Compassion as a Way of Seeing
Today we’re reflecting on compassion.
Not as an idea, not as an obligation,
but as a way of being in the world…
a way of seeing.
In Buddhist teachings, compassion—karuṇā—is described as “the trembling of the heart.”
The soft, instinctive movement we feel when we encounter suffering—
our own, or someone else’s.
It’s the natural response that arises when we allow ourselves to be touched
instead of turning away.
The great teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says,
“Compassion is a verb.”
Not a feeling to possess,
but a continual choice
to look again,
to soften,
to stay open
even when we would rather turn away and close down.
Compassion isn’t something we manufacture.
It’s something we uncover
each time we let ourselves witness life honestly
—its beauty, its grief, its messiness, and its tenderness.
Sometimes compassion looks like a gentle hand.
Sometimes it looks like saying “no.”
Sometimes it looks like rest.
Sometimes it looks like listening to someone’s story
without trying to fix a single thing.
Let us also consider that
compassion is also the simple act of not abandoning or pulling away from ourselves.
We can be quick to extend softness to others,
and so reluctant to offer that same softness inward.
We judge our own pain.
We rush ourselves through grief.
We brace against the tender parts
that most need our presence.
But compassion begins right where we are.
With this breath.
This body.
This moment.
With whatever we are carrying today—
fear, joy, exhaustion, longing, confusion, hope.
This is compassion.
The small shift that opens a doorway
from resistance to understanding,
from judgment to curiosity,
from distance to a kind of quiet connection.
Compassion doesn’t demand great things from us.
It simply asks that we stay open
to the truth that every living being carries both suffering and beauty,
confusion and wisdom,
fear and hope.
And that we—just by being human—
are capable of meeting one another
with a gentleness that can change things.
May our hearts tremble open.
May our softness become strength.
May we trust that our compassion will ripple outward
in ways we may never fully see
but that will always, always matter.