On Saturday, April 24th, Seattle hosted a daylong event, Compassionate Seattle: It’s Up to Us!, in honor of the city becoming the first in the world to affirm the Charter for Compassion and become a participant in the Ten Year Campaign for Compassionate Cities.

Karen Armstrong headlined the event and set the tone, encouraging Seattleites and others who attended or tuned into the Webcast, to bring compassion into our discourse, into our work, into all aspects of our city, work, and personal lives. “Work to create a community where we can look into the eyes of our enemies and see the divine,” she said. “Think of what the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have done for compassion. ‘Become the change,’” she concluded, invoking Mahatma Gandhi.

Speaker after speaker balanced their remarks with an understanding of how difficult practicing compassion can be at times, and an invitation to practice it anyway. In introducing Karen Armstrong, Reverend Guo Cheen, a Buddhist nun (see her YouTube channel for interviews with Karen Armstrong) spoke about the 100 petty humiliations someone who is homeless goes through each day and how important it is to step into the mind of the other as we walk through our lives.

Artist Isa D’Arleans commented that “compassion comes with pain. Don’t run away from feelings,” she said. “Live with them from second to second.” Author Courtney Martin remarked that “compassionate citizens must look within” while Armstrong noted that “a compassionate city must always look out.”

Panelists shared examples of programs that exemplify compassion–too many to name here. Participants were given lessons in laughing yoga and compassionate listening and were asked, “Is compassion ever undeserved?” Answers to that question shifted dramatically after Joanne Conger, executive director of the Freedom Project: From Prisoners to Peacemakers, spoke about how teaching prisoners nonviolent communication changed them (it reduces recidivism 16% and saved Washington state $5 million, she said) and her.

James O’Dea, past president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, spoke of sacred activism as “taking responsibility for what is right in front of you. Compassion,” he said, “is a force that is system transforming.”

This reflection is from Thom Andrews, director of Kalamazoo’s Season of Forgiveness.

We are pretty good at avoiding the truth.

As individuals we rationalize–what we eat, what we do, what we avoid doing. As a society we group think–from tolerating, even promoting, unhealthy lifestyles to launching military invasions. And this is not a new phenomenon. (”C’mon Adam, eat the apple. What harm could it do?”…or something like that.)

In his book, The High Price of Materialism, Tim Kasser reviews a large body of research spanning various cultures that basically affirms what we’ve known for centuries: money can’t buy happiness. More specifically, once people are above poverty levels of income, gains in wealth have little or no incremental payoff in terms of happiness or well-being. Also, there are studies suggesting the pursuit of wealth and possessions might actually undermine our well-being. While the research may be new, the information is not. We’ve known for years and years that money cannot buy happiness.

Yet, how much of our life is measured by wealth? From Gross National Product to individual salaries, from the size of your house to the ring on your finger, from the people in your circle to the college major you pursue - so much of our life is assessed based upon a scale of wealth. All the while, we know deep in our hearts that money can’t buy happiness.

You can change that for yourself this very day. Practicing gratitude, kindness, and generosity will lead to a happier life. So, do one, very deliberate act of kindness today (it may take an entire minute). Also, pause right now and spend 60 seconds being grateful for someone in your life. These two minutes will make your day.

Offering an act of kindness in the face of suffering is a powerful and sometimes daunting practice. Our first instinct may be to turn away, to avoid the pain, to react in a way that we think protects and distances ourselves. Yet to witness our own or others’ pain and reach out in kindness is not only an act of compassion, it expresses our profound connection to each other.

Pain and suffering can trigger fear, anger, hopelessness, and despair, leaving us feeling alone and isolated, or it can bring us together like our collective response to the southeast Asian tsunami, and the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

In our culture, it is easy to think we can avoid suffering by succumbing to the distractions or indulgences of everyday life, diverting attention from harsh realities. More seductive still, we can get lost in a cloud of thought that plunges us deeper into isolation and our separation from others.

In fact, our ego or sense of self–the thoughts that differentiate us from others–while a natural part of being human, can contribute to our feeling separate, vulnerable, fearful, and polarized. Protecting that sense of self can cause us to view the world in terms of us and them and override our empathic tendency. We only need glimpse the latest news to see examples of this. At the extreme, focusing too much on ourselves breeds anxiety and depression, while connecting with others can actually boost our health and well-being.

Distracting ourselves, with work, TV, or alcohol, for example, may seem a protective reaction, but pain and suffering remain. By witnessing and accepting the world as it is we are able to respond with honesty, clarity of purpose, and compassion. For most of us, this takes ongoing effort and practice. But being fully present during our moments of pain or despair, provides a profound opportunity to communicate immediately and directly from the heart–as it breaks open and connects us with one another.

“It is not about assuming a new self-image or manufactured persona; it is about being compassionate naturally, out of what we see, out of what we understand,” writes Sharon Salzberg in The Force of Kindness. “Compassion is like a mirror into which we can always look. It is like a stream that steadily carries us. It is like a cleansing fire that continually transforms us.”

Cultivating compassion asks that we return to that initial instinct of “fellow feeling”, be open to our own and others’ suffering, practice forgiveness, kindness, and gratitude. Compassion returns us to something that is not only a key part of our social nature, but part of our survival: our connection to each other and to our heart.