Verse 16: When betrayed by one you raised: love them more
Verse 16 of Gyalse Tokme Zangpo’s 37 Practices of a Bodhisattva, from the section “Transforming adversity.” Below: the verse in three translations and what seven teachers say about it.
Open in the study browser →Even if someone you have cared for as dearly as your own child regards you as an enemy, love that person even more, as a mother would her ailing child. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
Even if others whom I have cared for like children of my own Should turn upon me and treat me as an enemy, To regard them only with special fondness and affection, As a mother would her ailing child—this is the practice of all the bodhisattvas.
Even if a person you have cared for as your own child Treats you as his or her worst enemy, Lavish him or her with loving attention Like a mother caring for her ill child — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
The betrayer is a sick person overwhelmed by karma and afflictions — helpless like a dying patient no doctor can save (citing Padmasambhava). If your compassion doesn't change them it still cannot fail: "Bodhicitta mind is like fire and these happenings are like fire wood." Explicitly extended to breakups and to those attacking the Dharma.
The possession analogy: a child seized by a spirit attacks his own mother — her task is to separate child from spirit and love him more. "We cannot hate a child or a man with a knife, because they are driven by delusion."
Runs on the verse's own parenting logic: a parent doesn't resent the toddler screaming "I hate you" or the sick child crying all night. The betrayer is "sick with some sort of emotional disturbance" — illness calls for more care, not less.
The mother whose sick child refuses comfort responds with increased love. Story: Sukhasiddhi — beaten and expelled after giving away the family's last rice, and that ingratitude-driven exile made her a great yogini.
Cites Chandrakirti's mother of six caring most for the badly-behaved child: "All compassionate lords treat everyone equally, but they especially love and care for bad guys more." The ungrateful can't perceive kindness (no light, no flower seen). Distinctive edge: compassion is not indulgence — it targets persons, not their faults; his academy still expels vow-breakers, and that protects the Dharma rather than abandoning bodhicitta.
Winter Retreat vv16–21 talk.
Talk 6; Tricycle v16 (the King Lear "serpent's tooth" prompt): deal with your own anger first — only then is loving attention authentic.
the sickness/possession reframe is unanimous — the betrayal is evidence of their suffering. KS's boundary (love the person, still enforce the rule) is the crucial nuance for real communities and families; worth raising if the group treats these verses as passivity. ---
Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche — The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.