The bodhisattva vow is staggering: I will not enter final liberation until every being is free. Mahayana Buddhism treats this as the only adequate response to what one sees once seeing has begun — the fact of Emptiness implying that no being is fundamentally separate, so no one can be liberated alone.
Its motivating energy is bodhicitta — the awakened heart-mind, the intention toward universal awakening. Its paired wisdom is Emptiness; without that, the vow becomes impossible self-punishment.