Loving-Kindness, Compassion, and Self-Compassion Meditation

Mindfulness entered mainstream Western psychology and psychiatry through the dissemination of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and subsequently informed a range of therapeutic models, including dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Alongside this “first” mindfulness movement, growing societal concerns about conflict, competition, and violence stimulated scientific and clinical interest in prosocial qualities such as empathy, altruism, and compassion. This chapter conceptualizes the resulting expansion of compassion-oriented practices as a “second mindfulness revolution” and traces its historical and conceptual foundations across Buddhist traditions and contemporary psychology. After introducing loving-kindness, compassion, and self-compassion, the chapter clarifies key distinctions between these constructs in early Buddhism, Mahayana and Tibetan perspectives—particularly the role of non-self, interdependence, and non-duality—and compares them with dominant Western models that emphasize individual agency and interpersonal helping. The chapter then reviews major psychological definitions of compassion and outlines the emergence of self-compassion as an empirically grounded alternative to self-esteem, emphasizing its relevance to self-criticism and common psychiatric problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicidality. Building on these foundations, the chapter surveys representative traditional and modern training approaches, including Theravada phrase-based practices, Tibetan lojong and tonglen, and secular programs such as CBCT, CCT, compassion-focused therapy, and mindful self-compassion. Finally, the chapter examines debates about the relationship between mindfulness and compassion and addresses the concept of “compassion fatigue,” highlighting proposals that fatigue may reflect empathic distress rather than compassion per se. The chapter concludes by arguing for ethically grounded and scientifically rigorous implementation of compassion-based interventions, integrating Buddhist philosophical insights with contemporary clinical and neuroscientific methods while avoiding reductive or commercialized applications.