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Entry: compassion
Chinese char: ·OŽd
Explanation:
Three Kinds of Compassion
"1. An Attitude of Loving Compassion. Average persons love and sympathize with those close to them, but not with strangers. Seeing relatives or friends in distress, they exhaust their strength to help them, but when strangers are suffering, they pay no heed to them. Having compassion for those you love is called an attitude of loving compassion.
"There is as well an attitude of loving compassion that extends to those of the same species, but not to those of other species. For example, not only do people have no compassion for animals such as cattle, pigs, chicken, geese, or ducks, but they even go so far as to eat animals' flesh. They snatch away animals' lives in order to nourish their own. This is not a true attitude of loving compassion. Fortunately, people rarely eat each other. They may eat pork, mutton, beef, chicken, duck, and fish, but they don't catch, kill, and eat each other, and so they are a bit better off than animals that turn on members of their own species for food. People may not eat each other, but they certainly have no true attitude of loving compassion towards animals.
"2. Compassion Which Comes From Understanding Conditioned Dharmas. Those of the Small Vehicle have compassion which comes from understanding conditioned dharmas as well as the attitude of loving compassion discussed above. They contemplate all dharmas as arising from causes and conditions, and they know that:
Causes and conditions have no nature;
Their very substance is emptiness.
Contemplating the emptiness of conditioned dharmas, they compassionately teach and transform living beings without being attached to the teaching and transforming. They know that everything is empty.
"3. The Great Compassion Which Comes from Understanding the Identical Substance of All Beings. Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have yet another kind of compassion. The Buddha's Dharma-body pervades all places, and so the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are of one substance with all beings; the Buddha's heart and nature are all pervasive, and all beings are contained within it. We are living beings within the Buddha's heart, and he is the Buddha within our hearts. Our hearts and the Buddha's are the same, everywhere throughout the ten directions--north, east, south, west, the intermediary directions, above, and below. Therefore, the Buddha and living beings are of the same substance, without distinction. This is called the Great Compassion."
(AS 7-8)
Pinyin: ci bei
Sanskrit: maitri, karuna
Pali: metta, karuna
Alternative: kindness, friendliness, benevolence,loving-kindness, love, sympathy.
See Also: love, Four Unlimited Aspects of Mind.
BTTS Ref: AS 7-8.
Last Updated: 12/26/2001 6:12:23 PM EST
Updated by: 66.124.251.162
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