Okay, this is not technically a treatise; it’s more like a few paragraphs about very important ideas that confuse people (me) at times. Many people use compassion and empathy synonymously. They are light years apart in terms of mind/body states. I think we get confused because we practice one to get to the other. We dare to look at the suffering of others (empathy) to awaken this powerful state (compassion) that we scarcely remember. When we practice empathy as a response to witnessing another human suffering, we are relating to that person through similar feelings of suffering. In this way, we awaken our…