When we project forward into an imagined future – a "tele-reality" – this interferes with our natural sanity. When this tele-program is unplugged, empathy, ethical sense, and wisdom grow.
Intro & Guided Meditation: Embodiment is not the visual or notional form of the body, but a domain of sensations, pressures, temperatures, and movements. When attention is turned to this embodied experience and we relax what doesn't need to be activated, calm and sensitivity are naturally generated.
Even when we see how the mind and heart are contracted and caught, we might still be stuck. Seeing clearly how we're identified with the "story" doesn't necessarily reduce the suffering. It's a good and important start. The real shift occurs when, at some point, the heart releases and truly opens to access genuine metta.