In an effort to maintain distinctions between Buddhism and Christianity, translators have used all sorts of euphemisms for this basic term. Granted, it is not the everyday “love” that means “to like”; it is still the altruistic love that is the finest inspiration of Christ’s teaching, as well as of the Mahāyāna.

Not defined as such in this text, but in the Ten Thousand (2.7) great loving kindness is described as “action in which the tathāgatas engage on behalf of all beings, treating enemies and friends identically.”