The Expanding Awareness Model

This model is the spine of the book. It describes awareness as a sequence of expanding degrees.

what anything feels inside itself, hunger, tension, emotion.

sensing the world outside, light, sound, touch, temperature.

automatic reactions below comprehension, survival impulses.

awareness of now, able to choose actions, limited sense of past or future.

self image plus memory and temporal awareness, the fear of death enters the picture.

awareness beyond the ego, the capacity to imagine another being’s experience and act with care.

"The book argues the jump from ego to empathy is not automatic, it is cognitive, it requires intention, which is why kindness matters."