Compassion gone awry
Chapter 59
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
An Open-Hearted Life 
May 21, 2023 Part of a series of talks based on An Open-Hearted Life given at Sravasti Abbey’s monthly Sharing the Dharma Day starting in April 2017. Co-written with clinical psychologist Dr. Russell Kolts, the book offers practical Buddhist and Western psychological approaches to developing compassion.
- Our compassion may become overly confident
- The consequences of compassion without wisdom
- Understanding the motivation for our compassion
- Reflection: Considering our compassion
- Questions and answers
- How can you know your true motivation?
- What advice do you have for being around harmful behavior?
- How does the idea of justice relate to compassion?
An Open-Hearted Life 55: Compassion gone awry (download)
A guided meditation led prior to the talk can be found here.
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
