一つは「頭での共感」（他者の分析と概念的理解に基づく共感）です。 ‘empathy with the head’ (empathy based on analysis and conceptual understanding of another)。これは理性と知性が働きます。
もう一つは「心による共感」（相手への感情的な同調に基づく関心）です。「心による」と言っても「脳」のDMN（default mode network）システムは作動します。 ‘empathy with the heart’ (empathic concern, based on emotional attunement to the other person)これは感受性が問われます。「感情移入」と似ています。
When people engage in analytic tasks, like financial, engineering, IT, or physics problems, they activate the Task Positive Network (TPN) in their brain. The TPN enables a person to focus,solve a problem, and make a decision, but it closes a person perceptually to new ideas,possibilities and people.
When people engage in social tasks, like helping another person, arguing with them, asking someone for help, they activate the Default Mode Network (DMN) in their brain. The DMN enables a person to be open to new ideas, people or emotions, tune into others and moral considerations, but might leave a person open to distractions.
The TPN and DMN are, on the whole, independent networks, and they suppress each other. But as professionals, managers and leaders, we need to use both the TPN and SN/DMN to be effective.
”Be beautiful, be yourself.” You have to accept yourself as you are. This is a very important practice. As you practice building a home in yourself, you become more and more beautiful. You have peace, warmth, and joy; you feel wonderful within yourself, and people will recognize the beauty of your flower.
The first element of true love is maitri, loving kindness. This means being able to offer happiness. You have to be the sunshine for the other person. But you can’t offer happiness until you have it for yourself. So build a home inside. Accept yourself. Learn to love and heal yourself. Learn how to practice mindfulness in such a way that you can create moments of happiness and joy for your own nourishment. Then you have something to offer the other person.
The second element of true love is karuna, compassion. This is the capacity to understand the suffering in yourself and in the other person. If you understand your own suffering, you can help him to understand his suffering. Understanding suffering brings compassion and relief. You can transform your own suffering and help transform the suffering of the other person. We can generate this energy by practicing mindfulness.
The third element is mudita, joy. When you know how to generate joy, that nourishes you and nourishes the other person.
The fourth is upeksha, which means equanimity, inclusivesness, nondiscrimination. In a deep relationship, there’s no longer a boundary between you and the other person. You are him, you are her. Your suffering is his suffering. Your understanding of your own suffering helps her to suffer less. Suffering and happiness are no longer individual matters. What happens to him happens to you. What happens to you happens to him. There’s no longer any discrimination.
If your love is made with these four elements, your love is healing and transforming, and it has the element of holiness in it, because it’s made of mindfulness, concentration, and insight.
When an intimate relationship contains the four elements of true love, then physical intimacy, sexual intimacy, becomes something very beautiful and consolidating.
【読者専用コーチング】は著書『不惑』の読者のご質問、ご感想、ワークのサポートと連動のコーチング内容を中心にしております。本をご一読いただいた方ならぜひ無料にご利用ください。 ※著書『不惑』の価格を改定いたしました。（きっかけは、私が次に読みたい名作—『The Miracle Of Mindfulness』は美味しい”ドーナツ”だとしたら、自分の書いた本は小さな”穴”だと思いましたから。上手く説明できなくてすみません。）
“自分探し”したければ、“わたしのドーナツ”をどんどん探しにいこう。 すなわち、 I had no shape. Life shaped me. And life keeps shaping a newer me. If you enjoy your life, you must like yourself. If not, go create a new one!
We’re choosing how to live constantly. We make changes in life little by little though it’s not easy. And we’re shaped by life which we’ve chosen.
Happy body Happy mind 00Z 