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Compassion vs. Love

Eastern and Western religious traditions use different words for a similar concept.  Eastern traditions such as Buddhism admonish followers to develop “compassion” for all beings. Western traditions, such as Christianity, emphasize the need for “love.”

Love is a warmer word, rich with feeling. Compassion is more cerebral, less focused on emotion.

In fact, it’s more complex than that: Christianity, for example, recognizes four types of love. They are:

  • ·         love between family members (storge),
  • ·         erotic or romantic love (eros),
  • ·         affection without erotic overtones (philos), and
  • ·         ideal love (agape).

Because love in most of its forms is tangled up with human emotions, it is not always a reliable foundation for reasonable behavior. On the other hand, Eastern compassion can strike some people as cold or detached. To put it another way, love by itself can be too personal, while compassion may be too abstract.

Recently, I’ve noticed that the Dalai Lama (the leader of Tibetan Buddhism) has been using a different term that seems to supplement love and compassion. That term is “warm-heartedness.”  This term adds a personal warmth to compassion, and a calm, softening quality to love. When used together, the three terms create a trinity of heart-felt caring, compassion, and deep feeling.

What could be better than to live and act with love, compassion, and warm-heartedness? Surely this is a recipe for peace and harmony among all people of good will.

Posted on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 03:11PM by Registered CommenterLinda Brown Holt | Comments2 Comments | References44 References

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Reader Comments (2)

It is a mistake to view the Western concept of love and Easter understanding of compassion as similar PRECISELY because of the differences listen here. The fact that HHDL often uses the term love when speaking has more to do with his role as a cultural ambassador casting a large net than it does with any traditional Buddhist belief that the two terms are similar.
August 8, 2013 | Unregistered Commentermaximo hudson
You seem to be confused with the meaning of compassion. It is a sympathy for the suffering of others. Compassion extends to all sentient beings whereas love in the bible seems to imply only to humans. Hence the enormity of compassion is much greater than love.
January 10, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterTch

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