The Importance of Empathy

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To feel empathy, we need to project ourselves into someone else’s head, imagining what they might be thinking.

If you are highly sensitive, it's possible to get overwhelmed and struggle with empathy fatigue.

The Buddha taught that compassionate action is the answer—dedicating yourself to relieving that suffering.

It’s a little-known fact in the West, but a sophisticated model of the mind existed almost 2,500 years before Freud developed his theory of psychoanalysis in late-19th-century Vienna. This detailed map of the human mind was created by Siddhartha Gautama, who developed his theory through long, hard years of experiential trial and error, eventually achieving enlightenment after 49 days and nights of deep meditation under a Bodhi tree in Northern India. Upon realizing the true nature of both inner and outer reality, he became known as the Buddha, which means "Awakened One." He then spent the rest of his long life sharing his wisdom and insight with others—and it’s no exaggeration to say that the Buddha’s teaching changed the world.

Partly because of this oft-told story, in which deep meditation leads to enlightenment, most people associate Buddhism with meditation. And although meditation is, of........

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