The Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) protocol is a secular course that was developed by the Center for Compassion \& Altruism Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford University, School of Medicine (Jinpa, 2013). The course was developed by Thupten Jinpa, PhD, in collaboration with contemplative scholars, psychologists, and scientist at Stanford. The goal of CCT is to provide a structured and systematic way of cultivating daily-life skills needed to strengthen qualities of compassion, empathy, and kindness for oneself and others. CCT typically includes (i) eight weekly 2-hour classes and (ii) daily practice. The in-class activities include pedagogical instruction and active group discussion, guided meditation, interactive practical exercises, and sharing of inspiring readings/stories to prime feelings of open-heartedness or connection to others. The daily practice includes both formal and informal practices. Participants are provided with formal guided meditations that are 15 to 30 minutes long in the form of MP3 or cds. Participants may receive practices and instructions via email with a link to the location of the MP3. They will be provided with practice logs to report their amount of practice as well as some basic observations to the research team. In the present study, we will follow the official CCT manual. The training is composed of 8 sessions, which can be delivered in 7-10 weeks.
