Koan on Compassion

One day, Zen Master Chao-Chou lay in the snow, calling out,

“Help me! Please, help me!”

A monk came and lay beside him.

Chao-Chou stood up and left.

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I often think of this koan. It points to how afraid we are of suffering—how quickly we try to fix things, how hurried we are to solve the problem—while compassion is the willingness to sit in the snow with them.