The Real Test of Compassion

Meditation can shift human behavior by threefold. But the real test of compassion comes when we're talking about extending it to people we don't like. In this study, participants write a kind of a speech and then give each other written feedback on how well they did. We knew that they felt anger. But then what happened next was we gave them a chance to retaliate against that person. How did meditators show compassion rather than vengeance? The budhist lama has an answer: It has to do with sharon - equanimity or balance.