and compassion. CFT hones
in and develops ways of thinking, empathising and reflection
whereas the contemplative traditions seek to move away from
thinking and reflecting in order to settle the mind and enable
the experience of subtler levels of consciousness. Experiences
of transcendence and “oceanic love” then give rise to compas-
sion, and the wish for all beings to be free of suffering andits
causes, in a different way. It is unknown to what extent the
latter depends on the former, although as the studies of NDEs
suggest, perhaps like in quantum mechanics, all is not as it
seems (Woollacott & Shumway-Cook, 2020). What is exciting
is how individuals are coming together to share ideas on com-
passion using basic science including the emerging scientific
investigations on the nature of consciousness. One thing is for
sure that humanity needs to find a way to develop compassion
to and for all, if we are not to stumble into a future of increas-
ing competitive self-interest, tribal and personal conflict with
the escalating damage and suffering that it will cause.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
bution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adapta-
tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes
were made. The images or other third party material in this article are
included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in
the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will
need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a
copy of this licence, visit http:// creat iveco mmons. org/ licen ses/ by/4. 0/.
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