Going beyond sentimentalisation, religionisation, party politicisation, commercialisation, and bureaucratisation of compassion. Going beyond health or psychological or end-of-life care focus. Interrogating the eco-social structures of suffering and compassion. Investigating deeply eco-social spiritual Otherness. Exploring critical mindfulness, totality and caring in the service of compassion. Accepting the reality of 'tough compassion'. Moving compassion away from 'spectacular events' to events in our day-to-day/everyday life. Being sensitive to the fact that it is the radicalism of our times. Integrating transdisciplinarity, transformative learning and civic engagement concerns into being compassionate. Creating a compassion learning ecology and learning journeys. Nurturing compassionate futures...'Doing compassion' to 'being compassionate' -- the six interconnected pathways.
Note: As chair professor of a newly established centre -- the Centre for New Humanities and Compassion Studies -- at Xavier University Bhubaneswar, I received some local media interest in how I would "teach" compassion (see below). A difficult question, really. I was only just beginning to figure it out. At the start, both the VC, Prof. Dr Paul SJ, and I decided that there would be no undergraduate or postgraduate degrees in compassion. That sounded ridiculous to both of us in terms of nurturing young people to be compassionate and to practise it (at bachelor's and master's levels).
The questions and concerns remained. How will young people learn to be compassionate? How can one introduce a programme in compassionate studies? I developed a community-supported doctoral programme to nurture organic and public intellectuals in understanding and practising compassion. (Unfortunately, before I could start with my first batch of selected young people, the VC of the university was changed, and with him, this effort was suspended.)
The newspaper article below does not reflect the present understanding or development of compassion. The learning journeys of compassion had also evolved.
