Transcript

At Stanford, we've developed a variety of techniques, as others have, that actually allow you to potentiate your compassion. Believe it or not, each of us has a genetic potential—just like everybody in this room has a genetic potential, as an example, to do athletic activities—but most of us don't actually reach our potential in that. But believe it or not, we can train people to be more compassionate; and that training involves understanding what compassion is, recognizing suffering, being kind to yourself, and giving you mental practices or meditation techniques that reframe how you see the world.

And what happens is, even with as little as two weeks, certain studies have shown that it has a profound effect on your physiology in a positive way. And I will assure you, having talked to the partners of people who've taken these courses—people who these people who've taken these courses have interacted with—it also has a profound effect on everyone around them.