Twelve Step Program
Back in October 2009, I kicked off a planned year of intensive metta (lovingkindness) meditation practice ( start, finish). Metta is one of the four Brahmaviharas, also known as the Divine Abodes or the Immeasurables. These are four key virtues that are absolutely central to Buddhism.
About halfway through that year of practice, two things happened. The first was that I decided that upon the conclusion of my year of metta, I would then proceed to the next Brahmavihara, devoting another year of practice to karuna, or compassion.
The second thing that happened was that I learned of a document called the Charter For Compassion. Given that I was already planning to devote a year to cultivating compassion, that title immediately got my attention.
The charter was initiated by a writer in comparative religion named Karen Armstrong. She had won the TED Prize, which is given to someone who has a particular vision of how the world might be changed for the better. Armstrong’s goal was to craft a document based around compassion and the Golden Rule which all major religions could support, and use that universal agreement as a springboard for the growth of compassion worldwide.
Six months later, shortly after I began my karuna practice, I learned that Karen Armstrong was about to release a new book, entitled “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life”. She also planned to stop in Boston on her book tour, so of course I reserved a ticket.
This post is mostly my review of that book, plus my reaction to her local appearance.
The title is an intentional reference to the “Twelve Step” program of Alcoholics Anonymous. While I don’t consider that a particularly auspicious linkage to make, it makes some sense. Armstrong asserts that the root of the problem is our preoccupation with our own ego, something that provides short-term gratification but is a long-term poison, and that letting go of our small selves is akin to recovery from an addiction.
Unfortunately, where I think the parallel fails is that the development of compassion doesn’t naturally lend itself to that specific number of steps. So the steps, which should be logical and flow from one to another, come across a bit muddled and not very clear.
One thing I was particularly interested in was her methodology for cultivating compassion. This is, after all, her how-to book, and I thought it would be fascinating to compare her approach to the Buddhist techniques I was already practicing in my metta and karuna practices.
Well, it turns out that the overwhelming majority of her methodology is Brahmavihara practice! The essence of the book is simply a description of these popular Buddhist techniques, with the few expressly Buddhist bits secularized. There was surprisingly little material drawn from other religions, other than historical corroboration. On one hand, that made me feel a bit of pride about the Buddhist approach, but it also disappointed me, in that it offered me few new insights.
Still, if it helps other folks cultivate compassion and introduces them to Brahmavihara practice, I’m all for it! Unfortunately, this is where the book seems to fall down.
My impression is that the book was written for an audience of highly self-motivated intellectuals. It reminds me of a yoga book that shows pictures of the asana poses, but doesn’t describe them or go into any detail about how to achieve them. For example, the entire chapter on mindfulness-Step 5-is only seven paragraphs long! In no way is that sufficient for a layman to master a technique that meditators spend years developing.
Armstrong’s descriptions of the steps are not very clear, and are described en passant. The call to action isn’t clear, and the more expansive background material that’s provided is mostly of historical interest rather than practical instructions. So it feels like the Cliff Notes version of a book that should offer much more, and more practical, instruction.
What would such a book look like? Imagine if this book were put out by Wiley Publishing, and entitled “Compassion For Dummies”. It would take the reader through clear, basic, step-by step instructions. It would be succinct, but provide all the information needed for an uneducated person to understand what to do at every step of the way. In short, it would read much more like a how-to guide than an historical treatise meant to prove that compassion is a part of all the world’s religions.
On one hand, I couldn’t be more supportive of any effort to promote compassion in our modern society. But on the other hand, in order to successfully bring about substantive change, this needs to be a very practically-focused how-to book-one that speaks equally to lawyers, nurses, florists, and cabbies-and I think even well-intentioned people will find it doesn’t support and guide them as much as they need.
One final bit of surreal synchronicity before I close the book.
The twelfth and final step in Armstrong’s book is “Step 12: Love Your Enemies”. Two pages before the end of that chapter, Armstrong tells the story of Aeschylus’s drama “The Persians”. The play, which was staged only eight years after the Greeks defeated the Persians, surprisingly treats the Persian leaders as tragic, sympathetic figures. Armstrong uses this story to show the Greeks’ attribute of honoring their enemies. The central Persian characters are King Darius, Queen Atossa, and their son Xerxes.
In my previous blog post, I reviewed a very different book, one which depicts the history of cancer. Forty pages into the book, the author describes the world’s second earliest mention of cancer: the description of a Persian noblewoman who, after hiding due to the perceived stigma of a bleeding lump on her breast, had a Greek slave cut her breast off. The noblewoman is Atossa, years earlier. She humored the slave who had excised her tumor thus: although the King Darius was planning a westward campaign, Atossa convinced him to turn east, against Greece, so that the Greek slave might return to his homeland. This is what subsequently precipitates the Persian defeat related in Aeschylus’ play, that is cited by Armstrong. How bizarre that both these books-one on cancer and another on compassion, two of the larger themes in my life at the moment-would mention the same obscure Persian rulers!
Turning this review back to the positive, one thing I can say is that Armstrong is much more engaging and persuasive as a speaker than she is as a writer. Her talk was interesting, confident, and pointed. It also featured a clear call to action: her response to critics who said that the focus on compassion was “preaching to the choir” was that she “doesn’t mind preaching to the choir because the choir aren’t singing”, implying that although most people give lip service to the Golden Rule, they do not personify it in their daily lives. It was a very enjoyable talk, and quite inspiring.
I was accompanied by my dhamma friend Kaela, who also seemed to enjoy the talk. It was held at a synogogue in Brookline: the first time I’d been in a synagogue in many, many years. To my utter frustration, the first three topics that were brought up in the Q&A period were, in order: circumcision, Hitler, and the Holocaust. While I’m sure these are sensitive issues in the Jewish community, that degree of preoccupation reinforces stereotypes of Jews which I consider unfortunate.
If you are interested in the topic of compassion, I’d recommend taking a look at Armstrong’s Charter For Compassion. Feel free to read her “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life”, although I suspect it won’t be of immense practical use. Instead, I’d suggest looking into the original Brahmavihara practices, and one of the best books I can recommend for laypeople in that regard is Sharon Salzberg’s “Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness”.