Simon Brown returns for a master class on compassion and how it can never be separated from the deepest insights into the non-dual nature of reality itself.

We talk about how compassion and suffering could matter if this world is a kind of illusion, the distinction between empathy and compassion as it relates to burnout, dorsal and ventral vagal mechanisms related to deep trauma conditioning, the true meaning of Christmas and the holiday season and MUCH more.

Please listen to our previous conversation on awakening and trauma here.

Check out Simon’s YouTube channel here.

Here’s that book by Ally Wise that Simon referenced, Embodied Healing.

Topics and Timecodes:

0:00 Intro

4:05 Trust. Does life NEED planning?

13:07 Non-dual teachers’ absolutism, nature of fixation post-awakening

20:00 Working with reactivity and separation

25:30 Adyashanti’s resonance and retirement, spiritual perfectionism

33:26 Recent retreat insights, feeling everything with compassion

37:30 Learning the language of the heart

41:43 Dzogchen, emptiness and form, manifesting as awake presence

49:27 Nagarjuna, the Middle Way, compassion and acceptance

59:30 The work of unfolding is never finished

1:03:35 Awareness of thought/consciousness as the 6th sense

1:07:15 Why the self is not an enemy, self as a tool to see suffering of others

1:12:59 The true meaning of the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara

1:20:35 Why suffering and compassion MATTER, when unconditional love meets suffering

1:24:05 Compassion vs. Empathy, healthcare professionals, burnout

1:31:28 Simon’s Cat!

1:32:15 Self-compassion, early wounding, the traumatized nervous system

1:43:15 Elephant and rider model of conscious and unconscious mind, trauma

1:44:50 Embodied Health by Ally Wise, ventral and dorsal vagal responses

1:48:50 When child’s basic needs aren’t met, degrees of trauma, co-regulation

1:54:12 Feeling into the primary emotions that trigger thought cascades, the Golden Thread

1:58:44 Compassion and the meaning of Christmas and the holiday season