The Compassion of the Buddha
The Buddha’s demonstrations of basic sanity were spontaneous. He did not preach or teach in the ordinary sense but, as he unfolded, the energy of compassion and the endless resources of generosity developed within him and people begin to find this out. That kind of activity of the Buddha is the vipashyana or awareness practice that we are attempting. It is realizing that space contains matter, that matter makes no demands on space, and that space makes no demands on matter. It is a reciprocal and open situation. Everything is based on compassion and openness. Compassion is not particularly emotional in the sense that you feel bad that someone is suffering, that you are better than others, and that you have to help them. Compassion is that total openness in which the Buddha had no ground, no sense of territory–so much so that he was hardly an individual. He was just a grain of sand living in the vast desert. Through his insignificance, he became the “world enlightened one,” because there was no battle involved. The dharma he taught was passionless, without aggression.
