TWELVE STEPS TO A COMPASSIONATE LIFE BY KAREN ARMSTRONG

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong

In this important and thought-provoking work, Karen Armstrong-one of the most original thinkers on the role of religion in the modern world-provides an impassioned and practical guide to helping us make the world a more compassionate place.

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The twelve steps Armstrong suggests begin with “Learn About Compassion,” and close with “Love Your Enemies.” In between, she takes up self-love, mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and “concern for everybody.” She shares concrete methods to help us cultivate and expand our capacity for compassion, and provides a reading list to encourage us to “hear one another’s narratives.” Armstrong teaches us that becoming a compassionate human being is a lifelong project and a journey filled with rewards.

    • 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 Eight Step: How Should 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



Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The prolific, well-informed, and passionate Armstrong (The Case for God) writes a somewhat different book this time out, stemming from her winning a prize in 2007 to promote an idea worth spreading. She always has a thesis in her books as she sweeps over the historical development of world religions, but this is a book with an agenda: you ought to be more compassionate, and here™ show. So, instead of being her usual somewhat academic teacher of religious history, she is more of a personal spiritual teacher, in the vein of the Dalai Lama. (This)...this slightly self-help-y book is deeply grounded in what Armstrong knows, and presents, well: the core teachings of all religions that can make us better, more compassionate humans. The former nun pulls ideas and references from religions Eastern and Western with aplomb and respect for all sources. This counter to the religion-is-homicidal-and-superstitious school of invective passing for thought is well-informed, welcome, and practical.

From Booklist

It takes courage for a religious historian and writer of Armstrong’s stature to step out from behind the scrim of scholarship and analysis to offer guidelines for a spiritual practice designed to make humanity a kinder and saner species. With the boon of the prestigious TED Prize, Armstrong (The Case for God, 2009) worked with “leading thinkers from a variety of major faiths” to compose a Charter for Compassion, which calls for the restoration of “compassion to the heart of religious and moral life” in a “dangerously polarized” world. Not content with merely stating lofty goals, however, Armstrong, a revered genius of elucidation and synthesis, now tells the full and profound story of altruism throughout human history. She turns to neuroscience and tracks the evolution of our brains and our natural capacity for empathy, and performs her signature mode of beautifully clarifying interpretation in a mind-expanding discussion of the history of the Golden Rule “Always treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself”, the essence of compassion and the kernel of every religious tradition. Exquisite and affecting explications of Buddhist, Confucian, Judaic, Christian, and Islamic commentary prepare the ground for meditation exercises meant to engender “open-mindedness” and the cultivation of compassion, making for the most sagacious and far-reaching 12-step program ever. - Donna Seaman

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