great compassion　大悲 According to Webster’s International Dictonary, compassion means to bear with or suffer with another being: It is a “deep feeling for and understanding of misery of suffering and the concomitant desire to promote its alleviation; spiritual consciousness of the personal tragedy of another or others and selfless tenderness directed toward it”. While this definition seems to convey the idea of Buddhist compassion, it is inadequate because it maintains the distinction between self and other, for in Buddhism compassion goes beyond any division or dichotomy between self and other into the world of complete identity. The basic meaning of “sorrow” in daihi or “lament” in the Sanskrit equivalent, mahākaruṇā, attempts to show this selfsame identity wherein the misery, suffering, or personal tragedy of another is none other than one’s own. Such a nondichotomous compassion is guided by prajñā, a wisdom that surpasses conventional thinking and feeling and moves in nondichotomous perception (nirvikalpajñāna). This is the essence of the Buddha of immeasurable life and light.