The Role Of Empathy

Ambersky

Recently I came across two videos on empathy using two political and spiritual examples.
Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another.
Someone may need to have a certain amount of empathy before they are able to feel compassion.
To show empathy is to identify with another's feelings and to emotionally put yourself in the place of another.
The ability to empathize is directly dependent on your ability to feel your own feelings and identify them.

Im going to post the links to them here and I hope you enjoy them and find them as thought provoking as I do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brTiO6dtGnQ

The link to the full video
http://vimeo.com/12353477



And here is the second video which is a section from a movie God on Trial.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xwZt8ypufE

Ambersky

I see the post I put up has been viewed quite a few times but there have been no responses or comments.
Maybe I havent posted the videos in a way that invites comment, maybe people feel there is no more to say, but I thought Id maybe write a bit more about what Im thinking about and see how that goes.
If its just not of interest or there is no need for comment thats ok too.

Most of the groups I have been involved in have been either political or spiritual.
There seems to be this great divide. The politicos dismiss spirituality as anti science and pure woo woo and spiritual types dismiss politics as an obsession with mere secular or materialistic, earthly, matters. The dualism of earth and heaven.

Yet all spiritual traditions seem to boil down to a call to Love, not just in some kind of abstract but in real practical earthy even difficult ways.
The Dali Lama says Buddhism can be summerised in one word "Kindness".
Jesus says "Love the lord your god with your whole heart and your neighbour as yourself".
Whats more Jesus qualified what he meant by our neighbour and told us it was our enemy or people whom others dispise.
Judaism says "That which is hateful to you do not do to others"

Some political people would say religion has nothing useful to say on conflict as it is the main cause of war.
Some religious people would say war and conflict is an eartly matter and offer only removing oneself from the problem as a solution to people who I'm sure would remove themselves if they could.
If we think of something closer to home like the conflict in Northern Ireland most of us know people were not actually fighting over religion although the line created by this social divide was the flashpoint. It wasnt actually because one went to mass and the other went to service.
Solutions needed to be more than just asking people who felt they couldnt get jobs because of their religion to be less materialistic.

Surely religion or spirituality should have something to say to all the wars and conflict we find ourselves in.
What does it have to say, what do you think it can offer.