Compassion is what enables us to come close to suffering, to know through intimacy. When we get that close, the illusion of “I and other” falls away. We know ourselves to be part of this web of mutuality. Wisdom shows us that the small, bounded sense of separate self we have taken ourselves to be is no more than a limiting story. When separation falls away, we recognize that we are everything. Being everything, compassion is simply an appropriate response, the natural way to serve and love what is really our whole selves, and to express its freedom.
