Compassion. Bridging Practice and Science

by Tania Singer (Editor), Matthias Bolz (Editor)

Dear readers, listeners, and viewers,
 
As you probably noticed already just by scrolling through this book, it is unlike most other books you have come across. We offer you a multi-media, open-source book produced and sponsored by the Max Planck Society to report on recent advances in compassion research and the application of compassion training in the world. Our hope is that, in doing so, we will offer society as a whole a useful tool to explore and learn about the theme of compassion. All of the scientists, contemplative practitioners, clinicians, and artists who have contributed either through written chapters, sound collages, art photography, or video work have freely given of their time and work in order to support the production and distribution of this multi-media book.
 
You may be wondering how this book came about.
 
It originated out of a workshop titled, “How to Train Compassion” which I organized as director of the Department of Social Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany, in 2011. I have been working for many years on the psychological and neuroscientific foundations of empathy and compassion. In 2008, I was awarded a”
“European Research Grant to support the investigation of the plasticity of the social brain, that is, the study of whether we can train socio-affective skills such as empathy and compassion and whether such mental training can alter our psychological and physical well-being, our social behavior, and our brain and body responses. In this context, my team and I began to develop secular mental training programs for the improvement of socio-affective skills such as empathy and compassion. Around the same time, many other research groups, mostly based in the United States, had also begun to design such programs for the cultivation of compassion. In 2011, I felt that the time was ripe for bringing people together who were working in the emerging field of compassion sciences. Together, we could exchange mutual experiences and ideas, discuss the struggles and difficulties of this new research field, and begin to envision the future of work with and in compassion training.
 
While organizing this workshop and exploring possible venues for it, I met the artist Olafur Eliasson at a conference and we engaged in a dialogue about the respective links between his artwork and our scientific interests in the field of[…]”

“studio, including Olafur’s remarkable art pieces, imbued the workshop participants with a sense of creativity. This, together with the interdisciplinary nature of the workshop attendees, fostered a creative, intimate space for an intense dialogue and lively exchange of ideas. As the goal of this workshop was to explore different ways to train compassion in secular settings and included making these trainings amenable for scientific investigations, a mix of people from a wide range of disciplines came together. For a list of program participants, please see program.
 
As the emphasis of the present workshop was on the practical aspects of compassion training rather than on the science behind it, we also included practical meditation sessions at the beginning and the end of each workshop day that were guided by our invited long-term meditation practitioners. In Olafurs’ wonderful studio space, light spheres hung around our heads creating a unique”

“surrounding that supported and strengthened our experiences during these mental training sessions.
 
We hope that the special atmosphere of this workshop will be transmitted to the reader via the many sound collages, videos and pictures included throughout the book. The sound recordings are based on Dirk Schwibbert’s recordings and are artistically collaged by Nathalie Singer. The video materials were shot and cut by Thomas Lopatka during the workshop.
 
At the end of these inspirational four days, all of the participants felt that they wanted to somehow offer the broader public some of the knowledge, wisdom, and insight that was exchanged and developed in that time. The sound collage, “Origin of the Book”, shares snippets of the end of the workshop session in which we brainstormed how we could offer our insights to a broader audience. We finally converged on the idea of a multi-media book as the format that seemed to best represent the multi-disciplinary nature of the conference. We hope that we have captured the creative spirit of the art studio and the intellectual energy of the convergence of scientists from the fields of basic psychology, neuroscience, and the clinical sciences with contemplative scholars and practitioners[…]”

ebook

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

Tania has been the Director of the Department of Social Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig since 2010. After receiving her Ph.D. in Psychology in 2000 at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, she became a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the same institution and later at the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience as well as at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in London. In 2006, she went to the University of Zurich to accept a position as Assistant Professor and later as Inaugural Chair of Social Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics and Co-Director of the Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research. Her research focus is on the foundations of human social behavior and the neuronal, developmental, and hormonal mechanisms underlying social cognition and emotions (e. g, empathy, compassion, and fairness).

Moreover, she investigates the psychological and neuroscientific effects of compassion and meditation training, and other mental training techniques. Prof. Singer has published her research work in many renowned journals (e.g., Science, Nature) and she is the Principal Investigator of the ReSource project. Her eBook Compassion: Bridging Practice and Science has just been published and can be downloaded free of charge. It summarizes the results of the science of compassion, but also describes training programs and practical experiences.

Tania Singer also examines how biology and psychology can inform economic decision-making in addressing global problems also by presenting her ideas of a caring economics at the World Economic Forum or the Global Economic Symposium. In her function of Board Member of the Mind and Life Institute (situated in Hadley, USA) she has hosted the Mind and Life Institute XX Conference "Altruism and Compassion in Economic Systems" with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in Zurich in 2010, and is currently also a Member in the Mind and Life Europe Committee.

- http://www.caring-economics.org/the-t...