Seven Steps to Cultivate Compassion

Seven Steps to Cultivate Compassion is the method used in our tradition to gradually build our ability feel genuine compassion. Tulku Migmar, in this excerpt from his teachings on compassion at Samye Hermitage New York, reminds us that many of us neglect these seven steps. If we repeatedly reflect on each of these seven reasons for generating compassion, we will authentically develop bodhicitta, the mind set on awakening.

The Seven Steps to Cultivate Compassion are:

1. All of us have love for our mothers—we can take our mothers as the first object or example of compassion
2. Recalling kindness
3. Wishing to repay kindness
4. Loving kindness—wishing them to be happy
5. Compassion—wishing them to be free of suffering
6. Genuine altruism—the wish to benefit others
7. Bodhicitta—the mindset of awakening