If you are doing mindfulness meditation, you are doing it with your ability to attend to the moment.

Empathy and social skills are social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence. That's why they look alike.

Emotions are contagious. We've all known it experientially. You know after you have a really fun coffee with a friend, you feel good. When you have a rude clerk in a store, you walk away feeling bad.

The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth. It continues to shape itself through life, with the most intense growth occurring during childhood.

Happy, calm children learn best

The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I'd say that compassion begins with attention.

We learn best with focused attention. As we focus on what we're learning, the brain maps that information on what we already know making new neural connections