Through truly understanding the nature of suffering, the basic fabric of mind becomes loving-kindness and compassion. This is the mind of enlightenment, the basic core of enlightenment. But the mind of enlightenment is actually our fundamental nature. It is said that compassion and love are much more in accord with our true nature than jealousy, pride, and so forth. Therefore, developing compassion and love is an avenue to understanding reality.
Motivation is an essential factor on the bodhisattva path.
Sometimes we become preoccupied with wanting to discover the true nature of things, the ultimate reality. But if you look at the writings of great teachers such as Nagarjuna or Chandrakirti, persons of great intelligence who have pointed out the nature of reality, you will see that they also wrote long and beautiful compositions about compassion. This was the inspiration behind their teachings on emptiness to give bodhisattvas a way to go about saving all sentient beings intelligently. The bodhisattva doesn t run around randomly trying to help everybody. Intelligence and wisdom are involved.