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Dr. Joseph Dillard is a psychotherapist with over forty year's clinical experience treating individual, couple, and family issues. Dr. Dillard also has extensive experience with pain management and meditation training. The creator of Integral Deep Listening (IDL), Dr. Dillard is the author of over ten books on IDL, dreaming, nightmares, and meditation. He lives in Berlin, Germany. See: integraldeeplistening.com and his YouTube channel. He can be contacted at: [email protected]

SEE MORE ESSAYS WRITTEN BY JOSEPH DILLARD

What Spirituality Doesn't Get About Compassion

And Why it Matters

Joseph Dillard

Spirituality tends to emphasize compassion. Wilber's Integral AQAL certainly does. However, spirituality tends to not give cooperation so much oxygen. Why not? What are the consequences of that choice? Let's look at the relationship between compassion and cooperation and see why their relationship is important for spirituality.

What Is Compassion?

Compassion is the ability to recognize someone else's suffering and feel moved to help alleviate it. It's often described as “empathy in action,” not just feeling for someone, which is the majority definition of empathy, but wanting to do something about it. The word itself comes from Latin: com (with) and pati (to suffer), literally meaning “to suffer with.” It's a blend of emotional resonance and a motivation toward kindness or support, whether through a comforting word, a helping hand, or simply being present.

Roots of Compassion

Compassion has deep biological, psychological, and cultural roots. Evolutionary psychologists argue compassion evolved as a survival mechanism. Helping others in a group, like sharing food or protecting the vulnerable, strengthened social bonds, or boosting collective survival. Mirror neurons in the brain, which fire when we see others in pain, hint at a hardwired capacity for this. Oxytocin, the “bonding hormone,” often spikes during compassionate acts, reinforcing the instinct.

On a psychological level, compassion is associated with emotional intelligence. It builds on the self-awareness that knowing your own feelings indicates, and extends to the tuning into others that is known as “social awareness.” Psychologists like Paul Gilbert link it to the “soothing system” in our brains, balancing fight-or-flight with care and connection. In the cultural and spiritual domains, every major religion or philosophy champions compassion. Buddhism calls it karuna, a cornerstone of enlightenment. Christianity frames it through Jesus' teachings, like the Good Samaritan. In Confucianism, ren (humaneness) reflects a similar ideal. The Upanishads and Stoicism view compassion not just as an instinct but as a cultivated virtue that we refine through practice.

Benefits of Compassion

Studies, like those from the Greater Good Science Center, show compassionate acts reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. It shifts focus outward, quieting self-obsession. Lower blood pressure and boosted immunity have been linked to altruistic behavior, possibly via reduced cortisol. Helping others triggers dopamine and serotonin, the brain's feel-good chemicals.

Compassion also deepens trust and connection. When you show compassion, people feel seen, fostering loyalty and intimacy. It fuels cooperation and reduces conflict in society. Communities tend to rally together after disasters, with shared suffering sparks collective resilience. Research by sociologist Jonathan Haidt, suggests compassion is a glue for moral societies, encouraging fairness and care over division.

The importance of compassion pervades our culture and education. The Dalai Lama has stated, “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” This reflects his view that compassion is a win-win, benefiting all involved. The great humanitarian, Albert Schweitzer said, “The only thing of importance, when we depart, will be the traces of compassion we have left behind.” Mother Teresa stated, “I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.” Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Compassion and nonviolence help us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves.”

What Is Cooperation?

What is cooperation and what is its relationship to compassion? Cooperation is when individuals work together toward a shared goal, often benefiting the group or all involved, even if it means setting aside some immediate self-interest. It's the ant colony building a nest, wolves hunting in a pack, or humans teaming up to launch a rocket. At its core, compassion involves collective effort, whether driven by instinct, strategy, or mutual goodwill. It can range from fleeting alliances, like strangers holding a door, to lifelong partnerships, like a family or community.

Cooperation in Evolutionary Theory

Darwin's theory of natural selection emphasizes survival of the fittest, which might make cooperation seem counterintuitive. Why help others at your own expense? Yet, cooperation has a solid evolutionary basis, explained through kin and group selection, direct and indirect reciprocity, and mutualism.

Proposed by W.D. Hamilton, kin selection is based on the concept of “inclusive fitness.” You are more likely to cooperate with close relatives because they share your genes. Helping your sibling or child survive boosts the odds of your genetic legacy continuing. Bees, most of whom are sisters, sacrifice themselves for the hive. Darwin speculated that groups with cooperative members might outcompete selfish ones. If a tribe of cooperative hunters thrives while a band of lone wolves starves, the trait spreads. David Sloan Wilson argued that selection can act on groups, not just individuals. Robert Trivers showed cooperation pays off when you expect to interact again. If I help you today, you might help me tomorrow. Vampire bats do this. They share blood with hungry roost-mates, who later return the favor. This is survival through mutual back-scratching, assuming trust holds.

There is also evolutionary evidence for indirect reciprocity. If you help someone now, your reputation rises, making others more likely to help you later. This scales up in social species like humans, where gossip and status track who's cooperative, building a network of goodwill. Mutualism occurs when cooperation benefits all involved instantly. Lions team up to take down prey too big for one, with the result that all eat. This is less altruistic and more pragmatic, fitting Darwin's framework in that it boosts survival. Over time, natural selection favors secondary traits like empathy, communication, and even guilt, which grease the wheels of cooperation, which, like survival of the fittest, is fundamental to adaptation and evolution.

Cooperation and Reciprocity

While cooperation and reciprocity are closely related, they are not identical. Reciprocity is a key engine of cooperation, especially in non-kin scenarios. While direct reciprocity builds trust in repeated interactions, since if I scratch your back I know that you'll scratch mine, indirect reciprocity, in which I help you to increase the likelihood that someone else might help me when I need it, extends reciprocity to larger groups. Both direct and indirect reciprocity recognize that cooperation is mutual.

However, not all cooperation requires reciprocity. Ken selection does not require reciprocity. Parents do not expect their kids to “pay them back” genetically. Mutualism does not require reciprocity either. Its benefits are immediate and shared. Acts like donating to strangers or volunteering, driven by empathy or cultural norms, can defy strict reciprocity.

In evolutionary terms, reciprocity keeps cooperation from collapsing. Without it, freeloaders could exploit the system, making altruism unsustainable. Game theory models, like the Prisoner's Dilemma, show that strategies like cooperating first, then mirror your partner, outcompete pure selfishness or blind generosity over time. Cooperation also fosters reciprocity, and reciprocity reinforces cooperation. A group that starts cooperating, say, to fend off predators, might develop norms of give-and-take, which then solidify the habit across generations.

Is cooperation more foundational than compassion?

We have seen that cooperation has strong evolutionary grounding in the form of kin selection, reciprocity, and mutualism. This indicates cooperation is a survival tactic baked into social species. Compassion is less directly tied to immediate survival. It's more of a “nice-to-have” that builds on social structures cooperation already sustains. While cooperation often implies a tangible give-and-take, whether it's hunting together or trading goods, compassion can be unilateral. You can feel and act on it without expecting anything back. Cooperation is more foundational as a relational exchange because it is inherently interactive, while compassion can stand alone.

Regarding ethics and morality, cooperation is foundational for group survival, so it is a component of proto-ethics, like fairness or trust. Since you need a group to even have ethics or morality, since morality is relational by nature, cooperation provides the structure necessary for ethical relationships in the exterior collective world, while compassion reflects intent in the interior and individual dimensions of life.

Cooperation as more foundational, compassion as more abstract

Compassion is less dependent on empathy than cooperation is on mutual effort. Compassion can exist without cooperation, without reciprocity or mutuality. You can comfort a stranger without any expectation of payback. Cooperation, by contrast, demands at least two players. Cooperation is fundamental to trade, labor division, contracts and all aspects of economic exchange. It is the economic engine while compassion plays a supportive role. You can run a business without compassion, but not without cooperation. Cooperation is concrete: you see it in actions, outcomes, handshake deals. Compassion's effects can be profound but harder to pin down. How do you quantify “feeling with” someone?

However, both function as social glue, strengthening bonds. Cooperation keeps groups cohesive through shared effort while compassion does so through shared feeling. Cooperation has direct Darwinian drivers in survival via teamwork while compassion depends on empathy, which aids group harmony. Both trace back to social survival. Both support morality. Cooperation is foundational to fairness and reciprocity to social norms. Compassion generates kindness and altruism. Ethical principles like the Golden Rule integrate both. Both increase a sense of well-being. Cooperation yields collective success while compassion lifts mental health, reduces stress and supports connection.

Differences Between Cooperation and Compassion

Cooperation is hardwired, practical, and inescapable to social life in a world where no one survives alone. It's the “how” of getting things done together. Compassion is less mandatory, more aspirational, adding depth and warmth to cooperation. Cooperation builds the village; compassion makes it worth living in. Regarding work and commerce, cooperation is non-negotiable, while compassion is a bonus. However in ethics, cooperation and compassion are interdependent. Cooperation creates the context compassion elevates it beyond mere utility.

Ways Over-Emphasizing Compassion Can Sabotage Spirituality

When compassion dominates, self-validation can come from rescuing others. Altruism and emotional generosity are mistaken for spiritual depth, leading to stagnation in personal development. This is a common condition for health professionals. They burn out as a result of giving more than they get back, with that giving driven by a desire to have others validate their worth. This is called “rescuing” within the framework of the Drama Triangle. In Buddhism, compassion (karuna) pairs with wisdom (prajna). Overdo compassion without wisdom, and you might enable dependency or miss the root causes of suffering, like ignorance or attachment, stunting your own growth and theirs.

Compassion can devolve into virtue signaling and a way to validate one's self-image as a spiritual person. Emotional warmth can take precedence over confrontation of the hard truths of life. Jesus showed compassion but also flipped tables and spoke harsh truths. If you only lean on “love thy neighbor” without the discipline of moral standards of behavior, you get a shallow, syrupy version of the divine.

Overdone compassion can also blur healthy boundaries, leading, as we have seen, to burnout, indiscriminate giving, or the shallow altruism of philanthropy as a tax shelter or status builder. True spirituality often involves discernment, knowing when to help, when to step back, and how to align with a larger purpose beyond immediate feelings. In Taoism, the natural flow (wu wei) isn't about endless compassion but balance. Helping too much disrupts harmony as much as neglect does. Pouring compassion into every situation ignores Tao's call for restraint.

If compassion becomes the priority over cooperation or structure in interpersonal relationships, it can weaken the communal backbone of spirituality. Groups, whether congregations or sanghas, thrive on mutual effort and shared discipline, not just one-way care. Over-compassion might coddle rather than challenge, eroding collective strength. In Confucianism, harmony comes from cooperative roles, not just empathy. Over-focusing on compassion could unravel the system of duties that underpins spiritual order.

An over-emphasis on compassion can paint the divine, or ultimate reality, as purely benevolent, ignoring its complexity. Many traditions see the sacred as fierce, just, or indifferent too,as in Kali in Hinduism and Old Testament wrath of Yahweh. Fixating on compassion risks a lopsided theology. In mystical traditions like Sufism, love and compassion are key, but so is annihilation of the self before God's vastness. Overplaying compassion might dodge that humbling surrender.

Compassion can keep you tethered to the human, emotional plane, while spirituality often aims beyond, toward the infinite, the absolute, or the impersonal. While subtle level mysticism as well as devotional religion focus on compassion, other forms of mysticism, whether nature, formless, or non-dual, do ot. In Advaita Vedanta, compassion is noble but secondary to realizing non-dual unity with Brahman. Obsessing over others' pain might entangle you in illusion (maya) instead of liberating you. Over-emphasizing compassion can anchor you in suffering rather than lifting you past it. Spiritual drama.

Compassion's allure is undeniable. It feels righteous, aligns with moral instincts, and offers instant connection. But spirituality isn't just about feeling good or being good; it's a multidimensional pursuit, integrating mind, body, spirit, and community. Over-emphasizing compassion can tip this balance, privileging emotion over discipline, others over self, or immediacy over eternity. It's like overwatering a plant—well-intentioned but drowning the roots.

If spirituality over-emphasizes compassion, it might neglect the cooperative frameworks, the rituals, traditions, and mutual accountability that sustain it long-term. Cooperation builds the temple; compassion decorates it. Overdo the latter, and the former crumbles.

In the West, an emphasis on charity and human rights creates a humanistic compassion-bias. This can make Western spirituality softer and less resilient than, say, China's cooperation-driven harmony. Globally, this tends to skew spiritual evolution toward individualism over interdependence.

The point is not “either/or,” but “both/and.” It's not either compassion or cooperation but a spiritual focus on making sure cooperation exists as a stable and reliable foundation for genuine compassion. Spirituality thrives when it's paired with wisdom, effort, and a wider lens. Over-emphasizing it risks a feel-good mirage that collapses under scrutiny or hardship, sabotaging the deeper quest for meaning, connection, or liberation.

Community Over Individual Transcendence:

If cooperation is primary, spirituality becomes less about personal enlightenment and more about co-creating sacred bonds. Think about your own preferred approach to spirituality. Which does it emphasize? Many spiritual traditions emphasize collective practices, such as rituals, sanghas, or congregations. For example, in Christianity, the church as a “body of believers” relies on cooperative effort, with compassion as a guiding virtue but not the structure itself. Spiritual growth might then be approached more as interdependent action, like prayer circles or group meditation than on compassion-driven solitude, like a hermit's empathy for the world.

Ethics Grounded in Reciprocity

Cooperation's evolutionary roots in reciprocity could reframe spiritual ethics. Instead of compassion and unconditional love as the ultimate ideal, fairness and mutual support become the foundation. In Hinduism, dharma often involves cooperative roles within family and society, with compassion as a byproduct rather than the starting point. Spiritual teachings might prioritize “we rise together,” aligning morality with practical interdependence, over “I feel for you.”.

The Divine as Cooperative Force

If cooperation becomes the priority instead of compassion, the divine might be seen less as a boundless well of empathy or a merciful God and more as a coordinating naturalistic intelligence enabling harmony. Pantheistic views, like in Taoism, where the Tao flows through all things in balance, could align with this, emphasizing cooperation between yin and yang over pure compassion. Spiritual practices might focus on aligning with a universal rhythm of give-and-take, rather than cultivating a one-way outpouring of care.

Compassion as Secondary Grace

Compassion remains vital, but it's not the foundation. In Buddhism, karuna is a noble quality, but the Eightfold Path relies on cooperative effort within the sangha to reach enlightenment. Cooperation sets the context of spiritual development while compassion refines it. Spiritual seekers might see compassion as a higher-order achievement, unlocked only after mastering cooperative living.

China as an example

In several important ways, China's Confucian humanism and taoistic naturalism value cooperation over compassion. These may help explain why China seems so inscrutable to Western minds as well as why in significant ways China is currently growing while the West is not. These ways in which traditional Chinese society and culture value cooperation over compassion include its cultural foundations of Confucianism, Taoism, and collectivism, its state policy, and worldview.

Regarding its cultural foundations, Confucianism has historically emphasized relational harmony (he) and duty-based roles, including filial piety and loyalty over individual emotional states like compassion. Order is maintained through cooperation within family, community, and state. Ren, humaneness, is a structured virtue, not a spontaneous outpouring of empathy. Taoism is fundamentally about achieving and maintaining harmony with nature through understanding and cooperation with its natural flows. Consequently, a tilt toward cooperation is supported by China's two indigenous cultural traditions.

China's cultural DNA leans collective, valuing group cohesion over individual sentiment. Cooperation in familial obligations and economic partnerships is fundamental, while compassion, though present, often serves this larger system rather than standing alone. Westerners often assume Chinese collectivism dates from its adoption of communism, but the inverse is correct. China's culture and society was inherently collectivist and it adopted communism because it put its traditional values in a modern economic and political context.

State Policy

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and humanitarian aid projects or disaster relief, focus on bilateral cooperation, infrastructure, and win-win mutual benefit. China's economic policy has little to do with foreign aid as charity or unilateral compassion and more about strategic partnerships. For instance, aid to Gaza or Africa often ties to diplomatic or economic goals, not just alleviating suffering. Contrast this with Western humanism, rooted in Judeo-Christian compassion and Enlightenment individualism, where aid might prioritize moral duty or universal rights, sometimes independent of reciprocity.

Worldview differences

China's poverty alleviation campaign over the last forty years has lifted more people out of abject poverty than ever before in history. However, Chinese compassion tends to be framed as a state-orchestrated duty, not as an abstract ideal. Compassion in China is channeled through cooperative familial, societal, and international frameworks rather than celebrated as a standalone virtue. China's “Ecological Civilization” and “human community with a shared future” rhetoric blend naturalism, as living in sync with nature, with cooperation through global connectivity. Compassion definitely is an important value within China.

Does This Emphasis on Cooperation Have Relevance to China's Current Success?

China's economic, geopolitical, and technological rise owes much to this cooperation-first mindset, especially compared to Western humanism's blend of compassion, individualism, and rights-based values. Major reasons why it has become an economic powerhouse is because it views commerce as cooperation, not as competition, with that cooperation not mediated by compassion-driven NGOs, as it often is in the West. The BRI, spanning 70+ countries, exemplifies China's ability to turn cooperation into economic leverage. By building ports, roads, and rails, China secures trade routes and resource access, prioritizing mutual benefit over altruistic aid. This contrasts with Western models, where aid from the IMF or World Bank often comes with strings like democratic reforms that can generate governmental and societal resistance and stall projects. Because China often cooperates directly with governments, bypassing Western-led multilateral systems, it can execute massive projects, like high-speed rail in Africa fast, versus slower, compassion-driven NGO efforts.

China's focus on reciprocal partnerships with the Global South that are rooted in shared development, not pity, has won it allies and increased its geopolitical influence. The 2020 surge in COVID-19 aid to 150+ countries wasn't just compassion; it was a cooperative opportunity, filling gaps left by a retreating U.S.

Western humanism's emphasis on universal values, like human rights, can clash with sovereign priorities elsewhere, alienating nations like India or Saudi Arabia. China's cooperation sidesteps these tensions, offering “no interference” deals that resonate.

The cooperation ethic of Chinese means that most are willing to cooperate with the government's top down planning. Even when the West's motives are imperial, such as accessing Iraqi and Syrian oil, it tends to wrap them in compassion-driven narratives of human rights and creating democracies. This has the effect of undercutting trust and willingness to cooperate with the West.

Comparison to Western Humanism and Geopolitical Behavior

Western humanism is grounded in an ideology of compassion growing out of Christian charity and Kantian dignity as well as individual rights. It drives policies like refugee resettlement or sanctions for human rights abuses, which can lead to overreach and inconsistency. By prioritizing cooperation, China sidesteps moral crusades, appealing to nations wary of Western judgment. Its geopolitical appearance in BRI and BRICS and its non-interfering behavior, projects power through utility, not ideology, extending its global influence at the expense of the West.

Further Implications for Spirituality

China's cooperation-first approach frames spirituality primarily as a communal endeavor that is less about personal salvation and more about aligning with Tian, and cosmic order. For Taoist flow and Confucian harmony, compassion is a byproduct of cooperative balance, not the goal. Unlike Buddhism or Christianity, where compassion as karuna or agape is divine, China's spirituality elevate he (harmony) as the sacred force. State rituals replace personal transcendence. China's influence could shift global spirituality toward cooperative models, including interfaith alliances, ecological unity and challenge the West's focus on individual soul-searching.

The growing influence of China's cooperation primacy implies a global shift in Wilber's quadrants away from the “I” interior individual quadrant and toward the “We (culture) and “It's” (systems) quadrants. Personal and collective development then becomes reframed around relationships and collective structures rather than compassion-driven inner growth. It also implies a renewed emphasis on the fundamental relational exchanges and early tribal and ethnocentric stages in order to build a foundation of cooperation before worldcentric compassion kicks in. Higher stages may look more like planetary collaboration on health and climate instead of universal empathy. This would be a major shift from a competitive win/lose model with its origins in Greek Olympic competitions and Roman conquests to more of pragmatic, economic, and transactional model based on mutual respect and reciprocity rather than compassion.

Implications for Integral Theory

Cooperation's evolutionary and practical dominance elevates the “We” and “Its” quadrants of shared culture and social structures, over the “I” quadrant, where compassion often starts as a felt experience. Development prioritizes collective evolution, cooperative norms, and teamwork over individual depth of emotion, objectivity, and consciousness. Compassion becomes a fruit of a healthy “We,” not its seed.

Developmental Stages Reordered

Egocentric, ethnocentric, worldcentric, and kosmocentric stages track growth in consciousness. Cooperation's primacy suggests the early tribal and ethnocentric stages are more foundational and persistent. Group survival through mutual effort as foundational relational exchanges become prioritized over later worldcentric compassion and care for all beings. Even at higher stages, cooperation might manifest as global collaboration rather than universal empathy. Integral growth might measure maturity by how well one cooperates across scales of family, nation, and planet rather than how deeply one feels for others.

Lines of Development

Cognitive, moral, self, interpersonal and other developmental lines would shift in their priorities. While the cognitive line would still lead in personal development, the moral line leading in interpersonal development would become a higher priority. Cooperation, as in teamwork skills or reciprocal ethics could dominate interpersonal and moral lines. Compassion might lag in the emotional line, emerging later as a refinement. A fully integral person would then be understood to be one who excels at cooperation and coordination first, with compassion as a bonus, not a prerequisite.

Systems Over Sentiment

The “Its” quadrant, where social systems, economies, moral behavior and the administration of justice reside, thrives on cooperation. Commerce, governance, and science all depend on it. Compassion enhances these but isn't the engine. In integral terms, this suggests the external, collective (Its) domain might drive progress more than the interior, subjective ones (I, We). A concrete current example of this is how Elon Musk's emphasis on looking at the foundational data behind government spending in order to increase transparency and accountability, is very much an exterior quadrant emphasis. It does not assume or rely on personal or governmental intent. It doesn't care how compassionate the motives of government officials are. Instead, it asks, “What is the relationship between intent and behavior?” As with law, this places emphasis on tracking actual cooperation in the exterior collective quadrant. Following this priority, integral theory might lean toward systemic solutions and cooperative policies over cultivating personal virtues like compassion, flipping the usual spiritual bias toward inner work.

Synthesis: Cooperation as the Frame, Compassion as the Color

Cooperation then becomes the practical backbone of spirituality, how we connect, build, and align with the divine or each other. Compassion adds depth, meaning, and transcendence, but it's not the starting point. A spiritual life grounded in cooperation might look like a disciplined community effort, with compassion as the glow that makes it sacred. Cooperation anchors the collective quadrants and early developmental stages for a revised, synthesized integral, suggesting human evolution is first about mastering interdependence. Compassion emerges as a higher-order expression, integrating the system once it's stable.

If cooperation is primary, spirituality and integral theory shift from being compassion-centric, with an emphasis on personal enlightenment, healing, and feeling, to cooperation-centric and much more about functioning and co-evolving. Compassion is not diminished but rather repositioned as a flower that blooms from cooperative soil, not the root itself. Practically, this could mean spiritual practices and integral models focus more on building resilient, collaborative systems, like global alliances or ecovillages, over fostering individual empathy as the endgame.