Kevin: In the course of our practice, we may uncover a false dichotomy we’ve been carrying, often unconsciously: that non-dual realization (seeing the non-separate wholeness of, well, everything) rejects personal experience. As though fully embodying compassion, empathy, and love in the relative world requires holding onto a solid, separate “me,” and as though transcending form demands abandoning the richness of interpersonal connection altogether.
Yet as we practice letting thoughts and feelings arise and pass freely—without compiling them into a “me”—we may begin to notice something deeper: the open presence in which all experience unfolds is itself loving and compassionate. When love and compassion are unbound from personal stories, we may discover that the experience of them is at once more intimate and more expansive.
Tonight, we will recruit our imagination to invite ourselves to feel what it is like to be completely seen and accepted unconditionally, and to explore whether this sense of compassion and love is not something we need to generate, but something already and always present—available to be felt, embodied, and expressed. I look forward to practicing with you!