When compassion acts it never harms, it never hurts anyone, but always moves gently forward in order to fulfill its purpose. It must also be ever growing. As long as there are more sentient beings and as long as there is more that needs to be done, compassion increases. One often finds Avalokitesvara, a great compassionate being in the Buddhist tradition, portrayed as having a thousand arms and a thousand eyes, and these symbolize the innumerable activities of compassion. Where there is new suffering or a new outbreak of violence, that violence contains another eye, another hand, of compassion. The two things always go together.

From “The Mahasattva Avalokiteshvara,” in The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa, Volume One, pages 450 to 451. Published by Shambhala Publications