The afternoon sky was heavy with clouds.
The young man sat on the porch, phone in hand.
He had just read news of a distant disaster — but what weighed on him were the comments beneath it.

Some expressed sorrow.
Some mocked.
Some stayed silent.
Some celebrated.

He turned off the screen and sighed.

The teacher stepped out with a pot of hot tea.

“What did you just see?” he asked.

The young man replied:

“I saw… compassion divided into sides.
People no longer ask ‘Who is hurting?’
They ask, ‘Which side are they on?’”

The teacher nodded.

“That is the fracture of our time.”

He poured tea into two cups.

“What do you think compassion is?” he asked.

The young man thought for a moment.

“It’s feeling another’s pain… as if it were your own.”

The teacher smiled.

“Correct.
But you forget something:
Compassion has no nationality.
No flag.
No side.”

The young man lowered his head.

“But teacher…
on social media, everything is pulled into sides.
A child is hurt — if they belong to ‘our side,’ people care.
If they belong to the ‘other side,’ people stay silent.
I see it… and I feel myself being pulled too.”

The teacher looked at him deeply.

“Look closely:
Who is being pulled?”

The young man closed his eyes.

He searched.
He searched in anger.
He searched in the sense of injustice.
He searched in the urge to take a side.

But there was no “person being pulled.”
Only emotion.
Only reaction.
Only old fears being triggered by new information.

He opened his eyes.

“I… don’t see anyone.”

The teacher nodded.

“Exactly.
There is only emotion being swayed —
no one being swayed.”

He pointed to a falling leaf.

“Look at that leaf.
The wind blows from one side, it tilts that way.
But tilting is not its nature.
It is only reacting.”

The young man watched the leaf drift.

“Your mind is the same,” the teacher said.
“When social media blows its winds,
your mind tilts.
But tilting is not your nature.
Seeing is.”

The young man stayed quiet.

“Compassion is divided only when you forget this:
Pain is pain — no matter whose it is.”

Then he added, with the clarity of Krishnamurti:

“When you see others as human,
not as ‘sides,’
compassion returns naturally.”

The young man closed his eyes again.

He remembered the times he had felt pleasure at someone’s suffering.
The times he stayed silent when he should have cared.
The times he let social media decide his emotions.

He opened his eyes, lighter.

“Teacher…
I want to keep my compassion.
I don’t want it to be pulled away anymore.”

The teacher placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Today, do just one thing:
When you see someone hurting,
don’t ask, ‘Which side are they on?’
Ask:
‘If this were someone I love, how would I feel?’”

The young man nodded.

Not because he had become kinder,
but because he finally understood:

Compassion needs no permission.
No side.
No justification.
It only needs to be seen —
and it will return.