Compaixão: Uns têm, outros não

Tópicos e excertos da palestra de Paul Ekman:

How can we explain that some people have resonance and others don’t?

Some people resonate to others, and others do not.

Many people respond to the suffering of other with disgust o ranger:
— Why can’t you take care of yourself?
— Why do you think it’s my burden to relieve your suffering?

And others respond with indifference:
— You’re suffering? Well, it’s not my problem! Just get out of the way!



Don’t you know that it’s religions that divide the world!? What unites the world is our emotions. We all have the same emotions.
Dalai Lama

He [the Dalai Lama] loves debate. He loves taking every side of any issue, to see where it will lead. He debates with passion, without rancor. I said to him in one of our meetings: — You know, when I talk with you I can completely relax because I don’t have to worry about being forceful. People usually interpret the force of my speech as a sign of anger, and it isn’t. It’s passion. And he [the Dalai Lama] said, “What’s the use of talking about something if you don’t care about it!”. And he argues with as much passion as I do, and we switch sides continuously, to see where it will go. What we’ll discover that we didn’t know before.


How emotions divide us. They don’t just unite us.

Darwin wrote only one book about human emotions (in 1871).

Emotion recognition and emotion resonance.

Recognizing that you are suffering doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to help you. In fact, a good torturer has to have good emotion recognition so that he can ajust just how much pain you can bear.

If you don’t resonate it’s not too likely you’re going to responde with compassion.

Emotional (identical) resonance: means that you feel, that you experience, in your body, the same feelings of the person you are observing. Physiologically. I feel exactly the same emotion you feel.

Emotional (reactive) resonance: I see your anger. I feel concerned that you’re so angry. What can I do to help you deal with your anger?
I’m not feeling your anger. I’m feeling an emotion about your anger. If I see you suffering I feel concern. It saddens me. I worry.


The origin of compassion, as to Charles Darwin:

“We are impelled to relieve a suffering of another in order that our own painful feelings may be, at the same time, relieved.”

If you don’t suffer so much, I don’t suffer so much [...] Now this sounds like the Budhist idea of interdependence.

“In the human mind, seeing someone bleeding and dying, makes you uncomfortable. That is the seed of compassion. We’re, thus, impelled to relieve the sufferings of another in order that our own painful feelings may be, at the same time, relieved”
Dalai Lama


Types of compassion:
– Familial compassion
– Global or Stranger compassion
– Sentiente compassion
– Heroic compassion

Anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, enjoyment and contempt own their own unique signal, not compassion.

According to the Dalai Lama, your perception is more vivid in compassion.

Emotions can be out of control. Compassion isn’t out of control. Emotions are momentary. Compassion isn’t a momentary state.


Why does compassion occur without training, in some people?
Is it genetic?
Is it a previous encarnation [as buddhists believe] — you work your way towards this through your several lives?

What can we do to cultivate these forms of compassion?