The Power of Compassion

I find it tough to review books – because to do so fairly is to read and digest them entirely, and to give a summary of what is good or not so agreeable about what was written. As such, I usually quote excerpts from books, which I see to be shiny examples of what is excellent about them, so as to entice readers to discover more gems by getting the entire book – to more fairly review it themselves, by reading it personally.

Here are three stories sparkling with compassion, which literally exemplify ‘The Power of Compassion (Stories that Open the Heart, Heal the Soul and Change the World’ by Pamela Bloom. (This is a new edition of the 2000 book ‘Buddhist Acts of Compassion’.) Enjoy!

A beautiful word or thought
that is not accompanied by corresponding acts
is like a bright flower that bears no fruit.
It would not produce any effect.

—The Buddha

Liberating Beings

Yuan Ch’i Beng of Hang Jou Province made a vow in his youth that he would always liberate the living. He was particularly fond of liberating mussels, clams, roe, and the like, for it didn’t take much money to ransom these small sea creatures and so in one outing he could set free many lives. He also encouraged others to do likewise.

In the year 1680, while at sea, the ship he was on ran into some reefs and capsized. Strangely enough, however, water did not seep into the vessel at all. Floating on its side, the ship finally reached safety, where it was discovered that several tens of thousands of little fishes, clams and mussels had congregated beneath the ship, keeping it afloat so that the water could not enter and sink it. Yuan understood that these must be the sea creatures that he had set free—that they had come to repay the debt of kindness and save his life in turn.

—From Cherishing Life, edited by Bhikshuni Heng Ming and Upasika Kuo Tsai

The Bullet that Stops All Wars

Chân Không is a Buddhist nun who was one of the first four clergy ordained by Vietnamese master Thich Nhat Hanh. During the Vietnam War she was a forerunner in social welfare programs before becoming an international advocate of peace. Her memoir of her early days in Vietnam during the sixties and seventies, from which this story is taken, is one of the most searing records of physical and spiritual warriorship ever written.

One night, we stopped in Son Khuong, a remote village where the fighting was especially fierce. As we were about to go to sleep in our boat, we suddenly heard shooting, then screaming, then shooting again. The young people in our group were seized with panic, and a few young men jumped into the river to avoid the bullets. I sat quietly in the boat with two nuns and breathed consciously to calm myself. Seeing us so calm, everyone stopped panicking, and we quietly chanted The Heart Sutra, concentrating deeply on this powerful chant.

For a while, we didn’t hear any bullets. I don’t know if they actually stopped or not. The day after, I shared my strong belief with my co-workers. “When we work to help people, the bullets have to avoid us, because we can never avoid the bullets. When we have good will and great love, when our only aim is to help those in distress, I believe there is a kind of magnetism, the energy of goodness, that protects us from being hit by the bullets. We only need to be serene. Then, even if a bullet hits us, we can accept it calmly, knowing that everyone has to die one day. If we die in service, we can die with a smile, without fear.”

—From Learning True Love, by Ven. Chân Không

Pacifying Aggression

Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was one of the greatest Tibetan masters of the twentieth century—a luminescent mountain of a man who physically towered over Tibetans and Westerners alike, yet deeply imbued each one he met with the poetic eloquence of his scholarship, the spaciousness of his mind, and the warmth of his near-saintly compassion.

As Thondup Tulku relates in his book Masters of Meditation and Miracles, Khyentse Rinpoche eschewed flying on his last trip right before his death, just to make the journey between Bhutan and Kalimpong, India, by car so that he might visit with an old disciple, despite the toll the arduous travel would make on his health. In a life that lasted eighty years, he spent over twenty of them in retreat, and though he would never admit to it, his spiritual powers were vast; even his wife claimed to often see strange lights emanating from his meditation hut. Below is a description of yet another example of the power of his blessing.

One of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s nephews often went hunting, and he owned a celebrated gun. When it happened that Khyentse Rinpoche visited their house one day, his sister and nephew’s mother told him, “This gun has killed so many animals, please bless it.” Khyentse Rinpoche put the gun to his mouth and blew into it. It never fired again. After that, whenever Khyentse Rinpoche visited they all hid their guns. At he same house, there was a huge dog, which had killed many goats, and the family asked him to bless the dog. Khyentse Rinpoche took the ball of tsampa he was eating at the time, blew on it and then gave it to the dog. The dog ate it, and never went out of the house again.

—Orgyen Tobgyal Rinpoche

If we are peaceful, if we are happy,
we can blossom like a flower,
and everyone in our family, our entire society,
will benefit from our peace.

— Thich Nhat Hanh

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