Compassionate University - LEIPZIG, GER

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Comment by Lennart Bastert on July 14, 2011 at 8:45am

You sure are right about that, Edwin and one of our American Studies tutors also touched on this issue with her comment in one of our sessions "How can you teach kids compassion and respect? There has to be a way, because I can see it's now happening in a lot of homes." I forwarded her you resources on teaching compassion, I'll let you know what her thoughts were. As for our project, we have also thought about holding "empathy classes" of some sort but this plans lie in the farther future from where we are right now with our project. 

I'd be happy to do a video chat on Skype with you regarding any of this!

Comment by Edwin Rutsch on July 14, 2011 at 8:33am

Lennart, A compassion university needs a good empathy curriculum,.  here it is.
http://cultureofempathy.com/Projects/Curriculum/Index.htm

Would you be up for a Skype video chat?  I'm at Edwin Rutsch on skype

Comment by Lennart Bastert on July 14, 2011 at 7:45am

Everyone!

I suppose you've been wondering if we were still working. Yes we were and yes we are. A lot has been going on (in German) of course as the semester comes to a close. We have our Service Learning Symposium next week which will wind up our work for this semester. Fritz and I spent two hours today in the university covering our two main cafeterias with almost 250 flyers whereafter we randomly chatted up people on campus. We asked the simple (yet rather bold and unspecified) question whether they considered empathy important (then handing them a little snippet with our blogs web address). We talked to a good 500 students and got very mixed responses. Some were very positive ("Of course it is?!"), some a little questioning ("In what context?") but some students even answered with "No I don't." The overall reaction could be described as at least curious. This being a very intriguing experience for us, we hope that the idea of our project catches on with our fellow students and many will sign the petition.

Comment by Perry Spencer on June 16, 2011 at 11:12pm

Thanks for the invite to your radio show.  I am, at this point, still on a dial-up system so it leaves me unable to listen to anything other than music I plug in.  Yet this may change and/or I could figure out the timing and go where wifi is available.  Time will tell.  Yet I do wish to stay in touch and see how we may serve the Whole better.  Peace and Grace to all you reach and even those they reach...Perry

Comment by fritz goldfuss on June 15, 2011 at 1:18am

If anyone's interested, here's the link to our student radio station. The interview will be broadcasted on Thursday between 10am-12am. In German. Unfortunately.

Comment by Lennart Bastert on June 14, 2011 at 8:34am

University Radio program to be broadcasted Thursday morning. Excitement ensues! :-)

Comment by Lennart Bastert on June 9, 2011 at 2:00am

-- What's going on in Germany (and in German) -- 

A lot of great things coming together right now. We were able to provide several community organizations with information on the project through our interview and we are meeting today with an editor from our local university radio station Mephisto! Yesterday Fritz and I sat together for an intense session of flyer design. We came up with a first draft of the flyer we want to spread to promote the petition we will be setting up for students to commit to compassionate action (see attachment). We also drafted a first version of the declaration our university will hopefully sign that will ultimately make us a compassionate university. For anybody who is familiar with German I will be glad to provide it here if you'd like me to. Next up is finding someone at the university to build a small info website for us and then meeting with the student council for an overview of social projects at the university. 

Comment by Jon Ramer on May 25, 2011 at 10:28am

Hi -- I apologize if I created any confusion here.  I was joking with Edwin about a previous conversation in which we agreed that empathy is a precursor to compassion.   I  find it fascinating how challenging it is to blend with each other and hold on to our own work while embracing others. I am grateful for all the work being done to help heal the world.  Edwin -- lets set up a time to meet next week in a separate conversation that I will initiate!

Comment by Lennart Bastert on May 25, 2011 at 9:23am

I'm not sure what exact connotations the word "tiff" has for you as a native speaker, I was only using it for describing this little conversation we were having here on what an appropriate name would be.

Of course there will always be much talk on definitions. As for compassion I mostly like the definition that states this desire to alleviate someone's suffering but I will refrain from diving into a deeper discussion about definitions. In the end, I believe that we are all on the same page. You won't be emphatic without being compassionate and vice versa. I believe these are just hand-in-hand subjects.

 

On a different note I suppose I have to polish my direct translation skills since actually "Einfühlungsvermögen" (the ability to empathize) is a better translation of empathy than "Mitgefühl". That was some great language history insight you provided! Still I guess I try to keep my focus on the greater goal which we all share. I believe that - not exclusively - both empathy and compassion, in probably being interdependent, are deeply entwined on our path.

 

Comment by Edwin Rutsch on May 25, 2011 at 8:58am

Lennar, could you tell me what you see as the 'tiff'?  could you state it clearly?

There is certainly a lot of discussion about definitions, even  the academic experts I've heard disagree. here's a page of definitions.
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/Definitions.htm

I'm merely stating that from what I've seen and heard,  compassion is empathy applied to pain and suffering.  Then some people add that there's a desire within compassion to take action to alleviate the suffering.

interesting.. the word empathy was coined in Germany as einfülung,, and was translated into empathy in English and has come back to German as empathie.
http://cultureofempathy.com/References/History.htm

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