Twelve Steps To A Compassionate Life

by Karen Armstrong

Status

Available

Call number

177.7

Publication

Publisher Unknown

Description

Taking as her starting point the teachings of the great world religions, Karen Armstrong demonstrates in twelve practical steps how we can bring compassion to the forefront of our lives. Armstrong argues that compassion is inseparable from humanity, and by transcending the limitations of selfishness on a daily basis we will not only make a difference in the world but also lead happier, more fulfilled, lives.

User reviews

LibraryThing member William345
I liked this book a lot. In it religious historian Karen Armstrong suggests a series of simple and easily achieved mental exercises that can help one increase one's capacity for compassion. Armstrong offers justification for these exercises by way of copious examples from the history of religion.
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Some of the examples I was familiar with from her longer and more detailed The Great Transformation, about religious development during what is known as the Axial Age (900-200 BC), though the impetus here is on personal transformation. Basically, and I don't mean to be reductive for the book is filled with intellectual riches, but the two key lessons here are, first, The Golden Rule -- Do unto others as you would have them do unto you -- and second, the discipline of mindfulness, which I know from my Buddhist studies but which has parallels across the religious spectrum. The book seeks to be practical. Armstrong's great gift is for showing how religions agree on certain principals across cultures and broad spans of time. She then prescribes simple exercises for instilling these helpful habits into one's daily life. It's really rather wonderful. I think, however, that the exercises themselves might have been set out typographically because they tend to get buried in the text. But this is a quibble. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member CGSLibrary
Contents: The first step : learn about compassion -- The second step : look at your own world -- The third step : compassion for yourself -- The fourth step : empathy -- The fifth step : mindfulness -- The sixth step : action -- The seventh step : how little we know -- The eighth step : how should
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we speak to one another? -- The ninth step : concern for everybody -- The tenth step : knowledge -- The eleventh step : recognition -- The twelfth step : love your enemies -- A last word.
Abstract: Taking as her starting point the teachings of the great world religions, Karen Armstrong demonstrates in twelve practical steps how we can bring compassion to the forefront of our lives. Armstrong argues that compassion is inseparable from humanity, and by transcending the limitations of selfishness on a daily basis we will not only make a difference in the world but also lead happier, more fulfilled, lives.
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LibraryThing member readerweb
Twelve steps to create a better you and a better world. Karen Armstrong takes the Golden Rule and follows it through major religions to find a better way to live. She suggests that all follow the same Golden Rule and that by doing so make a better world. Karen Armstrong has written many books on
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religion and has received the TED prize.

Worth the time to read, time to think and time to put into action.
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LibraryThing member TGPistole
Compelling case for compassion, accompanied, as would be expected of this author, by historical basis among the major religions. Readers of other books by Armstrong may be surprised as the "easy" reading style of this volume.
LibraryThing member Laura400
An excellent and thought-provoking book arguing that the core value of all the great religions is, at base, the Golden Rule, and providing some some tips for applying it on a personal and even national level. It's not exactly a self-help book, but more of a philosophical book. Perhaps it's a
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self-help book for those who, like me, don't like self-help books. It's very learned and intelligent, and well-written. The last chapter, which tries to apply the principles of compassion to the international or political arenas, didn't really hang together to me, but that doesn't undermine the lessons of, and the motive behind, the book.
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LibraryThing member TraceyChick
An excellent, thought provoking and inspirational read. it has helped me tremendously on the path to my spiritual development.Cant wait to read mor of her books.One to read and reread.
LibraryThing member jorgearanda
I appreciate Armstrong's efforts, and I want them to succeed, but I felt that this was mostly Buddhism for those those too trapped in their own religion to research Buddhism confidently or earnestly.
LibraryThing member Sullywriter
Ideas for how to live a more compassionate life drawn from mythology, philosophy, poetry, classical literature, and the world's major religions.
LibraryThing member JudyCroome
A well-structured and systematic programme encouraging people of all faiths to practice conscious compassion in the same way we would learn any new skill. Armstrong’s belief that humanity has an innate capacity for goodness, which can override the baser instincts of the “crocodile brain” is
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reassuring. Her twelve steps provide a simple enough guide and, based on Socratic dialogue, ask questions that challenge the reader’s known perceptions.

Containing what seems like common sense to people who have already struggled with the concept of forgiveness and compassion this book will be a good place to start if one is just beginning the journey of enlightened (or compassionate) living.

Although she touches briefly on the need to apply the Golden Rule (to love our neighbour as we love ourselves) in families and neighbourhoods, the focus was more on the universal than the personal. Given Armstrong’s background as a strong advocate of interfaith dialogue, this is understandable, but I would have gained more if there’d been deeper discussion on the challenges of living a compassionate life in my ordinary day-to-day existence before I start worrying about healing breaches with people across the oceans. Yes, we live in a global village, but as Armstrong herself points out, compassion has to start at the very centre of our personal lives before it can spread to the outer reaches of the larger world we live in.

Still, any book that emphasises the need for love and compassion in our current world is a worthwhile read. I turned the last page feeling more hopeful for the souls of the human race than I have in a long time.
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LibraryThing member jepeters333
Believing the world could improve dramatically through kindness, Karen Armstrong urges listeners to develop a greater aptitude for compassion. Here, Armstrong offers a twelve-step guide that will show listeners how to merge their hearts with their minds.
LibraryThing member Fernhill
Armstrong knows a lot about many religions, and shows convincingly the common values of these. Conservatives of any of the religions probably wouldn't like the book.
LibraryThing member debnance
I liked this book, but I'd hoped to love it. Perhaps I didn't spend enough time with it...of course, I didn't do the prescribed exercises...does anyone really do them all? Lovely ideas here, but I think I've lived in macho-posturing Texas too long to have any real hope that compassion will take
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hold of our people. I will press on with the exercises; one must try.
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LibraryThing member erwinkennythomas
Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong is most pertinent for the 21st century. Armstrong uses the Golden Rule as the foundation of her discourse on what it means to live compassionately. She envisions twelve steps, but thought that such an approach to one’s life could take a life
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time. In the introductory remarks to the text readers are introduced to the major faith traditions and their concepts based on compassion.
Later Armstrong weaves these steps carefully by explaining what people ought to do to benefit from them. At each step readers are presented with a discussion about how to use each proposal. These compassionate goals are carefully calibrated, and based on the teachings of the major religions. Although every goal could stand alone, Armstrong though was able to integrate the goals of each proceeding affirmation with her explanations that followed.
This book as a true gift was able to relate each topic to the contemporary issues of the day. Armstrong recognized all of us have problems with which we are struggling. She explained further how important it was for us to transcend the thinking about ourselves and tribe. She wrote that people should reach out to the good and bad alike. We should treat others the way we would like to be treated. This dictum should also include our enemies who are suffering just like us.
Armstrong’s work was formulated like that of the Twelve Steps Program for Alcohol Anonymous. Her vision of compassion grew out of her TED talk in 2008 on compassion for which she won a $100,000 prize. This achievement led her to focus her thinking as a religious historian and interfaith advocate in the promulgation of the Golden Rule and compassionate living in the world.
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LibraryThing member jepeters333
One of the most original thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world—author of such acclaimed books as A History of God, Islam, and Buddha—now gives us an impassioned and practical book that can help us make the world a more compassionate place.

Karen Armstrong believes that while
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compassion is intrinsic in all human beings, each of us needs to work diligently to cultivate and expand our capacity for compassion. Here, in this straightforward, thoughtful, and thought-provoking book, she sets out a program that can lead us toward a more compassionate life.

The twelve steps Armstrong suggests begin with “Learn About Compassion” and close with “Love Your Enemies.” In between, she takes up “compassion for yourself,” mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and “concern for everybody.” She suggests concrete ways of enhancing our compassion and putting it into action in our everyday lives, and provides, as well, a reading list to encourage us to “hear one another’s narratives.” Throughout, Armstrong makes clear that a compassionate life is not a matter of only heart or mind but a deliberate and often life-altering commingling of the two.
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LibraryThing member kukulaj
This is a very practical book on probably the most important subject there is. Armstrong does a very good job on bridging the personal and the political. This is a book I will keep, to read multiple times.
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