Page 47 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

into pieces. It shivered, in fact, into eleven pieces, which became

eleven heads looking in the eleven directions of space, and a
thousand arms were manifested to help all those beings who

were suffering. Thus this very beautiful conception of the eleven-
headed and thousand-armed Avalokitesvara is an attempt to
express the essence of Compassion, or to show how the

compassionate heart feels for the sorrows and suffering of the
world.

Another very beautiful Bodhisattva figure embodying
Compassion, this time in feminine form, is Tara, whose name

means 'The Saviouress' or 'The Star'. A very beautiful legend
relates how she was born from the tears of Avalokitesvara as he

wept over the sorrows and miseries of the world.

We may think of these legends as being just stories, and the

sophisticated may even smile at them a little, but they are not
just stories — not even illustrative stories. They are of real, deep,

symbolical, even archetypal significance and represent,
embodied in very concrete form, the nature of Compassion.

In the Mahayana form of Buddhism, that is to say in the teaching
of the 'Great Way', the very greatest possible importance is

attached to Compassion. In one of the Mahayana sutras, in fact,
the Buddha is represented as saying that the Bodhisattva, i.e. the
one who aspires to be a Buddha, should not be taught too many

things. If he is taught only Compassion, learns only Compassion,
this is quite enough. No need for him to know about Conditioned

Co-production, or about the Madhyamika, or the Yogachara, or
the Abhidharma — or even the Eightfold Path. If the Bodhisattva
knows only Compassion, has a heart filled with nothing but

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