The compassion we are talking about here is so much about an absence: its a space where there isn’t finger wagging, fixing, or judgement. This whole egoic perspective is invited to quiet down for a moment. And something else is invited forth - a basic warmth and respect for whatever comes up - whatever shape it takes. The feeling is less like sitting down in front of a butterfly and saying “I accept you” and more like letting our awareness be an open space in which butterflies fly freely, unrestricted by any kind of should. Along with butterflies: rage, terror, disgust, deepest grief. Everything given room.

We’re speaking here of leaning into the kind of warmth and compassion that stays steady when things get really uncomfortable. The kind of compassion that doesn’t get fall away when some inner vandal jumps up and starts smashing windows. When things get a little crazy…that’s where stillness and compassion have so much transformative power. That’s what we’re here for.

We’re speaking here of accessing the wisdom of the body. But how deep does that go? We’re speaking here of accessing all the wisdom that lies outside ordinary mind - intuition, the whispering of instinct, openness to messages from something “greater than ourselves”. The felt sense of the body can be the place through which we expand past the loops of our ordinary mind to find something radically, awesomely new.

Here’s the Ground from where it can become possible to stay open-hearted, even when triggered - even when confronted with something we find gruesome of bad.

So - we stay open - still. Listening: for the depth of our own inner wisdom and grace. And we stay open to notice a kind of primordial dignity beneath all our anxieties and perceived shortcomings. From this place - this ground of being - we may notice how infinitely worthy we are. Not broken. Not irredeemably bad or wounded. And this becomes the place from which we can meet the world and all its sorrows with a renewed sense of grace and agency.

This ain’t “healing on demand”. We slow down and offer a space for healing to happen at its own pace - like a seed slowly pushing through the soil or fruit ripening slowly on the vine. Some things can’t be rushed…

Empathy in Rosenberg's NVC framework is about fully connecting with another person's emotional state and understanding their needs without judgment or offering advice. It involves a deep level of listening and presence that goes beyond mere acknowledgment of the other person's feelings. Empathy in NVC is active and engaging; it involves guessing at another's feelings and needs and reflecting them back to ensure understanding and connection.

Sympathy, on the other hand, while also an expression of concern, tends to involve feeling pity for another person but from a distance. It often places the sympathizer in a superior position, looking down on the situation rather than standing in it. Sympathy can sometimes lead to disconnection rather than connection because it might not engage with the depth of the emotional experience of the other person. It may come with an implied judgment or a sense of separation between the giver and the receiver of sympathy.

The body - our somatic sense - offers an incredible entry point into the non-dual orientation. Muscle and bone doesn’t hold judgement: the wisdom of the body reflects the wisdom of nature.

It seems many of the non-dual traditions ask us to simply “stop” - dropping directly from ordinary chattering mind to shimmering silence. Some of the tools drawn from somatic therapy techniques offer a less abrupt transition into stillness: moving through consciousness like wading slowly into the ocean. Rather than dropping into the ocean from from a hovering helicopter, and then feeling sucked back into the sky a moment later.

When the mind slows down and roots - even a little - in Stillness, we begin to notice it as very expansive. And then it may happen we notice it’s too big too fit inside our own head: random thoughts and ancient feelings are rising and falling in the same space as the pine tree across the street. No boundary between. Sharing this Endless body has no benefit for the self. But peace, ease, some kind of nectar in the heart…these are part of this orientation as much as bears and trees are part of a forest.