The heart of the heart

If maitri is the door, karuṇā is the way we walk through it.

Often translated as compassion, karuṇā is more than feeling sorry for someone or offering well wishes from afar. It’s the willingness to be with suffering—our own or someone else’s—with action, presence, and a desire to ease it, even just a little.

In the Sūtras, Patanjali names karuṇā as the second key—an attitude that helps steady the heart in the face of pain.

But compassion isn’t always easy. Especially when we’re overwhelmed, burned out, or numb. Sometimes the weight of the world feels like too much, and we shut down to protect ourselves. Sometimes we meet suffering with judgment instead of care. (“Well, if they had just done X…”)

True karuṇā invites us to stay present.

To soften our armor.

To meet pain with love instead of resistance.

It doesn’t ask us to fix or save—it asks us to be with, honestly and humbly.

Compassion can be soft, but it can also be fierce. It can mean telling the truth. Setting boundaries. Saying no with love. At its core, though, it’s a commitment to respond to suffering with softness.

In practice, karuṇā might look like:

• Letting yourself cry without rushing to “get over it”

• Holding space for someone without offering solutions

• Placing a hand on your body and breathing into the heaviness

• Moving gently and with awareness, honoring whatever tenderness is present

We cultivate karuṇā in the ways we hold each other. In the spaciousness of savasana. In the breath we return to when things feel like too much. It’s a practice of feeling, of staying, of remembering we’re not alone in our pain.