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How Compassion Works: A Step-by-Step Guide to Cultivating Well-Being, Love, and Wisdom
Uncover your innate capacity for love, presence, and wisdom with compassion training adapted from Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary psychology.
Everything we care about—our mental and physical well-being, our relationships, our spiritual life, our ability to be useful to others—depends on our ability to access love and compassion within ourselves first. This clear, step-by-step guide offers a way to cultivate this power through an evidence-based meditation method called Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT).
With practices drawn from Tibetan traditions, attachment theory, and cognitive science, How Compassion Works uses a progressive series of meditations to gradually build our capacity for mindfulness and presence—and to help us avoid empathic distress, compassion fatigue, or burnout. Organized into three categories—receptive mode, deepening mode, and inclusive mode—these practices help us cultivate unconditional care and discernment from within.
With a flexible framework that allows practitioners to integrate their own religious or spiritual beliefs, this book offers practices suitable for people of all faiths and those seeking a purely secular path.
Everything we care about—our mental and physical well-being, our relationships, our spiritual life, our ability to be useful to others—depends on our ability to access love and compassion within ourselves first. This clear, step-by-step guide offers a way to cultivate this power through an evidence-based meditation method called Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT).
With practices drawn from Tibetan traditions, attachment theory, and cognitive science, How Compassion Works uses a progressive series of meditations to gradually build our capacity for mindfulness and presence—and to help us avoid empathic distress, compassion fatigue, or burnout. Organized into three categories—receptive mode, deepening mode, and inclusive mode—these practices help us cultivate unconditional care and discernment from within.
With a flexible framework that allows practitioners to integrate their own religious or spiritual beliefs, this book offers practices suitable for people of all faiths and those seeking a purely secular path.
288 pages, Paperback
Published June 24, 2025
26 people are currently reading
2210 people want to read
About the author
John Makransky
6 books15 followersJohn Makransky is an author, spiritual teacher, and academic, combining a career as a professor of Buddhism and Comparative Theology at Boston College with his role as a lama in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism.
He has pioneered new ways of making Tibetan meditations of compassion and wisdom accessible to people of all backgrounds and faiths, while also helping experienced Buddhists revitalize their spiritual lives.
John's recent book, Awakening Through Love , includes a guided meditation in each chapter, powerful Tibetan techniques to commune with sources of inspiration and blessing that Makransky has adapted into a practicable form for Westerners. It also describes how to actualize those qualities in every aspect of our lives, with particular focus on family and work relationships, service, and social action.
John has studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism since 1978 under the guidance of revered teachers. He is a guiding teacher with Lama Surya Das of Dzogchen Center. He is also senior faculty advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoches Center for Buddhist Studies in Kathmandu University, Nepal where he regularly lectures.
He lives outside Boston with his wife, two sons, and dog."
He has pioneered new ways of making Tibetan meditations of compassion and wisdom accessible to people of all backgrounds and faiths, while also helping experienced Buddhists revitalize their spiritual lives.
John's recent book, Awakening Through Love , includes a guided meditation in each chapter, powerful Tibetan techniques to commune with sources of inspiration and blessing that Makransky has adapted into a practicable form for Westerners. It also describes how to actualize those qualities in every aspect of our lives, with particular focus on family and work relationships, service, and social action.
John has studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism since 1978 under the guidance of revered teachers. He is a guiding teacher with Lama Surya Das of Dzogchen Center. He is also senior faculty advisor for Chokyi Nyima Rinpoches Center for Buddhist Studies in Kathmandu University, Nepal where he regularly lectures.
He lives outside Boston with his wife, two sons, and dog."
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 17, 2025
Coming from a background in applied psychology and a 40-year career in human services, I have always been interested in ways humankind can become more motivated by compassion and less motivated by fear. I think I found the book! Most helpful are the structured meditations, which are very accessible and which allow the reader to experience firsthand HOW compassion works.
June 21, 2025
Book Review: How Compassion Works: A Step-by-Step Guide to Cultivating Well-Being, Love, and Wisdom by John Makransky & Paul Condon
Rating: 4.25/5
Reviewer’s Lens & Initial Reactions
As a female sociologist and public health professional, I approached this book with curiosity about how its Buddhist-derived compassion training (Sustainable Compassion Training/SCT) might intersect with structural inequities and collective well-being. While the text primarily targets spiritual seekers and mindfulness practitioners, its neuroscientific and psychological grounding offered surprising relevance to my fields—particularly in addressing burnout among caregivers and marginalized communities. The authors’ blend of contemplative wisdom with clinical research (e.g., on empathy fatigue) resonated deeply, evoking both hope and frustration: hope for its transformative potential, frustration at its limited critique of systemic barriers to compassion.
Strengths & Emotional Impact
-Practical Framework: The step-by-step exercises (like innate compassion meditation) felt accessible yet profound. As someone who studies community health interventions, I appreciated their emphasis on embodied compassion—a counterpoint to abstract idealism.
-Interdisciplinary Rigor: Citations of neuroscience and psychology lent credibility, though I wished for more sociological engagement (e.g., how power dynamics shape who receives compassion in society).
-Emotional Resonance: The chapters based on compassion as natural capacity stirred a visceral reaction—both uplifting (challenging cynicism about human nature) and bittersweet (given how often systemic oppression suppresses this capacity in marginalized groups).
Constructive Criticism
-Structural Blind Spots: While SCT excels at individual/relational transformation, it sidesteps how institutions (e.g., healthcare, criminal justice) actively thwart compassion. A public health lens would demand analysis of policy-level levers.
-Cultural Homogeneity: The Buddhist foundations, though thoughtfully adapted, risk universalizing without adequate discussion of cultural appropriation or how marginalized communities might reinterpret these practices.
-Measurable Outcomes: For academic audiences, inclusion of more empirical data on SCT’s long-term social impact (beyond dyadic interactions) would strengthen its applicability to community health.
Why This Book Matters
How Compassion Works bridges contemplative tradition and modern science with rare clarity, offering tools to replenish the compassion reservoir in crisis-weary societies. Its omission of systemic critique limits its radical potential, but doesn’t negate its value as a guide for personal and professional renewal.
Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing a complimentary review copy. This book is a compelling, if incomplete, resource for anyone exploring compassion as both inner practice and social force.
Pair With: Compassion at Work (organizational studies) or The Fearless Heart by Pema Chödrön (critical compassion frameworks). A 4.25/5 for its innovative approach, docked slightly for lack of structural analysis.
Rating: 4.25/5
Reviewer’s Lens & Initial Reactions
As a female sociologist and public health professional, I approached this book with curiosity about how its Buddhist-derived compassion training (Sustainable Compassion Training/SCT) might intersect with structural inequities and collective well-being. While the text primarily targets spiritual seekers and mindfulness practitioners, its neuroscientific and psychological grounding offered surprising relevance to my fields—particularly in addressing burnout among caregivers and marginalized communities. The authors’ blend of contemplative wisdom with clinical research (e.g., on empathy fatigue) resonated deeply, evoking both hope and frustration: hope for its transformative potential, frustration at its limited critique of systemic barriers to compassion.
Strengths & Emotional Impact
-Practical Framework: The step-by-step exercises (like innate compassion meditation) felt accessible yet profound. As someone who studies community health interventions, I appreciated their emphasis on embodied compassion—a counterpoint to abstract idealism.
-Interdisciplinary Rigor: Citations of neuroscience and psychology lent credibility, though I wished for more sociological engagement (e.g., how power dynamics shape who receives compassion in society).
-Emotional Resonance: The chapters based on compassion as natural capacity stirred a visceral reaction—both uplifting (challenging cynicism about human nature) and bittersweet (given how often systemic oppression suppresses this capacity in marginalized groups).
Constructive Criticism
-Structural Blind Spots: While SCT excels at individual/relational transformation, it sidesteps how institutions (e.g., healthcare, criminal justice) actively thwart compassion. A public health lens would demand analysis of policy-level levers.
-Cultural Homogeneity: The Buddhist foundations, though thoughtfully adapted, risk universalizing without adequate discussion of cultural appropriation or how marginalized communities might reinterpret these practices.
-Measurable Outcomes: For academic audiences, inclusion of more empirical data on SCT’s long-term social impact (beyond dyadic interactions) would strengthen its applicability to community health.
Why This Book Matters
How Compassion Works bridges contemplative tradition and modern science with rare clarity, offering tools to replenish the compassion reservoir in crisis-weary societies. Its omission of systemic critique limits its radical potential, but doesn’t negate its value as a guide for personal and professional renewal.
Thank you to the publisher and Edelweiss for providing a complimentary review copy. This book is a compelling, if incomplete, resource for anyone exploring compassion as both inner practice and social force.
Pair With: Compassion at Work (organizational studies) or The Fearless Heart by Pema Chödrön (critical compassion frameworks). A 4.25/5 for its innovative approach, docked slightly for lack of structural analysis.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews