Empathy, in the most general sense, is the basic affective capacity by which we comprehend another person’s experience; accordingly, it underlies all of the particular feelings and emotions we have for others. In this lecture I examine the human experience of empathy from the perspectives of cognitive science, phenomenological philosophy, and Buddhist contemplative psychology. I argue that human experience depends (formatively and constitutively) on the dynamic coupling of self and other in empathy, and that both phenomenology and contemplative psychology disclose a relational intersubjectivity prior to the reified constructs of “self” and “other.” Finally, I suggest that for the dialogue between science and contemplative experience to move forward, cognitive science needs to grow beyond its traditional antipathy to first-person experience by incorporating first-person methods directly into its empirical research.