Is this empathy?

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Let's say someone's crying. You want to know what's wrong. You can't ask. You want to comfort the crying person, but you prefer to give her space. You fear that whatever you say or do can make the situation worse and make yourself appear insensitive, so you stay away from her. You can't bear to see someone in pain, but you don't know what to do. You might even cry a little yourself.

Is this empathy? I read that autistic people don't have empathy, but I think I have it, but I'm not sure what empathy is.

Empathy is the capacity to recognize and understand another person's feelings, and in some cases sympathetically experience them yourself: it sounds to me like you are indeed empathizing to some degree in this case. I've heard that people on the spectrum lack empathy, but I think that might be a bit of misinformation, perhaps it might be accurate to say that people on the spectrum's ability to empathize varies more wildly than NT people (for instance I consider myself to be very empathetic, but know other people on the spectrum that can be unknowingly heartless). The variance may be exactly the same for NTs, however.

I agree but would add that there is also a misperception from those who view aspies. An aspie may well have empathy but may not express that in the way others see as normal. Lots of aspies have empathy but then don't know the appropriate way to act so, for example, will show no emotional response for fear of making the other person feel worse. This is then interpreted as them not having empathy in the first place.

Empathy is easier when the emotional context is obvious. I have less problems recognizing emotions than I do in correctly interpreting why the emotions are being expressed.

An extreme example would be the death of a family member. The cause of all the emotional distress is obvious and I have something to measure my responses against. More commonly, I usually know when something is bothering my wife. I rarely get it right when it comes to what it is that is actually bothering her. And trying to find out what is bothering her results in making it worse with enough regularity that I sometimes think it's better not to try.

I agree with what others have said here. That most of us can indeed experience empathy, but have difficulty in knowing how to respond. I remember when my neighbor's dog died. I could hear her sobbing out in the driveway, but decided to leave by my back door so as not to encounter her. Reason? Wasn't sure what to do or say. I sent her a condolence e-card later on.
But when my boyfriend had to have his dog put to sleep, I fancied that I would be able to handle that OK. When the moment came for the vet to lead the dog away, and my boyfriend broke down crying, I found myself weeping too. So yes, I can experience empathy. In fact, I strongly suspect that I have a wall that I can put up so that I don't get too overwhelmed by the emotions of others.

An example of lack of Empathy.

I'm at work, walking down a hallway and two supervisors are discussing how to tell Rita1 that she has b.o. problems, both of them were trying to pass that task back and forth.
I already had an errand to see Rita1 and overheard the conversations and the following scenario commenced.

Digsy: "I'll tell her if you want, I'm going in there anyway".
Supervisor1: "are you sure, you don't mind".
Digsy: "nah", and I walked into her office.
Digsy: "Hello Rita1, can you sign this document for such and such", hands her the document.
Rita1: "sure, give me a few mins to sort this out".
Whilst she was shuffling through paperwork, I said "do you mind if I say somthing, it is a little personal but I think you should know".
Rita1: "sure what's wrong".
Digsy: "you need to bath more often because the whole building is talking about you, calling you smelly and stuff behind your back".
I was trying to be as honest as possible without being insulting about it, I actually thought I was breaking it too her as gently as possible.
She got up and ran off crying, opened the door and screamed "I bet it was you two that put him up to this", and went home.
I was stood there baffled, I still needed this letter signing.

Yeah, this is empathy, but this also reflects the typical person's with aspergers social phobic mentality.

There is something that makes me wonder if im empathic or not. Whenever i talk to people i filter my words so i dont provoke or hurt them. My ability to understand what might be hurtful must be empathy no? However, when i filter my wording i do it to protect myself instead of a real consern for their feelings. This is evident because in some instances where i don't care about what i say at all. I can even pretend im just ignorant about my bluntness, but i always notice the effect i have. Well in most cases anyway...
Do anyone of you relate to this and is this empathy without sympathy? I never seem to fully grasp the consept of empathy nor get to a conclusion if i have it or not.

I've been having this all the time. I know a few people who cried because of a boyfriend break up. I feel like giving this person a hug, but the question is, does she want a hug? Does she want to talk about it? I know when I'm sad, I just want to be alone, and not talk to people.

I guess I can empathize with people. It's not that I'm socially phobic, it's just that in times like this, I don't know when it's socially appropiate to do "this", and if I have to ask myself, it's very likely no.