Abhik Roy is a Professor in the Communication Studies Department at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles. Please send correspondence to Aroy2@lmu.edu. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful feedback from the two anonymous reviewers, Ronald C. Arnett, Michele L. Hammers, and Gwen Grafft. Cultivating Compassion in Communication Studies Abhik Roy Abstract: The people of the United States and elsewhere who consistently continue to suffer systematic economic, social, and political injustices are often overlooked and unacknowledged in the field of Communication Studies. It is this kind of degrading, humiliating, and marginalizing existence of the “suffering other” that urgently exhorts us to cultivate and practice compassion in our discipline. In this essay, I argue that it is simply not enough to have a social justice focus in Communication Studies. By using Tibetan Buddhist teachings, especially the Dalai Lama’s on compassion, I argue that there is also an important need to augment social justice with attention to the role compassion plays in addressing social injustices from a spiritual perspective in the field of Communication Studies. I also explore some ways compassion can be cultivated in our students. Keywords: Altruism, Buddhism, Compassion, Contemplative Education, Communication Studies, the Dalai Lama, and Meditation. Several scholars in Communication Studies have looked at social malaises from a social justice perspective in exploring ways to make the world a better place to live—one that is based on solidarity, equality, fairness, and justice. Frey, Pearce, Pollock, Artz, and Murphy (1996) whose research focused on social justice issues from a communication studies perspective point out that a communication approach to social justice is based on “engagement with and advocacy for those in our society who are economically, politically, and/or culturally underresourced” (p. 110). Critical scholars in rhetoric have also examined the role of rhetoric in perpetuating or challenging social injustices. In this line of inquiry, rhetorical scholars have informed us as to how to identify and challenge discourses that naturalize power imbalances. 1 In recent times, a whole body of scholarship has emerged in intercultural communication, where one finds scholars articulating the need to make social justice a critical component of intercultural theorizing and research. 2 Like many of their counterparts, Collier, Hegde, Lee, Nakayama, and Yep (2001) believe that our teaching and scholarship in intercultural communication has to remain cognizant of the issues of social justice. Although issues about social justice have been addressed in our discipline, 3 as of now, there is no work in Communication Studies that looks at these ills with particular attention to the spiritual dimensions that position compassion for the “suffering other” as an important part of the inquiry. The people of this nation and elsewhere who continue to suffer systematic economic, social, and political injustices are overlooked and unacknowledged. They often serve as the cultural “other” in our teaching and scholarship. It is this kind of marginalizing existence of the “suffering 1 McGee (1980); McKerrow (1989); Ono & Sloop (1995); Wander and Jenkins (1972), and Wander (1983). 2 See Collier, Hegde, Lee, Nakayama, & Yep (2001); Kandath (2001); Lee (1998); Roy & Starosta (2001); Roy & Oludaja (2009); Santiago-Valles (2003), Sorrells (2013) and Young (1996). 3 See, for example, the works of Frey, et al (1996); Frey and Carragee (2007); Frey and Carragee (2012), and Wood and Cox (1993), among others.