“Mahā-compassion (the great compassion).”

“Mahā-compassion (the great compassion).”

Question:  “In Mahayana tradition, they talk about mahā-compassion, the great compassion. How does that differ from practicing mettā?”

Than Ajahn:  “The great compassion is only practiced by the Buddha and his noble disciples by giving the real Dhamma, the Dhamma that will really take effect upon the hearts of the people who listen to this Dhamma. And they don’t charge you any money.

The Buddha gave Dhamma talks three times a day.  In the afternoon, he gave Dhamma to laypeople. At night he gave it to the monks. And then late at night, before he went to sleep, he gave a talk to the divine beings, the devādas. This is his normal daily routine. No one can give Dhamma like the Buddha can. It is because his Dhamma can make people become totally free from suffering.

For us, all we could do is giving money or giving material things to alleviate or get rid of the physical suffering. But we could not get rid of the mental suffering that people have because we don’t know how to do it. The Buddha and his noble disciples know how to get rid of the mental suffering. And getting rid of the mental suffering is a lot more important than getting rid of physical suffering.

Physical suffering is only temporarily. You only experience it when you are still alive. When you die, the physical suffering is gone. But mental suffering is experienced by you forever because the mind never dies. So, this is what they meant by the great compassion. It’s only can be done by the Buddha and by the enlightened people because they know how to get rid of the mental suffering, the eternal suffering that we are going through.”

Question:  “So, mahā-compassion is not measured by the quantity we give, like giving ten thousand baht or one thousand baht, but it’s more of the Buddha’s mind, right?”

Than Ajahn:  “Yes, in terms of the result that you can deliver to that person. For us, we can only deliver the physical relief from suffering, we cannot release the mental suffering of other people. The Buddha could release us from the mental suffering. That’s why it’s called great compassion because our mental suffering is so great.

We’ve been going through the realm of rebirth countless of time. We cannot count the number of births that we’ve been reborn. We can only imagine them by imagining the amount of tears that we shed in our life time. The Buddha has said that if we collect the tears we have shed in all our previous lives, the amount of tears we shed is more than the amount of water in the ocean. That’s how much suffering we have. No one could help us getting rid of this suffering. Only the Buddha and his noble disciples can. This is what they meant by the great compassion.”

Dhamma for the Asking,
Layperson from India, Dec 7, 2017.

By Ajahn Suchart Abhijāto
www.phrasuchart.com

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