Hello, I’m Cheng Qing. Welcome to Relief for Life: Forty Introductory Lectures on Buddhism.

Last time I noted that people often understand Buddhist compassion by looking up in reverence and praying for protection. This is understandable: human history is a history of suffering, and in despair people naturally seek the compassionate blessing of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. Whatever its supernatural efficacy, the practice offers many psychological healing.

Yet Buddhism is not essentially a sacrificial religion of blessings. Happiness does not come from bowing alone but from transformed understanding. How, then, should compassion be understood through prajñā wisdom?

You may remember Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way. His Great Treatise on the Perfection of Wisdom comments on the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sutra: mahā means great, prajñā wisdom, and pāramitā crossing over. There he explains how bodhisattva compassion arises:“To possess great loving-kindness and compassion, practice the perfection of wisdom.”

This meanstrue great compassion requires understanding and practicing prajñā. Without it, compassion is merely worldly goodwill.

What are a bodhisattva’s great loving-kindness and great compassion? Buddhism distinguishes the two:“Great loving-kindness gives all beings happiness; great compassion removes their suffering. Loving-kindness gives conditions for joy, compassion conditions for leaving pain. Suppose a father’s children are imprisoned and face severe punishment. Through many means he frees them from pain: this is great compassion. Once free, he gives them the five desired pleasures: this is great loving-kindness.”

The parable explains their difference. A father rescuing imprisoned children from suffering shows compassion; feeding and clothing them after release and giving joy shows loving-kindness. Though Buddhism commonly groups them together, more precisely,great loving-kindness creates conditions for others’ happiness, while great compassion sees suffering and seeks to release it. One gives positively; the other rescues from adversity.Likewise, some temple visitors pray for greater family and career success, while others seek relief from conflict, workplace setbacks, illness, or accidents. The former adds flowers to brocade; the latter delivers coal in snow.