The Online Gatherings have been considering the ground of compassion. What is needed for us to experience a free and natural flow of compassion – of feeling (-passion) with (com-) – in our practice and lives?

Two developments come to mind.

In general, compassion’s flow is facilitated by a sense of embodiment that includes a deep connection with the web of being. Through slowing down, surrendering, and settling, we become more fully aware of our relatedness with beings seen and unseen, living and past, human and other than human, known and unknown.

In developing this sense of community, it is helpful to understand our practice instructions not simply as stepping stones to be moved through as quickly as possible whilst moving toward our ‘goal’. More specifically, the stream of ‘feeling with’ moves more fluidly when we engage meditation instructions as stepping stones and portals: gateways that invite us into the living experience waiting behind/within terms such as ‘slow down’, ‘surrender’, and ‘settle’.

In recent months, then, the Online Gathering’s have been reminded that compassion’s flow is aided by two complimentary understandings of meditation instructions, and by an increasingly subtle and inclusive experience of community, of ‘in common-ness’.