Scientists Train People To Not Be Jerks
The Dalai Lama Friends of Tibet/Pankaj Mistry To be excellent to one another, just try out some Buddhist meditation. If you're kind of a jerk, but at least concerned about your jerk-ness, take heart: researchers say they've shown it's possible to increase compassion in adults. The University of Wisconsin-Madison actually has a whole department dedicated to this kind of thing, the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center, and researchers there set up an experiment recently to see if they could get a group of people to be more excellent to each other. First, the team had the group try the Buddhist technique of compassion meditation: thinking about a time someone was suffering, then chanting, "May you be free from suffering. May you have joy and ease." The people focused on a loved one, like a friend or family member, then themselves, then a stranger, and finally a...