Chua Duoc Su

A compassionate person, in addition to bringing joy and happiness to others, can also heal others simply by their presence. Wherever they are, they are healing, because they have compassion, they will do everything they can to help others with their body, speech, and mind. Therefore, being close to a compassionate person can help you heal, bringing you peace and happiness.

Just seeing the face of a kind, enthusiastic person makes you feel happy. Even if you are worried and upset about a problem, suddenly seeing such a person is enough to make you happy and peaceful right away. And you will be satisfied when a warm, compassionate person comes to visit you, because that person brings joy to you. You are happy when they enter the room. Even just hearing their name is enough to make you happy.

Normally, when you see someone with a generous and warm heart, even if you don't know them, you want to sit down next to them and talk to them. This is your natural response to people who are compassionate, who care more about others than themselves. Therefore, instead of thinking, you need to practice developing compassion to experience your inner life, and at the same time, bring benefits and happiness to others. Based on this foundation, you will have a more comprehensive view of yourself and the world. When the way you see things changes, everything will be completely different. Therefore, there are two directions to achieve the value of expressing true words:

- On the one hand, it reminds you that love must come from your heart, helping you communicate and behave beautifully with everyone.

- On the other hand, it speaks to the absolute truth that you pursue, which is liberation and enlightenment.

One inner quality that is often mentioned in the Sutras is devotion and compassion. Devotion means working wholeheartedly for others and being someone others can rely on. You are trustworthy when you keep your promises or appointments, when you are responsible for your thoughts, words, and actions. This is determined by accepting your karma. You know that you are responsible for all your thoughts, words, and actions, and you understand what it means to be the master of your karma. If you still think that others are responsible for your thoughts, words, and actions, you have not yet set foot on the path of liberation. If so, in trying to be compassionate and your best friend, you become your own worst enemy. As long as you are not able to control your thoughts in your daily life and continue to let negative thoughts arise, you continue to cause suffering for yourself. If you believe that something happens because of someone else's fault, you are wrong.

Remember that in the spiritual life, it has more meaning: it means taking responsibility for yourself. As for strength, it comes from effort. It also represents your potential, your patience, and endurance, both psychologically and physically. As for spiritual strength, it is a measure of your mental capacity. It is the results that you can accumulate in your inner development work. Peace and happiness can only be achieved through your efforts, and nothing will bring more meaning and happiness to your life than what you do within yourself, within your mind.

Having some satisfaction in your abilities may be good, but being arrogant because you think you have more knowledge or ability than others, instead of being close to you, will only make you more distant from others. If you communicate with people in this way, the language of the heart will be suppressed because you only use logical knowledge, often lacking the qualities of the heart, which are compassion and gentleness, so the venerable ones say:

- Stop thinking and talking too much, start loving more!

While teaching his disciples, the Buddha compared the nature of loving-kindness and gentleness to a bamboo branch in the wind. In a storm, the bamboo branch bends close to the ground but does not break, and when the wind calms down, it stands up straight again. Therefore, loving-kindness and gentleness mean being ready to yield, not arguing, not trying to prove yourself right, not feeling the need to convince others, not showing off your knowledge, and at the same time not being swayed. That is the generosity of the heart, a gift of the heart. A hard heart cannot be tolerant, but only clings to itself, shielding itself with walls. Only a soft, tolerant heart can give, give love and happiness to others without doing anything, just being present. Only such a heart can lead you to boundless love, which is compassion.

Please understand that, with a heart of compassion, friendliness does not mean communicating with others superficially, in a fake way, always agreeing with them, and telling them only what they want to hear to be friendly. On the contrary, it is communicating with each other sincerely, from the heart, with the awareness that you are all basically the same, the differences are only superficial. Friendliness that comes from the heart demonstrates an understanding of the universal nature of humanity, of all living beings, and everything around you. The ancients used to say:

- It is difficult to be a human being, and it is even more difficult to be a good person.

If you recognize the suffering in yourself, then you will also recognize it in others; then friendliness is no longer just politeness, but something that truly comes from the heart. You can do this by following in the footsteps of the Buddhas and the saints when you see the value of compassion, which is reflected in the many stories in the Buddhist scriptures about Bodhisattvas or saints who always sacrifice themselves for others. In Sanskrit, Bodhisattva can be translated as:

- Enlightened Hero.

Although Bodhisattvas are not yet fully enlightened, they do not seek happiness for themselves but only think of caring for others and work with their whole body, speech, and mind for the benefit of sentient beings. They not only wish for the happiness of others but also take upon themselves the responsibility of freeing all sentient beings from suffering and bringing them happiness. They vow to do this without knowing how difficult it is or how long it will take to complete. With great compassion, they take on the responsibility of completing the work themselves and only themselves. It is the thought of complete dedication with an extremely brave heart. Any being who possesses this brave quality is a true hero. Here are some examples:

- Before attaining complete enlightenment, Shakyamuni Buddha was a Bodhisattva for hundreds of lives, through three asamkhyeya kalpas. However, not only do Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have this pure mind, but it does not matter which religion they belong to; whoever has a mind that forgets himself to think of freeing sentient beings from suffering and bringing them happiness is a saint, a sacred being. Even animals with such a completely selfless attitude are considered sacred beings.

During his time as a Bodhisattva, Shakyamuni Buddha sacrificed his sacred body hundreds of thousands of times for sentient beings. For hundreds of thousands of lifetimes, the Buddha gave his eyes to the blind and his limbs to those in need. Once, the Buddha let a family of tigers who were about to die of hunger eat his body. And he prayed that through the karmic connection of eating his body, those tigers would be reborn as humans and become his disciples. He also prayed that he would open up the path to enlightenment for them. As a result, through that karmic connection, the tigers were later reborn as humans, heard the teachings directly from the Buddha, and realized the path to enlightenment.

In another past life, when he was still a Bodhisattva, the Buddha let five blood-sucking demons suck his blood, and also prayed that he would give them the teachings of enlightenment in their future lives. As a result, the five yakshas were later reborn as humans and became the Buddha's first five disciples, who heard the Buddha preach the Four Noble Truths in Sarnath, India.

In another past life, when he was a Bodhisattva, Buddha Shakyamuni was the captain of a ship carrying five hundred merchants. These merchants sailed across the sea to buy pearls. With a clear mind, the Bodhisattva captain had a vision that there was a person on the ship who intended to kill all the others. He felt so much pity for the person who intended to commit the crime and thought:

- I must kill this person, I do not care that killing him will put me in hell.

With selfless sacrifice, he only thought of preventing the other person from creating the extremely evil karma of killing the merchants, and he agreed to go to hell himself in place of that person. And the Bodhisattva captain did so with incomparable compassion. According to the law of cause and effect, when the act of killing is evil, the result is rebirth in hell. However, the captain's act of killing was motivated by his extremely compassionate heart, so instead of being reborn in hell, he was cleansed of his karma and shortened his time in samsara by one hundred thousand eons. In other words, by wholeheartedly sacrificing himself for the happiness of others, his act of killing brought him closer to the shore of enlightenment.

There is a story about a young monk named Tsembulwa, a disciple of the great yogi Krishnacharya, who had attained high realizations. Tsembulwa was on his way to Oddiyana, one of the twenty-four holy places of Vajrayogini (Diamond Yoga Goddess), to perform a special Tantric practice before completing the path to enlightenment. He came to the riverbank and saw a woman with leprosy whose whole body was disfigured. She looked very ugly, her skin was black and oozing pus. At that time, the leper woman begged Tsembulwa to carry her across the river. According to the Vinaya, a monk should not touch a woman, but because he was so compassionate towards the leper, he did not hesitate to sacrifice his status as a monk and, despite the fear of catching leprosy, he quickly carried the woman on his back and waded across the river. However, when he reached the middle of the river, the leper suddenly transformed into Vajravarahi, an incarnation of Vajrayogini. Because Tsembulwa had immeasurable compassion and had completely sacrificed himself in helping the leper, Vajravarahi took Tsembulwa in human form to Vajrayogini's Pure Land, where he had the opportunity to hear the Dharma and complete the path to enlightenment. The key point here is that the leper was always Vajravarahi, but Tsembulwa saw him as a leper because karmic obstacles had blinded him. Only after generating great compassion, wholeheartedly dedicating himself to helping the lepers, was he able to see the leper woman as an enlightened being. His negative karma had caused him to see the woman in her leprous form, and prevented him from seeing her as an enlightened being, but after generating intense compassion, extreme pity, he completely purified those negative karma.

A similar thing happened to Asanga, the great saint and great master of the "Gradual Path to Enlightenment" tradition. Asanga meditated in retreat for twelve years to see Maitreya Buddha, but failed. After every three years, Asanga became discouraged and wanted to leave the retreat. But because of his desire to see Maitreya Buddha, that urged to return to meditate for another three years. He did so three times, and after twelve years, he still did not see Maitreya Buddha.

Finally, he gave up and went down the mountain. While walking, he suddenly saw a dog with sores all over its body, crawling with maggots. Seeing the dog like that, Asanga felt extreme compassion and wanted to save it without caring about himself. Thinking that the maggots would need food to survive when they were taken out of the dog, he cut the flesh from its thigh and scattered it around the ground. Then he began to take the maggots out, but did not use his fingers for fear of crushing the maggots. He bent down, closed his eyes, and used the tip of his tongue to push the maggots out, but suddenly he found that the tip of his tongue did not touch anything, as if there was nothing there. He opened his eyes and suddenly saw Maitreya Buddha. Then, Asanga complained to Maitreya Buddha:

- Why did it take so long for you to appear? I have meditated on you for so many years!

Matreya Buddha replied:

- It is not that I do not appear. I am always present before you, but you do not see me.

Asanga had a habit of spitting in his retreat, and Maitreya Buddha showed Asanga the stains of saliva still on his clothes to prove that he had always been with Asanga. Then Maitreya Buddha said:

- I have always been here, but you did not see me because your karmic obstacles had covered your eyes. These karmic obstacles have now been purified by your great compassion. Therefore, now you can see me.

The moment Asanga generated an extremely strong great compassion when he saw the dog with sores and wounds, he completely purified his negative karma, and he saw Maitreya Buddha; a realization that he had not achieved in twelve years of meditation retreat. Forgetting yourself, sacrificing yourself for the benefit of another being, an injured dog, as in the case of Asanga, makes a huge difference. Lovingly caring for even one being, whether human or animal, sacrificing yourself to care for them, will bring about a powerful purification, cleansing you of all your negative karma, the causes of illness, and all other problems. It heals your body and mind. Sacrificing yourself for the benefit of even one being will accumulate immeasurable merit.