WE COULD USE MORE HERE...............................................Empathy is the ability to recognize the sentience and suffering in another being. Empathy is the basis of high-level altruism that does not depend on the barter principle. The ethic of empathy is the Golden Rule: treat others, as you would have them treat you. Empathy depends on knowing that the other person feels pain as much as you do or will feel happiness as much as you do if they are well treated. If another human is grieving, you feel their suffering and offer help. If another human is injured, you stop everything to help them and you treat their injured body with care to avoid increasing their pain. This ability to feel the experience of others in your own consciousness is one of the great accomplishments of brain evolution. Empathy is not evenly distributed among humans, nor is any individual constantly empathetic towards others. Some humans lack empathy and are selfish, impulsive and do harm to others with no remorse. The human tendency is to treat only a few other humans well, members of your immediate select group, and to be suspicious of and hostile towards everyone else. Empathy can turn on in one situation and turn off in another. Once a group establishes that outsiders are enemies, empathy is turned off and members of the group treat the outsiders cruelly as if they were non-human. Compassion is the great and intelligent love that goes beyond romantic love that is not always intelligent. Without empathy, there can be no compassion. Compassion is a whole system of skills and understanding learned and practiced, that manifests a high attainment of the human mind. Compassion is the sustained intention to seek the good of others and is characterized by empathy, patience, tolerance, understanding and gentle concern. The Dalai Lama states that the pursuit of spiritual goals and ultimate liberation from suffering and evil requires the intention to be of service to others. Selfish goals and methods alone are not sufficient and inevitably lead to unhappiness. He teaches that each person can work with his or her own mind to develop a higher consciousness, characterized by compassion and ethical conduct. Roles are seen as interchangeable; one man's enemy is another man's friend. The sense of reciprocal altruism is elevated to a high ethical principle in the form of the golden rule. Both good and bad deeds are recognized as karmic agents that continue to act in a sequence of causation without beginning or end. The Dalai Lama's prescription is the cultivation of compassion - a long and dedicated process that involves meditation and practice. Meditation is a generic term that specifies the study of your own mind but takes on numerous forms. You meditate on the fact that all beings are impermanent and will suffer sickness and death. You observe fellow sentient beings who are experiencing confusion, loss, sickness, pain and despair and you meditate on the fact that you too have had or will have similar experiences. 'Patience and Tolerance come from an ability to remain firm and steadfast, not to be overwhelmed by adverse situations...' The idea that all humans are innately good, but need education, self-scrutiny and practice appeals the idealistic side of our mind. Innate goodness could be considered a hypothesis that is tested in practice.