As a Buddhist monk, I try to develop compassion myself, not just from a religious point of view, but from a humanitarian one as well. To encourage myself in this altruistic attitude, I sometimes find it helpful to imagine myself, a single individual, on one side and on the other a huge gathering of all other human beings. Then I ask myself, "Whose interests are more important?" To me it is then quite clear that, however important I may feel, I am only one, while others form the majority.