Cultivating Compassion

We cultivate a compassion that encompasses all beings, not just the ones that are suffering in a visible way. No one is free from the troubles of living, so we must direct compassion toward everyone, taking care that the nature of our compassion remains impartial, without degenerating into the type of blind emotions that compel us to act. Compassion has to be imbued with intelligence. Just caring for others is no guarantee that our intentions will be expressed wisely. We therefore make a distinction between ordinary forms of compassion and that one that is motivated by bodhichitta, the latter being called “great compassion” (Skt. maha-karuna; Tib. snying rje chen po).

The necessary condition for this transformation is the recognition that it’s just as important to think about love and compassion as it is to do loving and compassionate acts. We shouldn’t underestimate the importance of this thought of love and compassion. We will never be able to engage in compassionate acts until we accustom ourselves to a radically different way of thinking. We generally understand the word compassion to mean something like “suffering with others,” but that is definitely not the Buddhist understanding. Buddhism defines compassion as wishing that others “may be free from suffering and the cause of suffering,” and we generate compassion by imagining that people are in fact free of their physical ailments and mental torments. As Shantideva so eloquently describes:

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,
A guide for those who journey on the road.
For those who wish to go across the water,
May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.
May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,
And a lamp for those who long for light;
For those who need a resting place, a bed;
For all who need a servant, may I be their slave.