He [Buddha] said, ‘Buddha is not a man, but a state. I have found the door. Enter, all of you!’
He went to the feast of Ambâpâli, 'the sinner'. He dined with the pariah, though he knew it would kill him, and sent a message to his host on his death bed, thanking him for the great deliverance. Full of love and pity for a little goat, even before he had attained the truth! You remember how he offered his own head, that of prince and monk, if only the king would spare the kid that he was about to sacrifice, and how the king was so struck by his compassion that he saved its life?
Such a mixture of rationalism and feeling was never seen! Surely, surely, there was none like him!
- Swami Vivekananda,
Notes of Some Wanderings: VIII
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