Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life

I am a long time fan of Ms. Armstrong, and had the good fortune to spend a day with her at the launch of the Charter for Compassion. I am greatful to her for helping me rescue the religion of my youth (Presbyterianism) from my negative interpretations through her previous writings. I've always said that if Ms. Armstrong founded a religion, I'd be there. This book, along with the Charter for Compassion, comes as close to her founding a religion as I think she will get. She lays out specific spiritual practices to assist us in becoming more compassionate. In concert with the respect she shows in all her writing for the good points of the major world religions, she shows how these practices are carried out in Christianity, Islam, Judiasm, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism and Confucianism. As a "Zen-Taoist" student of Thich Nhat Hanh, I find her suggested practices to be easy to adopt, as they fit in quite nicely with my Buddhist practice ideals. I like that I can also see how these practices are part of my Judeo-Christian roots, and allow me to see the good in other religions with which I am less familiar or which are talked about in a negative way. Some have criticized Ms. Armstrong for saying all religions are the same-but I do not feel that she does that. She simply wants to call our attention to the importance of compassion in these religious traditions. She is quite able to show, and does in other writings, how any of these religions has fallen short of the compassionate ideal at times. One reviewer remarked that the book was too political for her. Ms. Armstrong does not mention any political parties or politicians at all in the book that I can recall, but some of the suggestions about what could be compassionate might coincide with political viewpoints. Most people would say that I am on the "left," but I see no reason that someone on the right cannot act with compassion, and I have seen many acts of compassion from my friends on the right. Moreover, I know some of their acts I do not find to be compassionate are in areas where there room for legitimate disagreement as to whether they are compassionate. I also often seen pain reflected in the acts I see as uncompassionate, and I can sympathize with that pain. For example, practicing compassion in politics must include consideration of the suffering that may be caused by taking money away from someone through taxes. A key point of Ms. Armstrong' suggested practices is to be aware of and responsible for the consequences of your actions-something I know many conservatives heartily endorse. I do think that following Ms. Armstrong's suggested steps will call upon you to re-examine your firmly held beliefs in a good way, whether you are on the left or right. I think that Ms. Armstrong's work asks that you consider the broad impact of all you do, and that you rethink actions that on reflection are selfish and do not help others. If you are an Ayn Rand devotee or a Gordon Gekko fan, this book may not be for you, but if you recognize the value of humility, compassion and charity, I think it can be for you and that you will not lose your conservative or liberal soul.