Principles

Our guiding principles behind the work at CEC

Compassion is key:

All living beings are worthy of and in need of compassion, respect, & understanding. 

Context matters:

All living beings exist within contexts. Acknowledging and understanding these contexts is key to practicing compassion for individual beings. 

Compassion is an action:

Compassion can most productively be thought of as an act or behavior that we (as individuals, small groups, or large groups) embody and choose. 

Behavior is caused:

Principles of behavior are universal. All beings are influenced by and influencing the individuals and systems that they interact with. 

Truth/ reality is unfolding:

An evolutionary view of life helps us to understand how reality has evolved and is continuing to evolve. 

Human capacity:

Human beings are unique amongst known living beings in our capacity for cognition & symbolic language. This presents innumerable challenges and opportunities for us and the contexts we inhabit. One unique opportunity is the opportunity to participate in our evolution toward what we value.

Human responsibility to care:

Human beings have the responsibility to care for themselves, each other, and the contexts they inhabit from the most local (micro) to the most global (macro). We can spread compassion. Once we understand this, we understand that we must spread compassion.

For a deeper dive into the frameworks behind these principles, click here.