Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Kyabje Rinpoche teaches the two-fold bodhicitta—awakening mind—following Acharya Śāntideva: wishing for enlightenment versus entering into practice. In this 47-minute instruction, he insists aspiration without action is empty, using two striking analogies: thinking about lunch at noon versus walking to get it; an unripe mango, hard and inedible, versus fully ripened and nourishing. Our minds, hardened by greed and delusion, cannot yet receive spiritual teaching. They must be ripened through cultivating the six perfections—generosity, morality, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom. Rinpoche traces the logical reasoning that awakens genuine compassion for all sentient beings and explains how to help others develop real spiritual motivation. For practitioners already engaged with Mahāyāna Buddhism and ready for doctrinal depth.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 1994-07-15 – 7A – Retreat – KR.mp3
UUID: e5bd2a31-2a38-4c3f-991c-1254fce22ec9
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Chenrezig
Date: 1994-07-15
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~3,258
We’ll start off with, familiarizing or meditating or habituating, to the to the awakening or bodhicitta, precious bodhicitta. All right. Now, the way we, familiar ourselves with the thought process is we will start thinking or by realizing that that all the sentient beings all the sentient beings all the sentient beings, though who are countless, and then you desire, you wish, you develop a cultivate, a sincere, compassionate thought that that you would like to see them out of their miseries, be them free of their problems, and you developed a aroused, a thought of desperate desperately wanting to put them in a in a much more pleasurable positions. And by by caring other, by the thought activated by the thought of caring other, by not cherishing oneself, you develop a love, sense of love that may they all be free of the free of the cause of their problems and be with the with the with the cause and the joy, yeah, happiness. Then you develop a good intention or or dedication or good intention or commitment that that I I alone you undertake the thought or attitude that I alone will I alone will put put all the mother sentient beings into the position of complete happiness and in a position that is free of suffering and pain or anxiety and problems.
Alright. Now after you after you after going through the logical reasoning patterns in terms of getting in terms of helping helping all other sentient beings at the at the expense of your your own comfort. Now, you realize that at this stage, however, you don’t you don’t possess the methodology or you don’t possess the actual realization through which you would be able to complete that that task. Therefore, you you said you said you think that I will engage engage in my spiritual training, and I’ll keep practicing until it get I get it right so that culminating in the complete ability whereby I will be able to actualize or materialize my aim or goal thinking that way or committing yourself that way mentally, it’s what you call the practicing intention, the precious thought or precious awakening mind or bodhicitta. Okay.
Following that following that, make a commitment or pledge that you will engage whatever possible means through whatever possible means that’s available you available to you to engage in the in the the pith or the essential instruction of the Mahāyāna tradition or Mahāyāna spiritual training that is the precious thought or the precious bodhicitta path through teaching, through learning, meditating, contemplating. Now that dealing with how dealing with the skill of how to hone the skill of of developing or generating awakening awakening thought. Here, awakening mind. Here, Rinpoche quotes from the works of Acharya Śāntideva regarding how to behave as bodhisattvas. Why?
No. If we speak from the broader sense, there are about 22 different aspects or the aspects or the different differing characteristic of bodhicittas, of our full awakening mind. However, to to make it short, it is categorized in the two two ways. He, Acharya Śāntideva, has tried to explain those two body levels of bodhicittas by giving an analogies. Now here, awakening mind.
Okay? Awakening mind or bodhi chit bodhi. Right? Here, is giving you an etymological explanation of. Right?
Means, how to say, purified or gotten rid rid of. Okay? And chub means completeness, embodiment, or accomplishment. Alright? So what are we saying here is as a as a state of mind or state of thought where all all of the all of the good qualities all of the good qualities that are to be practiced or that are to be gained, that are to be accumulated, is accumulated.
Alright? And then a similar thought in a similar thought while in the same thought process, which contains the knowledge or which contains the complete lack of obscurity, complete lack of defilement that obscure that obscure us or obscure it seeing from things as they exist, not being misconstrued as we do. And and that state of the mind, knowing the entire variegated diversity of the phenomena that exist, to know completely directly how they exist without an without any room of error. I understand as as they are. So such a such a state of or such a state of knowledge is what you call or body.
To be short to be short, Changchub is a Tibetan terminology, and body is the Sanskrit Sanskrit terminologies. So in a short, here, it indicates the culmination of one’s totality of achieving the actual state, which is that it has achieved every quality quality, and and it’s it’s gotten got or gotten rid rid of of every every opponent or every everything that obstruct. Awesome. The explanation that Rinpoche gave about the bodhicitta, right, or Right? That is the from the viewpoint of the highest highest level of spiritual training or the ultimate body body mind or ultimate awakening is called our ultimate awakening.
And it’s also called it the the big big bodhicitta or big body or full awakening. That’s why we call it a full. Alright? So now this is from the viewpoint of the higher spiritual trainee. Now there’s they’re also a bit lesser lesser awakening mind that is from the from the viewpoint of a hero being practitioner and a pratyeka Buddha or or the self self interest or the middling trainee’s point of view.
Alright? So they all can those two state of mind can also be called awakening mind because even though they haven’t completed the task, completely achieved, haven’t achieved the the finality of the goal yet. However, due to the true due to their own level of developing or cultivation of that awakening mind, it has mitigating effect on the the its corresponding negativity things or obscurity, obscurity. Therefore, you do call it as awakening. However, you don’t call it as a complete full awakening.
The one I have Rinpoche described is the the the complete the totality of of the of the awakening mind that can possibly can get where Rinpoche used the sang gyé means sang gyé or buddha. Sang means completely awakened. Sang and Buddha, and all these are actually now the essence, the purity, the final purity, the distilled pure quality, the essence of mind. So that is the description I gave or explanation about the bodhi. Right?
The bodhi or awakening. We’re just only dealing with awakening. Right? So that is the is the full totality or the full blossoming of one’s mind’s complete ability or potential. Right?
So now so seeing that, seeing the wondrous quality of that sort of state. Right? Then if you ask, or making that as our target, that as a goal, that sort of a state of knowledge in making as our goal. Right? And then you develop a a sense of a wish to wanting to attain that.
So that is what you call the mind. Now, how does that happens in in a evolution of mental development to get there? Then, first of all, obviously, discussed that you develop a sense of, how to say, a sense of caring for other people more so than what you care for yourself. Exchange of self-cherishing there. You cherish other people at the expense of yourself.
So through that sort of develop that sort of a mental process, then it propels you into yearning yearning that sort of a goal in order to help other. So that’s what how the combination of these two things come, bodhicittas. Bodhicittas. Right? So now if you do a little bit on that mind wishing to attain that state, and that state can be sort of divided into two sort of why, one is a principle mind and one is like a secondary or subsidiary, so to speak.
And that the the intensity intensity or the the speed or the pace of the momentum of the mind wanting to achieve achieve or attain that state for attained must also driven by the the the strong, powerful, or full force, or depends on the full force of your compassionate level of your compassion. Now that compassion is also cultivated with the idea, with the the the sense of great responsibility. That responsibility understood through analyzing how kind all mothers and other beings to you, how grateful you should you feel to them by analyzing all aspects, reasons that you owe them you owe them you owe them to help from their their miseries. See, when you think so strongly, putting think so strongly from that point of view, then it gives rise to the compassionate state of mind. And the and the the of that compassions increases, then it propels your desire to attain that more.
Alright. So the final touch or the final finishing touch that you put, that mind wishing to attain full awakening. Right? It only happens as that mind directly spontaneously feel the full impact, full force, full impact or the full force of developing the compassions, see the compassion mind, a compassionate faculty. And that only happens by understanding that through training yourself, through thinking that in how you owe the you owe to all the sentient beings, you know, that there’s some sort of help or gratitude towards them.
In initial stage, you see, in initial stage, thinking in that way, and forcing, so to speak, or forcing our mind to familiarize with that logical reasoning, that way of thinking, and keep practicing on that. Keep practicing on that. Right? Keep thinking that and keep increasing. Keep keep making that initial intellectual sort of compassion thoughts more and more direct, more and more lively, more and more actual with you.
And the point where it arises arises arises spontaneously, effortlessly when you see a sentient being, for instance, when you see a person, you suddenly, without any effort whatsoever, you suddenly feel that whatever I’m doing, whatever I’m doing, whatever I’m doing is doing purely for this person’s development, this person’s benefit, putting wanting to put this person into a complete state of joy and so forth. When that sort of effortless flow of compassion comes to you, then it makes the full impact. It makes the final touch, finishing touch to the mind which was wanting to attain the bodhi. Right? Becomes a real bodhi mind.
Now a person who has that sort of experience that sort of experience is what do you call the real bodhisattvas. Right? It’s a bodhisattvas. So obviously, in the beginning, we have to train ourself through that way. But eventually, it will become a part of yourself.
It becomes a part of your nature that you can’t avoid it. It happens nonstop to you, and this is the time it’s the point where you call yourself as as real bodhisattva or practitioner of such spiritual training. So in the initial stage, honing our skill to get that inner compassion technique is a must. So now here, we’re gonna be discussing a little bit about the now the two categories of the awakening mind. So we’re concentrating on the mind.
Okay? So how how psychologically one develops develops or one gets categorized into the two types of types of wanting to two types of bodhicitta is, first of all, here Rinpoche quotes the Acharya Śāntideva once again. Here, first of all, we know how wondrous and how important a methodology or how what important means, what importance means or system through which we can gain our ultimate goal, the the the that state of body. Right? So now wanting that to achieve, first of all, is called as a wishing bodhicitta.
Like, okay, wishing bodhicitta. It is given analogy here that a desire to or desire wish to walk or wish to get somewhere. For instance, Rinpoche says here, after 12:00 here, round of a 12:00, you were thinking about what sort of lunch being prepared down there, like, in the kitchen. Right? So you develop this thought of wanting to go there and, to, think about the lunch, wanting to go there in order to have the lunch.
In a similar sort of process, the first thought is called wishing bodhicitta, which is thinking how wonderful it is to attend, to develop that sort of, you know, such yourself wanting to get there. See, at first of all, as we said, we find out or we we get get or we know how wondrous is it is to achieve that, to attain attain that goal. However, at that stage, we haven’t actually not physically embarked embarked on actual at embryonic stage of planning there, of planning it. We were we were planning to get there. We were planning to reach there.
After having strongly developed the desire of wanting to go there, wanting to get there, you then actually start engaging in the physical activities of getting there. Actually, when you start engaging in the physical activities of walking or any means of transportations to get there to get there in a similar way. After developing the previous wishing wishing for full awakening mind is developed, then you actually engage in direct activities or direct conduct of whatever that is required of you in order to complete the task. Here is what you call now the entering bodhicitta or entering into the practice of bodhicitta’s mind. So as we said earlier, it’s now there’s no point being wishing.
There there’s no point wishing for something to happen. It’s like it’s like that you’re not going to, how to say, get to eat lunch by staying here and wishing for it. Similar way, therefore, it’s no point just wishing. So you must now actually engage in the activities of walking or whatever in order to get to eat the get to eat the food. Therefore, the actual entering bodhicitta is the key.
Now it is incredibly important. There’s no doubt that developing a wish to attain the full awakening mind, it is it is it is a must sort of thing, but it is not good enough. It is not good enough in the same way the knowledge Rinpoche gave before is that just sitting here without moving certain section or part of thing to actually engage in walking, you’re not gonna get your lunch. In a similar way, just wishing to attain is not not good enough. It is while there’s no denial about about its effect, it’s a effect of generating goodness, however, the prime importance important thing here is to actually engage in the activities which actually carries us to our target, to our achieving our goal.
Here, okay, by saying that now, if you say, what is the actual activity that we need to we need to do? Then the the the the multi the multitude of activities that we need to do, that we need to complete in order to get to the target or aim or goal is now actually engaging yourself or engaging yourself in the practice of the deeds of the sons of great sons of the Buddhas here. Now there is a two two methodologies that has been propounded by the Mahāyāna teachings point of view is that to actually engage in a profound side of the one of the profound side of the teaching and other is extensive side of the teachings that is developed by the Mahāyāna tradition. So you have to actually do or actually put those two spiritual spiritual trainings into your own practice. Now that is the most important thing.
That is the instrumental in generating that in actuality. Now to make it a short, what sort of actual thing that we need to we need to apply ourself is in order to in order to loosen the the constricted state of our delusional nature of our mind, we need to engage or apply our mind in the practice of six perfections that is to ripen to precisely put in a technical term, is to ripen one’s mental continuum. Alright? That we need to apply ourself in the practice of six perfections in order to make our mind fertile and easy to cultivate or easy to ripen. And in order to make other other people’s mental continuum suitable for the practice or suitable or in order to ripen the other mental continuum of other people, there are four applications applications that we need to undertake, and I just have to find find out from the four what it is.
Saying inspiring thing to other people, saying saying or talking about Dharma things, Dharma teachings that inspire other people to engage in the practice. That’s one practice. Last one I described is saying things or saying things about Dharma kind of inspire the people to wanting to be engaged in the Dharma practice. The third is, explaining the purpose purpose of the Dharma, showing the path, showing explaining the cons and pros of the active and so forth. The fourth is is that you gotta practice.
One has to practice what one preaches. If you preach at somebody without practicing yourself, that person is not going to really kind of like you or not gonna take that seriously in similar way. The main thing is whatever you preach to others, you must practice your yourself. So here, to ripen one’s continuum. That’s what the the transliteration of the the translation of the prose in which the Tibetan teaching Rinpoche gave is to ripen the continuum.
Alright? One’s continuum. Here, Rinpoche emphasized, the continuum means is the continuity of one’s mind. One’s mind. Now, why we say is to it is important to ripen one’s mind ripen one’s mind or making one’s mind fertile and easy to work with, so to speak, is in a similar way that of such if one were to eat a mango, but if it’s not ripened, if it’s very hard, then we cannot eat that mango.
Even if you did try to do it so hard and so hard that instead of instead of bringing it any kind of nourishes effect or benefits to our body, it might instead cause us to experience further sickness and so forth. However, on the contrary, if the mango is completely ripened, it’s fully ripened, it is in a proper sort of state, very easy easy to consume, then it’s easy to eat. Not only easy to eat, it will give us a lot of nutritious sort of benefits to our body, body’s physical health preservation or maintenance. Mind the state of our mind at the moment is like that of a hard unripened mango. In a sense, our mind is completely under the grip of the opposite negative factors of the six perfections.
It is hard as a rock. We cannot do anything with it. It’s so dried. It is so dried. It is so arid that we cannot do anything with with it.
It is completely dominated has complete dominance, under the compelling forces by the opposite of the of these, six perfection. The first is the generosity. Right? Opposite of generosity is the miserliness. We have a tremendous amount of miserliness within ourselves.
And then and the second is the the opposite of morality, you know, doing lot of, you know, rotten things. That’s all. That’s And the opposite of the morality is like, you know, the the desire or lust and so forth.