How to Meditate

Empathy, meditation and loving kindness are intimately interconnected. What is empathy? The love of Mother Teresa, the love of Dalia Lama are the examples of empathy. Empathy is that aspect of human quality, which makes people to be kind towards other. Empathy is the mental capacity to experience the emotions, thoughts, feelings, or state of another person. It is the capacity to truly understand another person’s point of view. There are two major elements to empathy. The first is the cognitive component: Understanding the others feelings and the ability to take their perspective and the second element to empathy is the affective component. This is an observer’s appropriate emotional response to another person’s emotional state. Empathy are influenced by the environment, hormones and the genes. People with the “GG” gene displayed more caring and trusting nonverbal behaviors, like smiles, love, head nods, and eye contact, while listening to a loved one describe a time of suffering. Vipassana meditation loving kindness and yoga meditation all are interlinked. If one is missing, one can not complete the other. Although genes and environments are related to empathy, positive empathy and loving kindness meditation is a good way to expand the consciousness.