Post-modern science is on board with compassion because it’s on board with the principle of interdependence — the basis of compassion, as Thomas Merton teaches. Science also underscores the value of cooperation and of calming the reptilian brain (through meditation, for instance).

You’ll explore these topics in depth this week, as well as poet Adrienne Rich’s powerful poem on compassion and the contribution of Julian of Norwich and Meister Eckhart’s sermon on “Compassion as an Ocean.”

This week, you’ll:

• Contemplate Meister Eckhart’s definition of compassion: “Whatever happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to me”
• Be inspired by how today’s science on interdependence is creating the foundation for a compassion explosion that aligns with the mystical traditions of the world and other scientific studies as well
• Explore how feminist poet Adrienne Rich’s poem on compassion challenges us
• Learn how Julian of Norwich — mystic and the first woman writer in the English language — relates motherhood to compassion
• Discover how one of Meister Eckhart’s sermons intertwines compassion, motherhood, and the development of our souls — and the idea that “no one has a soul until they have compassion”

Compassion is foundational to both Judaism and Christianity. In the Hebrew Bible, we learn from the prophet Isaiah about the “works of mercy.”

Compassion is central in the work of Rabbi Heschel as well — and in the Jewish tradition, compassion constitutes the “secret” name of God.

Building on this teaching, the Christian Bible also emphasizes compassion, a root of Jesus’ sermon on the mount and many of his parables (such as Matthew 25).

Contemplate all of this and more this week.

In this session, you’ll:

• Explore compassion at the heart of Judaism — such as in the book of Isaiah — and constitutes “the secret name for God”
• Discover how Jesus let that secret out of the bag in Luke 6:36 when he said, “Be you compassionate as your Creator in heaven is compassionate”
• Delve into the Christian teachings, including Luke 6:36, Matthew 25 — which reveal compassion as a foundational principle of Christianity
• Expand your view of compassion through Eckhart’s profound treatise on Luke 6:36 — which connects justice and compassion
• Consider what it means to combine contemplation and compassionate action through Eckhart’s idea,“Compassion is where peace and justice kiss”

The Divine Feminine and compassion are closely intertwined. So too is the apophatic divinity, the “God without a name who will never be given a name” (Eckhart).

In Buddhism, we are taught that all beings suffer — developing compassion is developing an acknowledgement of that. In Christianity, the symbol of the cross is a parallel teaching of an archetype of suffering.

You’ll explore all of these ideas this week, as well as Meister Eckhart’s additional understanding of compassion: “What happens to another, whether it be a joy or a sorrow, happens to me.”

This week, you’ll discover:

• What it means to be a “wounded healer” — and the role of suffering in learning compassion (considering the life and work of Frederick Douglass)
• Why Thomas Aquinas says, “Compassion is the fire that Jesus came to set on the Earth,” and “Compassion is the imitation of God”
• The meaning of Buddhism’s teaching that all beings suffer — and all things are impermanent
• How the meaning of the archetype of the cross is an archetype of universal suffering, as found in Christianity

Creativity is all-important today as a response to climate change. To survive, our species must create new ways to live on the Earth and find energy sources that take us beyond fossil fuels.

You’ll discover why creativity has a major role to play in saving the Earth and other species at this time this week.

Navajo painter David Paladin and potter M.C. Richards (the role of art and birthing) both talk about the central role creativity plays in the very essence of our humanity and in our relations to other creatures.

In this session, you’ll:

• Discover the role moral imagination plays in self-compassion
• Learn how moral imagination can guide us on how to implement compassion toward Mother Earth as she is beset by climate change
• Explore how to apply Eckhart’s sermon on the mystical side of compassion
• Delve deeply into Eckhart’s idea that we birth the Christ (or Buddha and Image of God) — and in this way, are “Mothers of God”
• Learn how poet Denise Levertov equates evil with a failure in imagination — and how M.C. Richards sees creativity as inherent to nurturing moral imagination in the idea that “we must get out of its way…”
• Contemplate Navajo painter David Paladin’s teaching that all people are artists — and how art and compassion go together

One way to approach a spiritual concept is to go to its opposite first. This week, explore some opposites of compassion — including fascism, injustice, and denial.

We practice compassion not only on a one-to-one basis, but also in structuring our work and professions so that compassion finds a space to operate in our daily lives.

You’ll also contemplate Eckhart’s instructions on what constitutes healthy inner work and outer work — such as healthy politics and making justice central to our spirituality.

In this session:

• Explore self-hatred from psychologist Erich Fromm’s point of view: the psychological roots of fascism — and how to mend it
• Learn how fascism banishes self-love and love of others
• Ponder how to align with Eckhart’s teaching, “Compassion begins at home with one’s own body and one’s own soul”
• Discover Eckhart’s ideas on the role of justice and compassion in work and economics

Compassion is universally taught in world religions — Matthew will share what many of them teach.

You’ll also contemplate what would happen if all the world’s religions were to get together to focus on compassion and justice for Mother Earth — and among all peoples and all religions…

And, how you can apply those principles and values to work, economics, and politics.

In this session, you’ll explore:

• How compassion is universally taught in world religions
• What Buddhism teaches about compassion — from the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, and others
• What Islam teaches about compassion both in the Quran and among Rumi, Hafiz, and other mystics
• What Hinduism teaches about compassion
• What African religion teaches about Maat and justice and compassion — and what African American religion, including Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr., teach about compassion
• How Native Americans teach compassion through the idea of “all our relations”

Compassion answers the question: “What is the human being at its best?” This week, Matthew shares why compassion is divinity present and at work in humans — to be fully human is to be compassionate.

You’ll revisit what compassion is not: sentimental, dualistic, pity, or action/reaction… but rather, action from being — from a deep place.

Compassion is what Pere Chenu calls our “noblest selves,” his very definition of spirituality is our “true nobility.” You’ll explore Meister Eckhart’s discourse on our nobility — through the “kingdom of God” — and how compassion then is the bringing of the kingdom of God into our world.

This week, you’ll:

• Explore how compassion answers the question: “What is the human being at its best?”
• Learn what compassion is not — sentimental, dualistic, pity, or action/reaction
• Expand your understanding of compassion as divinity present and at work in humans
• Learn how compassion is the bringing of the “kingdom of God” — where contemplation and sacred activism unite
• Discover the efforts afoot around the world to design education that teaches compassion

A Spirituality Named Compassion
Video Teaching With Matthew Fox

Matthew discusses his book A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice in this 90-minute lecture and Q&A with host Janet Doyle. Among Matthew’s hot topics of discussion is St. Thomas Aquinas’ thought that “Compassion is the fire that Jesus came to set on the Earth.” This lecture was recorded at Weber Retreat Center at Siena Heights University by the Adrian Dominican Sisters.

Register by May 2 to claim this bonus before it expires.

This 4-page PDF excerpt from Matthew Fox’s book, Passion for Creation: The Earth-Honoring Spirituality of Meister Eckhart, offers a rich immersion into Meister Eckhart’s Sermon 31, with partial commentary from Matthew. In this sermon, Eckhart examines the mystical side to compassion, the side of consciousness itself, and he declares that to have a soul is to have compassion. This thought-provoking piece is sure to bring clarity and courage to your daily life.

This compelling PDF excerpt from Matthew’s book, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice, offers an expanded perspective of what compassion is — and is not. Feel your consciousness and heart deepen to a greater understanding with this powerful piece.