On Compassion

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Notes

¹ Ungan and Dogo were both Dharma heirs of Yakusan Igen, a revered teacher of Zen Buddhism who lived in Jaingxi, China from 745–847. Ungan and Dogo studied with him for 40 years.

² Dogen was a 13^th century Zen master in Japan. He founded the Soto School of Zen Buddhism and left many writings on the practice of Zen Buddhism. These he delivered as sermons between approximately 1231 and 1252.

³ Justin lived before the formulation of what we call the New Testament. There were many writings attributed to the apostles, mainly collections of the sayings of Jesus that were not put into the New Testament by the Council of Nicea. It is to these that Justin refers here.

⁴ Justin Martyr was an Apostolic Father of the church who lived from 100 to 165. His writings are among the earliest outlining Christian teaching and practice. His First Apology was probably written about 130.

⁵ Qur'an is the holy book of Islam, transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad between 609 and 632.

⁶ Zechariah was a priest and prophet of the Jewish Old Testament who lived in the years following the Jew's return from exile in Babylon, about 520 BCE.

⁷ We need to exempt Buddhism from this because it really has little concern about how one is to act in relation to god.

⁸ Isaiah was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Old Testament. He lived in Jerusalem sometime toward the end of the 8th century BCE. His prophetic statements were probably delivered orally and then later collected and written down by his disciples.

⁹ James was the leader of the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem. He was called ‘the brother of the Lord.’

¹⁰ Thomas Aquinas was an Italian Dominican priest and professor who developed a methodical way to unite faith and reason. He lived from 1225–1274. His great work was the Summa Theologica. He is credited with reintroducing the thinking of the Greek philosopher Aristotle to the West.

¹¹ Marcus Tullius Cicero lived in the first century BCE and was a statesman, orator, lawyer, and master of Latin prose.

¹² Jean-Jacques Rousseau lived from 1712 until 1778. He was a philosopher and writer. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological, and educational thought.

¹³ Kinship selection is an offshoot of individual selection that says that altruism arises out of a willingness to sacrifice individual advantage for the survival of those who share at least part of one's DNA. One evolutionary biologist, when asked if there were anything he would give his life for, answered “Two siblings or eight cousins.”

¹⁴ Among 19th century philosophers, Arthur Schopenhauer was among the first to contend that at its core, the universe is not a rational place. Inspired by Plato and Kant, both of whom regarded the world as being more amenable to reason, Schopenhauer developed their philosophies into an instinct-recognizing and ultimately ascetic outlook, emphasizing that in the face of a world filled with endless strife, we ought to minimize our natural desires for the sake of achieving a more tranquil frame of mind and a disposition towards universal beneficence.

¹⁵ Henri Nouwen was a catholic priest, born in Holland, who spent most of his life in the United States. He was an influential spiritual teacher and social thinker in the 20th century.

¹⁶ Carl Gustav Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology. Jung proposed and developed the concepts of extraversion and introversion; archetypes, and the collective unconscious. His work has been influential in psychiatry and in the study of religion, philosophy, archeology, anthropology, literature, and related fields. He was a prolific writer, many of whose works were not published until after his death.

¹⁷ Irving Yallom is an influential existential therapist of the 20^th century. He wrote about the theory and practice of group and individual therapy as well as a number of novels based on the therapeutic experience.

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Notes on contributors

Theodore M. Godlaski

Theodore M. Godlaski M.Div., CADC,US, is Associate Clinical Professor of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. He spent 23 years doing treatment, program administration, and clinical supervision before coming to the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, Center on Drug and Alcohol Research in 1993. In August of 2002 he moved from the Center on Drug and Alcohol Research to the College of Social Work in order to devote more time to teaching. He is currently a member of the Kentucky Chemical Dependency Counselors Certification Board. He is also an area editor for the journal Substance Use and Misuse (formerly International Journal on the Addictions). He had been involved in treatment outcome and program evaluation research as well as research to develop a treatment approach specifically for rural substance abusers. He was Co-Principle Investigator on a project funded by the Metanexus and Templeton Foundations examining the effectiveness of inclusion of Native Alaskan healing practices in substance abuse treatment. He is currently Evaluator for a SAMHSA funded project to determine the effectiveness of assertive community treatment for homeless individuals who have substance misuse and/or mental health problems. He is published in both referred and professional journals. He presents papers and workshops both nationally and internationally.