The Practice of Compassion

You can have no greater ally in the war against your greatest enemy, your own self-grasping and self-cherishing, than the practice of compassion.

It is compassion, dedicating ourselves to others, taking on their suffering instead of cherishing ourselves, that, hand in hand with the wisdom of egolessness, destroys most effectively and most completely that ancient attachment to a false self that has been the cause of our endless wandering in samsara.

That is why in our tradition we see compassion as the source and essence of enlightenment and the heart of enlightened activity.

by Sogyal Rinpoche