How Meditation Helps Cultivate Empathy

Meditation equips us with the skills to actively witness our thoughts and emotions as they arise. As we become more emotionally aware of ourselves and our habitual reactions, we are better placed to respond to similar emotions and motivations in others.

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Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person, as if they were our own. Simply said, it means to “put yourself in someone else's shoes,” or “to see the world through someone else's eyes”. It is a trait that can help us in developing genuine understanding, fostering a sense of trust and creating more harmonious relationships in our life.

Yet for all its benefits, empathy often goes out of the window just when we need it most. Why is this? Despite enjoying the best connectivity humans have ever had, more than ever we are increasingly isolated, anonymous to each other if you will. Most of us meet irregularly, often in online spaces with a cursory exchange of messages or voice notes. This prevents us from truly connecting with others and appreciating their perspective and feelings.

This is where Meditation comes in; it can serve as a powerful tool to nurture feelings of empathy.

Meditation equips us with the skills to actively witness our thoughts and emotions as they arise. As we become more emotionally aware of ourselves and our habitual reactions, we are better placed to respond to similar emotions and motivations in others.

During practice, we are repeatedly urged to observe our thoughts and emotions without any judgement. Training our mind this way equips us with the ability to approach an issue or a discussion without an inherent bias. This freedom from judgement and critical appraisal, affords us with a unique opportunity to see things from another person’s perspective. In turn we are able to truly connect with others and commiserate with them in their trials and tribulations.

Owing to our busy lives, it is very common for us to feel bogged down and anxious by the many demands and obligations placed on our time. Stress can leave us on edge and hamper our ability to see things clearly. Meditation has been proven to trigger a “relaxation response” from our parasympathetic nervous system, which counterbalances the effects of stress. When we are feeling calm, balanced and centred, we can be more patient and tolerant of others and respond to their needs with sensitivity.

A follow-on thought to this can be, is there a specific type of meditation that can help us cultivate empathy?

Although all forms of meditation are good, a couple of practices in particular stand out as offering a more direct route. Namely, metta (the Buddhist practice of loving-kindness meditation) and contemplative practices.

In metta, we are first taught to be loving and kind to ourselves. There is a very good reason for this - we are often our own greatest critic. Metta helps us overcome this trait by encouraging a quality of self-acceptance. In turn, the ability to treat ourselves kindly, nurtures within us the generosity and goodwill to extend this courtesy to others.

When it comes to contemplative practices, these tend not to be very popular as usually most people find topics such as, “who am I”, “what is my purpose” quite esoteric. Instead one can meditate on people who are less fortunate in life or those who have a difficult life, be it due to poverty or ill health. It doesn’t even have to be a specific person; you can simply reflect on these themes in the abstract to allow yourself the opportunity to grow in compassion.

These days many scientific research papers that show a positive correlation between meditation and empathy. The research conducted by psychologists Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson is fascinating in this regard. They studied several long term meditators which included 21 Buddhist monks at the zenith of this inner art. They presented their research findings in a book they co-authored, “The Science of Meditation.” Using functional MRI, they found that activity in the brain’s circuitry for empathy rose by a level of 700 to 800 times while these monks were practicing metta, compared with levels at rest. Their research also included beginners and other long term meditators, who were not monks. Their findings with these individuals were astonishing too. Those who engaged in the practice of metta for an overall time of as little as 8 hours, became less focused on themselves, exhibited a reduction in selfish behavioural patterns and were more compassionate as individuals.

Speaking from personal experience, I am a practitioner of metta. When I first incorporated it in my daily practice, I felt like an imposter. Only on rare days could I really connect to this feeling of amity and concord. More often than not, it would feel like a tick box exercise. Given time however, I have certainly been able to vouch for its efficacy. Small things that would ordinarily create a lot of angst within me, for example people cutting in front of me in traffic, I can now usually let go of very easily.

You see, viewing the world through the eyes of another has an unintended consequence. Surely the experiences of those around you can be improved by your more empathetic approach, however it is the enhanced feelings of peace and ease within yourself that are most noticeable. Once you have experienced this through meditative practice, it is something you will instinctively wish to commit to every time you sit on the cushion.