Compassion Is Easier to Develop Than Love?

“Developing bodhicitta has to involve authentic love and compassion. Otherwise, the whole process becomes a grand, lofty, and insincere endeavor lacking any power to change our consciousness. The boundless qualities of love, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity are referred to as the four immeasurables. They are “immeasurable” because with each of them we hold an immeasurable number of beings in our hearts. Immeasurable love is the aspiration that all beings without exclusion be happy. Compassion is the aspiration that all beings be free from suffering. Empathetic joy is the wish for all beings to have and never lose happiness. Equanimity is a state of mind free from bias, hatred, and preference in relation to all beings. Sometimes the order of these changes. Some masters might put equanimity first, while others put compassion before love. The order works differently for different individuals. For some people compassion is easier to develop than love. Once they feel compassion, love follows naturally. It is powerful to practice the four immeasurables while visualizing a field of beings—family members, parents, friends, enemies, all of humanity, all living beings. Once your heart is completely open to all of them, you let go of bias, anger, judgement, hatred, and aversion. A space opens in your consciousness in which you can develop true bodhicitta.”

Excerpt From
Into the Haunted Ground
Anam Thubten
https://books.apple.com/us/book/into-the-haunted-ground/id1589552479