3 Habits to Develop Compassion by Chade-Meng Tan from “Search Inside Yourself”

3 Habits to Develop Compassion by Chade-Meng Tan from “Search Inside Yourself”   

The practice of compassion is about going from self to others. In a way, compassion is about going from “I” to “We”. – Chade-Meng Tan

Chade-Meng Tan (or Meng), the “Jolly Good Fellow of Google”, is an advocate of mindfulness to develop kindness and compassion so as to achieve success and happiness in life.

Last year in Oct 2015, Meng had decided to retire from Google in order to focus on pursuing his dreams of achieving World Peace through practicing and advocating mindfulness meditation.

Recently, he has just published a new book “Joy on Demand” which is available in the Amazon for purchase. Do support Chade-Meng by purchasing a copy!

In his first book, Search Inside Yourself, he has reiterated the importance of kindness and compassion in connecting with people, developing trust with others, dealing with distress, as well as in the cultivation of empathy and patience.

Meng shares his insights that the virtue of compassion can be cultivated by connecting our love, compassion, altruism, and inner joy that have always been within us. Here are the 3 mental habits to develop compassion as extracted and adapted in Search Inside Yourself:

Habit #1: Seeing Goodness in Self and Others

The first habit strengthens the affective and cognitive components of compassion.

When you instinctively and habitually perceive goodness in everyone, you instinctively want to understand and feel for them.

Even in difficult situations, instead of simply dismissing the other person as a jerk and walking away, you want to understand that person because there is at least a hint of goodness in him that you can see.

If you do this a lot, you become on whom people trust because you understand and care.

Habit #2: Giving Goodness to All

The second habit strengthens the motivational component of compassion.

When you instinctively and habitually want to deliver goodness to the world, pretty soon, you become the person who always wants to help others.

Eventually, you become on whom people respect, sometimes even admire, because they feel your heart is in the right place.

Habits #3: Confidence in the Transformative Power of Self

The last habit strengthens self-confidence.

When you become comfortable with the idea that your heart can multiply goodness by a factor of ten, your emotional brain soon becomes comfortable with the idea that “Yes, I can benefit people.”

Eventually, you may become one who inspires. And then maybe you will become a Level 5 leader.

Tiny Meditation to Multiply Goodness: 

Let us connect with the goodness within everybody in the world. Everybody in the world possesses at least a hint of goodness. If you wish, you may visualize their goodness radiating out of their bodies as a faint white light. When you breathe in, breathe all their goodness into your heart. – Chade-Meng Tan

Books by Chade-Meng Tan: