Empathy and Compassion are closely related but not the same thing.

However, without empathy there is no compassion.

We feel empathy in our bodies. It can only be felt by our bodies and not by our minds. While our minds can sympathize with anything it certainly fails to empathize with anything. Since we can only empathize with our bodies, it can only be felt if we care to go inside ourselves and see both within and without at the same time.

We also feel compassion in the body. Our minds can not be compassionate. Never – because any mind would never stop asking ‘why.’ But springing from empathy, compassion is both a ‘feeling in the body’ and an ‘action through our bodies.’ Again it is not a ‘mind thing’. Trying to be compassionate through our minds is at best an embarrassing effort that leads to delusion.