This is a very practical book on probably the most important subject there is. Armstrong does a very good job on bridging the personal and the political. This is a book I will keep, to read multiple times. ( )

Began reading with Ruby's bookclub in Dallas, TX; COVID pandemic halted our meetings in late 2019. Book was put on 2023 list for Progressive Group and I finished it. Am now trying to find a way I can implement the 12 steps.

About the author author: quoting from the book's dust jacket: "Karen Armstrong is the author of numerous other books on religious affairs. In February 2008 she was awarded the TED Prize and began working on the Charter for Compassion, , ,The Charter was signed in November 2009 by a thousand religious and secular leaders." About the book: the reviewer for "The Economist," said of this work, "[Armstrong] has delivered something people badly want: a way to acknowledge that faith can be taken seriously as a response to deep human yearnings without needing to subscribe to the formality of organized belief."

This is yet another book that is good but disappointing because it did not live up to my expectations.

I am a big fan of Karen Armstrong. Although she is selective in what she chooses to focus on in her writing, she is still, in my opinion, one of the best religious historians when it comes to writing books that are readable, compassionate, intellectually challenging, and jam packed with information.

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life is, quite intentionally, a very different type of book. It is supposed to be a guide to implementing the ideas in the Charter for Compassion [1] championed by Armstrong. However, Armstrong, the religious historian, seems to have a difficult time communicating the practical.

The book is full of great elements that just don't quite add up to a coherent text. In ~200 pages, Armstrong tries to cover a survey of compassion in different religious traditions, a philosophical discussion of what compassion is and why it is necessary, and a practical plan for increasing the compassion in your life. These threads all get jumbled up, and that makes it hard to pull the value from that book.

In what is both disappointing and supportive of the book's overall value, a lot of the problems were merely organizational. A strong editor who encouraged the use of things like section breaks and parallel structure could have transformed this from an average book to a great book.

All that said, the real value of this book is in practice, not intellectual assent. Armstrong's steps, if applied with appropriate effort, do seem like they would result in a more compassionate self.

The steps do not stand on their own, but for completeness I will list them anyway. Note that some of the steps are sequential while others are not -- this was one of my organizational quibbles with the book (also, the very names of the steps show how much the book could have been improved by an editor with an eye for structure and consistency). The steps: (1) learn about compassion, (2) look at your own world, (3) compassion for yourself, (4) empathy, (5) mindfulness, (6) action, (7) how little we know, (8) how should we speak to one another?, (9) concern for everybody, (10) knowledge, (11) recognition, (12) love your enemies.

And now, it's time to go apply some compassion!

[1] http://charterforcompassion.org/share/the-charter ( )

Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life by Karen Armstrong is most pertinent for the 21st century. Armstrong uses the Golden Rule as the foundation of her discourse on what it means to live compassionately. She envisions twelve steps, but thought that such an approach to one’s life could take a life time. In the introductory remarks to the text readers are introduced to the major faith traditions and their concepts based on compassion.
Later Armstrong weaves these steps carefully by explaining what people ought to do to benefit from them. At each step readers are presented with a discussion about how to use each proposal. These compassionate goals are carefully calibrated, and based on the teachings of the major religions. Although every goal could stand alone, Armstrong though was able to integrate the goals of each proceeding affirmation with her explanations that followed.
This book as a true gift was able to relate each topic to the contemporary issues of the day. Armstrong recognized all of us have problems with which we are struggling. She explained further how important it was for us to transcend the thinking about ourselves and tribe. She wrote that people should reach out to the good and bad alike. We should treat others the way we would like to be treated. This dictum should also include our enemies who are suffering just like us.
Armstrong’s work was formulated like that of the Twelve Steps Program for Alcohol Anonymous. Her vision of compassion grew out of her TED talk in 2008 on compassion for which she won a $100,000 prize. This achievement led her to focus her thinking as a religious historian and interfaith advocate in the promulgation of the Golden Rule and compassionate living in the world. ( )