CCARE Newsletter - June 2012

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J U N E

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CC ARE

N E W S L E T T E R

CENTER FOR COMPASSION & ALTR UI S M RE S EA RCH & E D U C AT I O N

Welcome to the June edition of CCARE’s Newsletter! We have a lot of exciting news and upcoming events to share with you.

CCARE HONORED FOR DALAI LAMA’S TEMPLETON AWARD

SCIENCE OF COMPASSION CONFERENCE

TIM RYAN IN CONVERSATION CONGRESSMAN RYAN ON COMPASSION

IN THIS ISSUE

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• A letter from our Director (p. 3) • The Science of Compassion Conference (p. 4) • CCARE’s new Associate Director (p. 5) • Making Waves: Leah & Joel (p. 5-6) • CCARE Post-doctorate Fellowship (p. 6) • CCARE Undergraduate Roscow Fellowships (p. 7) • Congressman Tim Ryan in Conversation on Compassion (p. 8) • Studying Compassion in the Brains of Experts (p. 8-10) • CCARE Honored for Dalai Lama’s Templeton Award (p. 11) • Connect with us! (p. 12)

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A LETTER FROM OUR DIRECTOR

James Doty, M.D.

Dear Friends of CCARE, It remains extraordinary to me that so many from the third world wish to come to the West in the belief that we have so much more to offer. Yet when we examine the facts, the West experiences an epidemic of depression, isolation and loneliness that does not exist in the third world (except, perhaps, those areas influenced by the West). In the U.S., we consume 25% of the world’s resources and have what is called one of the highest standards of living, yet many even in the West remain in abject poverty without food and a much larger number live in a different type of poverty. It is a poverty of community and connectedness. A hunger that is not quenched by the acquisition of material goods, but one that study after study demonstrates is due to a lack of sustenance that only social connectedness can provide.

And that connectedness is manifested by compassion...

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The

Science of Compassion

Origins, Measures and Interventions

The work of CCARE and an ever expanding number of labs around the world are contributing to a body of research that confirms the above. It is our mission at CCARE to continue supporting and generating such research.

I am proud to share with you that CCARE will be hosting the first conference of its kind on the Science of Compassion, July 19-22 in Telluride, CO. World renowned leaders in research on compassion, altruism, and service will be presenting their latest findings. This remarkable gathering of scientists from a number of disciplines will join in conversation to examine the basic science of compassion, approaches to enhancing compassion, and the benefits compassion can afford to health, well-being and psychosocial function. Open to both scientists and community members interested in the topic of compassion and implementing compassionate action in society, the conference will be a forum to exchange ideas and information and to forge collaborations.

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CCARE’S NEW ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR Like any organization, CCARE is changing and evolving.

Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., our associate director has recently accepted a position with my dear friend, Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., founder and director of the Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley and world renowned compassion researcher. I am very happy for Emiliana not only because this position is a few blocks from her home, but that she is able to continue to contribute to the field. Emiliana has had a profound impact on CCARE through her diligence, critical scientific judgment, and

EM MA SEPPALA, PH. D.

her humanity. CCARE is fortunate in that we have found another amazingly qualified

individual, Emma Seppala, Ph.D. Emma is a graduate of Yale University and received her Ph.D. in Psychology at Stanford where she worked with James Gross, Ph.D. She recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Richard Davidson, Ph.D., pioneer in contemplative neuroscience and compassion research at the University of Wisconsin. She has spent most of her research career researching compassion so I am very proud to welcome Emma to CCARE.

MAKING WAVES

CCARE over the last two years has focused much energy on the development and refinement of a compassion cultivation training program. We are continuing to research its effects and also have recently begun training teachers.

This development has been led by Stanford visiting scholar Thupten Jinpa Langri, Ph.D., former Buddhist monk and primary English translator of His Holiness the Dalai

LEAH WEISS, PH.D.

Lama in conjunction with a number of psychologists. The long time meditators and CCARE Compassion Education program is directed by Leah Weiss, Ph.D., who I would also like to congratulate on the completion of her doctorate focused on educating compassion.

Leah recently did a TEDx talk: “Uncovering Real Compassion”.

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Also, congratulations to Joel Finkelstein, who began with CCARE at its inception as an undergraduate becoming Program Coordinator. Joel has just been accepted into the neuroscience doctoral program at Princeton, one of the premier programs in the country.

JOEL FINKELSTEIN

CCARE POST-DOCTORAL FELLOWSHIP

CCARE is involved with a number of scientists in collaborative research but one of the other research programs that we have just initiated is the CCARE post-doctoral research fellowship.

I am happy to announce that Matthew Feinberg,

MATTHEW FEINBERG, PH.D.

Ph.D. has been awarded this first fellowship to support his study titled, “Understanding the Different Types of Compassion of Liberals and Conservatives”, which in the present political

Ma#hew Feinberg earned his Ph.D. from environment seems particularly germane.

UC Berkeley in 2012. Ma#hew is interested in researching compassion with respect to how it differs among different social and poliCcal groups and how framing messages differently for different groups can evoke compassionate responses.

ROSCOW UNDERGRADUATE FELLOWSHIPS

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Another CCARE fellowship program is for Stanford undergraduates and is named after Claire Hollens Roscow who died tragically shortly after completing her CCARE fellowship. This program has allowed undergraduates who feel they may wish to pursue post-graduate training in the field of compassion research to work with CCARE in a number of areas for a one-year period. In this newsletter, two of the CCARE Claire Hollens Roscow Undergraduate Fellows have written letters expressing how the fellowship has impacted and influenced them.

KE RYN BREITERMANL OA D E R

There aren’t many recruiters at the career fair for people who want to go into the field of compassion. There’s no prescribed “pre-­‐ compassion” track. Working this past year as CCARE Student Fellow has opened my eyes to all the incredible work that has been done in the field of compassion as well as to all the emerging work that is on the cusp of manifesCng. I have learned about the excitement and meaning of working in this cuXng edge field that resonates so strongly with my values. I have simultaneously learned about the challenges and obstacles that also come with manifesCng something enCrely new. Even through all the struggles and disappointments I encountered, the constant presence of CCARE acts as a symbol that the field of compassion is legiCmate, scienCfic, purposeful, and here to stay and to grow. I am grateful for everyone I’ve met through CCARE, all the connecCons I’ve made. I’m honored to have met and worked with some of the most intelligent, creaCve, moCvated, and kind-­‐ hearted people of our day. The experience has definitely provided me with a stepping stone to lead a life of compassion.

CHARLOTTE BROWN Serving as one of the Roscow Undergraduate Fellows has provided an opening in my life. To be a small part of something as big as CCARE is humbling, but more than that it is enlightening. I am learning the many ways in which people around the World are working together to create a more peaceful and compassionate humanity. I have been introduced to the challenges inherent to such a goal. I am discovering what it takes to be effecCve, bold, and compassionate, a balance that takes a#enCve tuning. I am exploring the ways in which an individual can have a posiCve effect on people near and far, and on him or herself. ReflecCng on the namesake of this fellowship, Claire Roscow, very much mirrors the set of skills I am acquiring. Claire's graceful and fierce confidence, her kindness, and her ease are all assets to which I aspire. Through the work bestowed upon me and under the wise guidance of Leah Weiss, I know that the Roscow Fellowship will conCnue to grant me space to learn and grow with strength and compassion, and to support others to do the same in my turn.

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RECENT CCARE EVENTS We have been proud to host many outstanding events in the last couple of months, including a Conversation on Compassion Talk with Congressman Tim Ryan. The video of this talk is now available on our website. In addition, we hosted a number of Tibetan monks. These long-term meditators visited CCARE and participated in scans with Dr. Brian Knutson, as described further in the newsletter.

JAMES DOTY, M.D.

CONGRESSMAN TIM RYAN

A special thank you to Chris Wesselman for his wonderful photography!

S T U DYING CO MPA S S IO N IN T H E BR AINS O F E X P E RT S In the 3rd week of April, 2012, CCARE hosted a delegation of 9 monastics from India at Stanford in order to measure their brains “on compassion�. The monastics (monks and nuns from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition) were from different regions of India, and have more than 20 years of intensive training and practice in the cultivation of compassion. They are all also graduates of a program called Science for Monks, which brings western scientists to India to teach monastics about everything scientific, from cell biology to astrophysics to

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recent advanced in the growing field of contemplative neuroscience.

The point of Science for Monks is to provide monastics with some basic scientific skills and knowledge, and enable them to participate in the increasingly popular dialogues between western scientists and eastern thinkers; think of the many published transcripts of conversations between the Dalai Lama and pioneering scientists. In the fall of 2011, CCARE contributed an instructor to the Science for Monks program in Dharamsala, India to teach a course on contemplative neuroscience – that instructor was me. Amidst discussions of immune markers, telomeres, corporate lovingkindness meditation and biological systems that support the intrinsic need to belong, I humbly and repeatedly implored my skeptical monastic students to come to the US and participate in research first hand. They, in turn, implored me to meditate. Remarkably, I learned that several of them were planning a trip to the US in the spring of 2012. They were coming to San Francisco to be emissaries for the Science for Monks program in an exhibit on Sensation and Perception at the Exploratorium museum. San Francisco was so close to CCARE! One of CCARE’s core directives is to investigate and support others’ research into the biological underpinnings of compassion. For CCARE, the monastics represented an opportunity to study Olympiads of compassion – individuals who have dedicated the greater portion of their lives to honing the strength and breadth of their capacity for compassion. In fact, Stanford Psychology professor Brian Knutson, director of the Symbiotic Project in Affective Neuroscience, had received a research award from CCARE to scan the brains of compassion Olympiads, and was eager to work with the visiting monastics.

Fast forward to 8:00am Monday, April 22, 2011 – there is a sea of gold flecked maroon in the Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging facility in the basement of Jordan Hall surrouding Dr. Knutson and dutiful graduate students Alex Genevsky and Matthew Sachett. One by one over the course of 3 ½ days, each of the 8 monastics (6 monks and 2 nuns) took a turn lying perfectly still in the 2 foot diameter tube for 2+ hours to perform psychological tasks. In the first, they were instructed to extend compassion or passively view a series of pictures of faces, then rate how likable several different pictures of abstract art were. Unbeknownst to them, the abstract art pictures were preceded by subliminal flashes of the previously viewed faces.

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The monks spending the day at Google with CCARE Benefactor Chade-Meng Tan (5th from left) and CCARE Senior Scientist Emiliana Simon-Thomas (4th from left)

In Stanford undergrads, Knutson’s group had observed that subjects liked the abstract art pictures that followed ‘extend compassion’ faces more than abstract art pictures that followed ‘passively view’ faces. In the second task, monastics were asked to practice Tonglen, a traditional contemplative exercise that involves taking on the suffering of others and offering loving-kindness in return. The abstract art picture task aims to capture the ‘afterglow’ of extending compassion, the good feeling or ‘carryover’ that is characteristic of people’s orientation towards the world after having extended compassion towards someone. Will the compassion Olympians show a stronger intrinsic pleasure, and corresponding neural reward circuitry activation given their extraordinary capacity for compassion? The second task taps right into the heart of the compassion experience – which brain areas are most involved?

How does this look in Olympic–level individuals? Dr. Knutson’s team will continue to collect data from compassion Olympians, as well as comparison subjects who are inexperienced in compassion in an effort to characterize the neural signature of, and effects of compassion.

Between scanning sessions, the monastics were shown a good time including tours of the Stanford University campus and departments of interest (e.g. The Tibetan Studies Initiative), an afternoon as special guests of GOOGLE, a visit to the San Jose Tech Museum, and more.

Most importantly, we at CCARE were able to exchange novel insights and ideas with the monastics, present the principles and aspirations for our signature Compassion Training programs to them, relish in their enthusiastic approval, and enjoy their wise, humorous, light, and perpetually content company.

Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D.

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CC A R E H O N O R E D F O R DA L A I L A M A ’ S T E M P L E TO N AWA R D

As many of you know, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the founding benefactor of CCARE. He is admired by a large percentage of the world for his tireless promotion of the importance of compassion and his humanity. Among the innumerable number of honors and awards His Holiness has received, he has just been awarded the Templeton Prize for 2012, which is the largest monetary award given to an individual. We at CCARE are honored as the official announcement by the Templeton Foundation indicated that in part the award was given for his being the founding benefactor of CCARE. At the conference, I met Arianna Huffington who invited me to blog for the Huffington Post. The link to my blog is provided below: The Science of Compassion Blog

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We in the West can learn many lessons from those in the third world who live with deep suffering including resilience, the importance of family and community and fundamentally the dignity of each individual.

I hope you enjoy the newsletter. We are fortunate that some of the brightest minds in the world work with us and believe like us that at this time “no longer are love and compassion luxuries but necessities if our species is to survive”.

Dr. James Doty

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