Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The Lhasa journey analogy opens this 22-minute Q&A session, as Geshe Pema Tsering uses it to sharpen the distinction between aspiring bodhicitta and engaging bodhicitta — one person intends to set out for Lhasa, the other is already on the road, actively practicing the six perfections. He explains why engaging bodhicitta accrues more merit, even during sleep, then describes bodhicitta itself as a non-physical mental awareness carrying two aspirations: freeing beings from suffering, and attaining Buddhahood in order to do so. He introduces the seven-point cause-and-effect method as preparatory ground for generating bodhicitta, and closes with a striking contrast: while ordinary practitioners cry over personal pain, a genuine bodhisattva is moved to tears by the suffering of others.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 Guide.mp3
UUID: 6e48bb60-798a-420d-971b-4dcfb2f1d7b7
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2002 Month 01-03 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2002 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 22.3 minutes
Words: ~1,111
Between aspiring bodhicitta and engaging bodhicitta. And the author states that it’s a little bit like someone, who, has the wish to go to Lhasa. They lived outside of Lhasa. And someone that wished to go, after that, or I’ll be going in a few days and a week and so on, as distinct from someone that was actually going now would be the difference between one with aspiring and one with engaging bodhicitta. Even though they’re similar and they both aspire to get to Lhasa, the one that merely has aspiring, the aspiring wish, is thinking in future about actually engaging in the journey, whereas the person that’s actually engaging now in the journey also has the wish to get to Lhasa, but is also acting upon it right now.
So what the bodhisattva is engaging in that distinguishes them from someone with the aspiring bodhicitta is that they’re engaging in the practice of the six perfections, or the four methods of collecting disciples, and so on. So they’re distinguished by such an example as this. Is that clear the distinction between aspiring bodhicitta and engaging bodhicitta? Any questions? I know that later on, there’s obviously that if you one gift generates more merit than the other.
Oh, you get more merit from one than the other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They have equal importance.
It’s just that one is distinguishing the one from the other by whether one is directly engaging in those practices of a bodhisattva or not. But certainly, the one perceives the other. One needs aspiring in order to attain engaging. Mhmm. And they’re both equally important.
Although they’re equally important, one can say there’s more benefit in engaging bodhicitta than in aspiring bodhicitta, because it’s when one is developing engaging bodhicitta that one is actually accruing a merit through engaging in those practices, which one doesn’t do when one is merely aspiring to practice them. So even when one’s asleep as a being who is practicing engaging bodhicitta, one accumulates a vast amount of merit, and that doesn’t occur at the level of aspiring. So one really reflects here that the mind or bodhicitta is in fact this type of mental awareness, which is qualified by these two aspirations, the aspiration to that wishes to free all sentient beings from all levels of suffering and then aspires to the state of enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings. This is a, therefore, a type of mental awareness with two aspirations, one in the causal phase and one more in the resultant phase associated with that mental awareness. That mental awareness is not form.
It’s not physical. So therefore, it’s not even though it aspires to eliminate all of those sufferings, it’s not something which is really, in that sense, overwhelmed by the sufferings of sentient beings. It is not physical. And in fact, this reflection on the suffering of all sentient beings throughout the universe, and then the sickness of sentient beings,, all the different levels of suffering, and then aspiring to take on those sufferings and so on, also is like a a preparatory state preparatory practice to generating this state of bodhicitta. So it’s not so those meditations and teachings actually assist one in eventually attaining a state of bodhicitta And these practices, for instance, taking on the sufferings of others and so on, are taken in the causal stages of bodhicitta, such as within the six causes of bodhicitta, such as reflecting on the fact that all beings are one’s mothers, their kindness, repaying their kindness, great love, great compassion, and so on.
Within those practices, especially great love, great compassion, one takes on the sufferings of sentient beings, gives that love to sentient beings. So these are preparatory practices that one engages in, in order to attain the resultant state of bodhicitta. So this is like six causes and one result that are explained in the seven causes and one result method of Maitreya, the instructions, specific instruction given by Maitreya. So we need to therefore reflect on what those six causes are and how they’re practiced. You have a question?
So really this, for this particular bodhisattva, through generating bodhicitta towards sentient beings, and really not being able to bear or be patient with the sufferings of sentient beings, he would quite naturally begin to cry, not out of his own suffering, but really out of the inability to bear the sufferings of sentient beings which he could observe. For ourselves, we look at other beings and their suffering, and we’re not really affected. It doesn’t really we look and we we we’re not really affected very much by it. Of course, if it’s our own suffering, we start to cry, but not in relation to other beings. But the what?
The lineage of bodhicitta or the lineage of bodhisattvas really refers to those that have this mind, and having that mind, then there’s they do. They cry for the out of seeing the conditions of sentient beings. In general, when we look at our own situation and the problems that arise, then at times we shed a tear of anguish and so on. But here, bodhisattvas really do that when they look at the situations of others. For ourselves, when we look at our own situation, it’s hard to bear, and so we tend to cry, or we are susceptible to a tear emerging.
But bodhisattvas, when they view the situation of other beings Mhmm. Then they’re overwhelmed, and they’re affected in that way. Is that okay? Yeah. Oh, the re they increase.
Yep. Merely by the presence of bodhicitta, then the virtues within one’s continuum increase and continue to increase because of the very strength, the very nature of bodhicitta itself, because bodhicitta is this awareness which is viewing the sufferings of sentient beings, aspiring that beings get beyond those sufferings, aspiring that we attain a state of Buddhahood in order to get beings beyond those sufferings. It has the potency, the power, to increase all the virtues within one’s continuum and, do this in a manifold way, and that’s by the very strength of bodhicitta itself. It’s a little bit like an atom bomb, that here you have a substance. You bring together enough of a substance, and it’s going to a particular substance, and it’s going to create a great result.
Similarly, with the substance of bodhicitta, then then the substance of virtue in one’s continuum becomes enhanced and produces a great result. One? Is okay? Yeah. Oh, so we finished there.
We’ll just do the dedication.