The Charter for Compassion – An Introduction

in community engagement

What is it?

Crafted by people all over the world and drafted by a multi-fath, multi-national council of thinkers and leaders, the Charter for Compassion asks that we practice the Golden Rule: to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. It reminds the faithful (and the faithless, like me) that founders and leading sages of all the major traditions believed that the Golden Rule was the essence of ethics and religion, that everything else was “commentary”, and that it should be practised “all day and every day”. They insisted that any interpretation of scripture that led to hatred or disdain was illegitimate.

Why chart a charter?

The original reason was “so that people can look at their tradition, reclaim it, and make religion a source of peace in the world, which it can and should be”. This purpose is evolving as the charter movement evolves.

Who’s behind it?

Karen Armstrong pitched the idea, for which she won the TED Prize. Over 150,000 people from over 180 countries contributed their words. A “Council of Conscience” crafted these words into the Charter. Eighteen people formed the Council: Salman Ahmad, Ali Asani, Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, Sadhvi Chaitanya, Bishop John Bryson Chane, Sister Joan Chittister, Sheikh Ali Gomaa, Mohsen Kadivar, Chandra Muzaffar, Baroness Julia Neuberger, Tariq Ramadan, Rabbi David Saperstein, Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp, Rev. Peter Storey, Ha Vinh Tho, Weiming Tu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Jean Zaru. More credits here.

Does the Council of Conscience have a secret handshake?

Of course.

So where’s this Charter?

All will be revealed on November 12. Click here on 11:12 of 11/12 to win a prize.

What do I do in the meantime?

  1. Learn about it
  2. Attend or host an event
  3. Attend, ask for, or host a service
  4. Share the love
  5. Hang out on the Facebook, the Twitter (follow @TheCharter), the YouTube, and the Flickr

See also: Charter-related videos on TED;  News and blog posts on the Charter

Variations on a Theme
from the Wikipedia

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. – Luke

Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not. – Baha’u'llah

Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing. – Thales

Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself. – Baha’u'llah

Do not do to others what would anger you if done to you by others. – Isocrates

Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. – Leviticus

Do not to your neighbor what you would take ill from him. – Pittacus

Hurt no one so that no one may hurt you. – Muhammad

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing ‘neither to harm nor be harmed’), and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life. – Epicurus

Just as pain is not agreeable to you, it is so with others. Knowing this principle of equality treat other with respect and compassion. – Suman Suttam

Love thy neighbour as thyself. – Luke

Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself. – Confucius

One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires. – Brihaspati

One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him. – Socrates

Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill. – Dhammapada

Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss. – T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn. – Hillel

That which you want for yourself, seek for mankind. – Muhammad

The truly enlightened ones are those who neither incite fear in others nor fear anyone themselves. – Guru Granth Sahib

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. – Matthew

What thou avoidest suffering thyself seek not to impose on others. – Epictetus

What you wish your neighbors to be to you, such be also to them. – Sextus the Pythagorean

The basis of faith-based community building

in community engagement

Excerpts from TED Talk by Karen Armstrong: What I’ve found, across the board, is that religion is about behaving differently. Instead of deciding whether or not you believe in God, first you have to do something. You behave in a committed way, and then you begin to understand the truths of religion. And religious doctrines are meant to be summons to action; you only understand them when you put them into practice.

And it is an arresting fact that right across the board, in every single one of the major world faiths, compassion — the ability to feel with the other in the way we’ve been thinking about this evening — is not only the test of any true religiosity, it is also what will bring us into the presence of what Jews, Christians and Muslims call “God” or the “Divine.” It is compassion, says the Buddha, which brings you to Nirvana. Why? Because in compassion, when we feel with the other, we dethrone ourselves from the center of our world and we put another person there. And once we get rid of ego, then we’re ready to see the Divine.

Every single one of the major world traditions has highlighted — and put at the core of their tradition — what’s become known as the Golden Rule. First propounded by Confucius five centuries before Christ: “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you.” That, he said, was the central thread which ran through all his teaching and that his disciples should put into practice all day and every day. And it was the Golden Rule would bring them to the transcendent value that he called ren, human-heartedness, which was a transcendent experience in itself.

And this is absolutely crucial to the monotheisms, too. There’s a famous story about the great rabbi, Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus. A pagan came to him and offered to convert to Judaism if the rabbi could recite the whole Jewish teaching while he stood on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and study it.”

And “go and study it” was what he meant. He said, “In your exegesis, you must make it clear that every single verse of the Torah is a commentary, a gloss upon the “Golden Rule.” The great Rabbi Meir said that any interpretation of scripture which led to hatred and disdain or contempt of other people — any people whatsoever — was illegitimate.

Saint Augustine made exactly the same point. Scripture, he says, “teaches nothing but charity, and we must not leave an interpretation of scripture until we have found a compassionate interpretation of it.” And this struggle to find compassion in some of these rather rebarbative texts is a good dress rehearsal for doing the same in ordinary life.

But now look at our world. And we are living in a world that is — where religion has been hijacked. Where terrorists cite Qur’anic verses to justify their atrocities. Where instead of taking Jesus’ words, “Love your enemies. Don’t judge others,” we have the spectacle of Christians endlessly judging other people, endlessly using scripture as a way of arguing with other people, putting other people down. Throughout the ages, religion has been used to oppress others, and this is because of human ego, human greed. We have a talent as a species for messing up wonderful things.

So the traditions also insisted — and this is an important point, I think — that you could not and must not confine your compassion to your own group: your own nation, your own co-religionists, your own fellow countrymen. You must have what one of the Chinese sages called “jian ai”: concern for everybody. Love your enemies. Honor the stranger. We formed you, says the Qur’an, into tribes and nations so that you may know one another.

And this, again — this universal outreach — is getting subdued in the strident use of religion — abuse of religion — for nefarious gains.

There’s also a great deal, I think, of religious illiteracy around. People seem to think now equate religious faith with believing things. We often call religious people believers, as though that were the main thing that they do. And very often, secondary goals get pushed into the first place, in place of compassion and the Golden Rule. Because the Golden Rule is difficult. When I’m speaking to congregations about compassion, I sometimes see a mutinous expression crossing some of their faces. Because a lot of religious people prefer to be right, rather than compassionate.

The excerpts above are from a longer version of this speech, found here: Karen Armstrong makes her TED Prize wish: the Charter for Compassion.

The Charter for Compassion launches on November 12, 2009.