Compassionate Action in the World

Course Overview

Compassion and compassionate action in education can be informed by a framework that points to a new and fresh understanding of the source of distress in oneself, one’s students and one’s colleagues. The framework is known as the eight worldly conditions and it posits a sequence of four opposite conditions that are ever changing and impersonal. These four opposites are: pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, and fame and disrepute. Understanding distress from the perspective of this framework can help educators to recognize and to shape compassionate action as the most caring and useful response to distress. Through readings and presentations, this course presents the eight worldly conditions and three mindfulness-compassion practices that can help educators to directly connect with their own experience and to wise, compassionate action in the midst of their classrooms and educational contexts.

Course Materials: Students should contact the course instructor and review the course syllabus for information related to course materials/texts.