In the Tibetan tradition, and as far as I understand, the Mahayana in general, there’s a lot of emphasis on compassion for all sentient beings. Compassion for all sentient beings sounds great. But I sometimes wonder about this all-encompassing compassion in practice.
An example: I was attending a two day meditation and reflection session this weekend. We did meditation on compassion for all sentient beings. The teacher did not get tired of underlining how importance of no exceptions. It all sounds very nice. At the end of the first day we were discussing meditation on the skhanda’s and I asked if we could repeat this the next morning. Teacher said yes, but forgot it. I asked if he could send me a mil with some info I needed. He said yes but forgot. This made me wonder. You know, compassion for all – aren’t your students included in “all”? Is it a risk that you may slip in to a state where you meditate very “big” and think about you compassion for all the universe(s), but forget “thy neighbor”?
Does the Buddha address this directly anywhere? This tendency to be compassionate when you’re on the cushion but when the chips are down in real life it isn’t that much mindful compassion left?