Dear jack:

It is not healthy for a person when offended by another to feel compassion for the offender. It makes sense only in times of emergency, when you are under life and death attack, then feeling empathy for the attacker may reach the attacker and the attacker may have mercy on the attacked and not kill the attacked. Outside a state of emergency when your life is not in danger, it is self destructive.

Does it matter if it is controversial in the Buddhist community to not have compassion for the one attacking you (when your life is not in danger)? Is your goal to fit in the Buddhist community or to wake up to reality? Who is the authority of what reality is?

As you awake, with humility, with openess to examine people and situations, YOU become the authority, not a community.

anita