"The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.
It is also necessary in both public and private life to refrain consistently and empathically from inflicting pain. To act or speak violently out of spite, chauvinism, or self-interest, to impoverish, exploit or deny basic rights to anybody, and to incite hatred by denigrating others—even our enemies—is a denial of our common humanity."
Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong, author, scholar, and journalist, is among the world’s foremost commentators on religious history and culture. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne’s College, Oxford, while in the convent and majored in English. She left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule. She is the author of numerous books on religious affairs, including The Case for God, A History of God, The Battle for God, Holy War, Islam, Buddha and The Great Transformation, as well as a memoir, The Spiral Staircase. Her last book is Sacred Nature: Restoring Our Ancient Bond with the Natural World.
Her work has been translated into forty-five languages
Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public, and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. In 2011 she published Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. The twelve steps Armstrong suggests begin with “Learn About Compassion” and close with “Love Your Enemies.” In between, she takes up “compassion for yourself,” mindfulness, suffering, sympathetic joy, the limits of our knowledge of others, and “concern for everybody.” She suggests concrete ways of enhancing our compassion and putting it into action in our everyday lives, and provides, as well, a reading list to encourage us to “hear one another’s narratives.”
In 2013 Armstrong was awarded the British Academy’s inaugural Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding and in 2017 the Princess of Asturias Prize for Social Sciences. She lives in London.
The schedule
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6.00 - 8.00 p.m.
Opportunity to visit the expo 'COMPASSION' -
8.00 p.m.
Welcome by UCSIA & introduction by Museum MAS -
8.15 p.m.
Lecture by Karen Armstrong (author of ‘Twelve Steps to A Compassionate Life’) -
9.00 p.m.
Interview by Manuela Kalsky (holder of Karen Armstrong Chair, University of Humanistic Studies, Utrecht) -
9.30 p.m.
Ending
