Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 72-minute session, Geshe Pema Tsering opens with a verse from Candrakīrti’s Entry to the Middle Way: if you don’t practice Dharma now, as a human with the time and capacity, when will you? He argues that Dharma practice is entirely a matter of motivation — not whether you live in a cave — and names the three valid aims: positive rebirth, liberation, or Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. Moving through verses 13–15 of Śāntideva’s first chapter, he explains bodhicitta’s power to purify even the heaviest karma (likened to fire consuming the realms at an aeon’s end), then uses a “paycheck” analogy to diagnose why practitioners lose motivation without certainty in results. He closes by distinguishing aspiring from active bodhicitta and identifying self-cherishing as the fundamental obstacle to developing either.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2005 04 12 Bodhisattvas Way of Life.mp3
UUID: 883b0fed-8a1d-4372-9485-93e560884d35
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Bodhisattva Way of Life 2005 Mar -2007 (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2005-04-12
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 71.8 minutes
Words: ~6,118
Mhmm. In the Entry to the Middle Way by Candrakīrti,, He said, if you don’t practice Dharma now when you have the opportunity, and you have the opportunity and the time, when will you be able practice it, in the future when you have, fallen down? And what that’s talking about is that if you don’t practice Dharma now as a human, when you have the ability, the faculties, and the time, to practice it, then you’re not going to have much chance of practicing in a life in the lower realms that could happen if you don’t practice it. So saying if you don’t practice now and then you do negative things and that leads to being reborn in the lower realms, then as a being in a hell realm or a spirit or a an animal, you’re not gonna have a chance to practice Dharma.
And then again, achieving a human rebirth after being reborn in those states is very difficult. It’s, it’s so if we have the opportunity, then we should use it. We should use it to practice Dharma. Because if we don’t use the opportunity we have, we could lose what we do have, and then regaining what we have will be very difficult. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. So the reason he said this, is because as a human being in the situation we are in now, we have faculties, the autonomy and the ability or the knowledge of Dharma that we can put into practice. And so this gives us the opportunity to perform virtuous actions. If we don’t do that and instead waste our lives chasing after things that we’re attached to in this lifetime, then there’s every chance that the negative action of being attached to everything and, just spending a life, submerged in, desire would lead to a rebirth in a lower realm.
Now in the lower realms, it’s difficult to practice Dharma because either you don’t have the ability to understand it or you don’t have the opportunity to listen to it or you if you can understand it and hear it don’t have the time to put it into practice. So for these reasons it’s really important that we don’t get distracted by the things of this lifetime and to try and practice Dharma in the rebirth that we have now. So the way that we actually practice Dharma is by setting our motivation and by making sure that the thing that we’re doing is being done so we can either attain full enlightenment and be able to benefit all sentient beings or that what we’re doing is a cause for attaining liberation from saṃsāra or at the very least, that what we’re doing Sorry. That was funny. So the if we don’t if we’re not motivated by one of these three reasons by attaining Buddhahood to benefit all sentient beings, attaining liberation for ourselves or by attaining a positive rebirth, it’s very difficult or it’s almost impossible for what we’re doing to be considered Dharma practice.
So what we need to be really careful of and what we need to have the ability to do in order to practice Dharma is to be able to set a motivation, to be able to be, focused on doing something and for a specific reason. Now if you’re born in a lower realm, that’s very difficult. It’s very difficult to be motivated by any of these causes or to understand any of those causes. So, then by having these motivations, then, if we are Buddhist and and we have refuge in the in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, then it’s pretty simple, what we should and shouldn’t do. There’s It’s a bit put forward very clearly and it’s easy for us to understand that certain activities, certain things that we can do are appropriate and other things are inappropriate.
Appropriate in that they will lead to happiness and inappropriate in that they will lead to suffering. So basically, in terms of what we actually do, what we should do as Buddhists is do that which is appropriate that will lead to happiness and refrain from doing that which is going to lead to suffering. Alright? And we can understand that. That’s quite simple to understand.
Okay. So once we’ve done this, once we’ve understood that we should do certain things, should practice positive things, we should abandon things that are gonna cause suffering, and we are motivated to do these things by our wish to attain Buddhahood, attain liberation, or attain a positive rebirth, attain a positive rebirth, then what we’re doing is practicing Dharma. Practicing Dharma doesn’t necessarily mean meditating. Practicing Dharma doesn’t necessarily mean going to live in a cave and wearing ratty clothes and eating really yucky food. Doesn’t and people who do go and live in caves and not eat very well and behave externally like a Milarepa aren’t necessarily practicing Dharma.
It’s not something that’s a that pervades. It’s not something that you can say is definitely the case. You go and live in a cave then therefore you’re practicing Dharma. It doesn’t work. You’re practicing Dharma or not dependent on your motivation whether what you’re doing is doing what Buddha said to do and not doing what he didn’t he said not to do.
So it may be very difficult for us to leave all our our home and and everything we have and go and live in a cave. It may be very difficult for if this was what practicing Dharma was, it would be very difficult for us to do it. But fortunately, it’s not. And unfortunately, the way we practice Dharma isn’t by leaving everything, it’s by changing the way we think. So at the moment, we’ve we spend a lot of time and we put a lot of effort into doing things that will give us pleasure or happiness in this in this lifetime.
And if we look at the way that we behave, we put an awful lot of effort into that. We put in so much work to try and make ourselves feel comfortable and happy in this lifetime. We’ve put a lot of effort into that so what we need to do is to look to see something that can actually make us truly happy and not just in this lifetime because, we if we focus so much on this physical body then, when that’s gone we’re not going to have anything left. If we were everything we’re doing to try and make ourselves happy is focused on just one physical body and then when that goes there’s nothing to us feel happy. There’s nothing there’s no, more result from that work.
If instead we start thinking, I’m going to use refuge as a base so that is, look towards the Buddha’s teachings, Buddha, Dharma, and the Sangha, and look to that as a base, from which I can learn to having having that faith, having that sense of refuge. Then, practice what the Buddha said to practice, abandon what he said to abandon, and in this way being motivated, in doing this in order to be get out of Samsāra being get out of Samsāra and be of ultimate benefit to sentient beings by becoming a Buddha. We can have that as a motivation. Or we can be working towards an individual liberation, individual liberation from saṃsāra or a positive rebirth. So if we have a base of refuge, this idea of wanting of of looking towards the Buddha and the Dharma and the Sangha for the in order to for refuge from suffering.
And then we put into practice the teachings of the Buddha motivated by one of these three different things, then whatever we’re doing becomes Dharma practice. As long as if we have to necessarily change the external things that we’re doing, we just change the way we’re looking at them. So instead of instead of thinking about what we can do for this body and how to make ourselves comfortable in this body, we can instead think about what this body can do, what we can do based on this body to be a benefit to beings to practice Dharma. So if we can think, I don’t know whether I’ve got a month left in this body, if I’ve got a year left in this body, if I have fifteen years, if I have a hundred years. But however I have left in this lifetime, may I use that in order to attain enlightenment, attain liberation, attain a good rebirth, and do this for the benefit of all sentient beings.
And if we, if we, use this as our sorry, then we should think that we will use that as our motivation for whatever it is that we’re gonna do and for the rest of our time, in in this body. And, having thought on this, then please meditate on it for a couple of minutes. Okay. Right. And so the next verse.
The next verse says which is verse thirteen of the first chapter, which says, as though they pass through perils guarded by a hero, even those weighed down with dreadful wickedness wickedness will instantly be freed through having bodhicitta, who then would not place his trust in it. Now, and this is a the first two lines are a metaphor for the, the power, the protective power of bodhicitta. So, those that pass through perils got it by a hero. So what’s this describing is if, we had to go through a place where there was many, bandits and, robbers and, people that were, who were likely to harm us. If we had to do that by ourselves, then, we would be in great danger.
If on the other hand we had a, an armed escort, alright, we would be much more protected. Alright? So if we were going through a place, that was full of bandits and robbers and everything and we and we happened to have an army regiment with us, we feel a lot more protected. So somehow, Geshe-la said, if we were going to walk to Sydney by ourselves And and and we were going to we we could be in danger from being robbed. So if we’re going to walk to Sydney by ourselves, someone could come up and rob us.
But if we were walking to Sydney with an armed escort, we would have less trouble. And I have I should say, Geshe-la, I have a very strange image of you walking with a whole bunch of soldiers this evening. And he goes, wasn’t talking about me, just in general. Okay. So this is the protection that bodhicitta affords us from the results of the negative that we have accumulated in the past.
So then what this verse describes is the reason why we should, rely on bodhicitta, because, people devoted or, devoted and intelligent people would understand, that that by relying on bodhicitta, by meditating on bodhicitta, they will know what to do and what to abandon. And if the if they are relying on bodhicitta, if they are focused on attaining enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings and are practicing what needs to be practiced and abandoning what needs to be abandoned in order to bring this about, then this means that while they are protected by this motivation that any karmic tendencies that they would have that could lead them into the lower realms. So this means if they in past lives had, tried to harm the Three Jewels in some way or had committed what are one of what are called the five heinous acts, that even the force, the negative forces of these, these, really, negative destructive actions would be not able to affect them if they had the protection of bodhicitta, if they’re relying on bodhicitta. So this means that with with the with once we’ve developed a bodhicitta, we can’t be reborn in the lower realms.
We can be released from the lower realms in an instant. Because if we’re working for the benefit of others, that isn’t a a cause, then then we can’t be thrown into the lower realms. So in this way, our bodhicitta is a very good protection, for us from being reborn in, negative states. Mhmm. So the next section is how the example is given.
So we’re dealing with how will bodhicitta protect us from the, results of negative actions that we may have done. And this is given by way of example in the next two lines of the next verse. And the example is the sorry, it’s not an example, it’s an analogy. It was an example to start off with anyway. The analogy is that just as the fires at the end of time, just as just as by the fires of the end of time, great sins are utterly consumed by bodhicitta.
So the fire at the end of time is talking about the end of an aeon, the end of a world’s existence and it’s said to be consumed by great fires at this time. And it’s saying that in the same way that everything is consumed by those great fires, then the negative results from the sins that we or the destructive things that we’ve done in the past are burnt up by bodhicitta. They’re destroyed or gotten rid of by the developing a mind of and the mind working to enlightenment. The mind working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. And not only are the results of the great negative things we’ve done in the past consumed but we also always have the potential to attain enlightenment.
So we’re purifying all negative things we’ve done in the past and we’re always working and we’re also working positively towards attaining enlightenment in the future. Okay. So it’s said that bodhicitta has the ability to purify or destroy, many, great negative things that we’ve done, many of the greatly negative things that we’ve done in the past. It said that its ability to destroy these things is likened to the ability to destroy our negative actions to the fire at the end of an eon. So it said that at the end of an eon, all of the realms are consumed by fire and then a new eon begins.
So when the the fires at the end of an eon that consume hang on. At the end of an eon, the fires consume all of the realms of existence up to the third level of the form realm. No. Sorry. The first level of the form realm, which means basically the beings that have realized.
Translate. Mhmm. Okay. So in Buddhist cosmology, there’s all these different levels that you can be reborn into. And some of the higher levels of the God realm, you’re reborn into once you have developed tranquil abiding of mind.
So there are it means being reborn into meditative states. And so the lowest of these is what’s called the first level of the form realm. So in that state, you are reborn into a meditative state but you still have a subtle form. And so it says that when at the end of an eon, all of the beings in the desire realm are wiped out and then reborn in in the new eon. So in this way, all of the beings in all of the realms die and are reborn in a new state.
So this is is said to be the same sort of ability by way of analogy, the ability of bodhicitta to purify the negative things that we’ve done in the past is explained. In the same way as these fires clean out all of the realms, then our negative states are able to be purified by the first moment of the development of bodhicitta. So this type of karma that they’re discussing in this, this verse where it says the, great sins or the big time negative things that people have done. They’re called the this type of karma is called the karma that you definitely experience the results of. And what it means is it’s karma that is so strong, that in the very next life that person will be reborn in a negative state.
Alright. So there’s some some negative things that people can do that their karma is so strong it leads definitely lead to rebirth in the lower realms. So it’s very strong form of karma. A strong karma with a very strong result. So it’s saying then that the development of bodhicitta dissipates the strength of that karma.
It purifies what could be a negative result of that karma, very strong negative result from that karma. And so then it’s saying, okay if bodhicitta is able to do that, if bodhicitta is able to purify such strong negative karma, then we don’t need to mention the little negative things that we do all the time. That may not necessarily lead us to the lower realms, but it’s still going to cause us suffering in some way. And so, this means that bodhicitta, because it can purify such, intensely negative actions, is also able to purify more subtle negative actions. Okay.
So in terms of a definition of the type of karma we’re talking about here, this what’s called the karma that is definitely experienced. Many of the great Buddhist philosophers, or they’re called the chariot-riders. Okay. I said, you know, if you say chariot-riders and getting an English guess, it doesn’t make much sense. And he said, just say Asaṇga and Nāgārjuna.
Right? Who are two Indian pandits and yogis, and they both said that a karma that is definitely to be experienced is karma that doesn’t cannot be dissipated without applying a direct antidote to it. So it’s karma that you definitely will definitely lead you to the lower realms in your next lifetime unless you apply an antidote to it. And this can be purified by one instant of the development of bodhicitta. Mhmm.
Right. Then the next two lines of this verse, which is verse number fourteen, they, describe by way of reference to Sūtra, the benefits of, bodhicitta. So it says then that, thus its benefits are boundless as the wise and loving Lord explained to Sudhana. Now, this is in this refers to a sūtra called the Gandavyuha Sūtra. And in the Gandavyuha Sūtra, then there’s a person called Sudhana who asked Maitreya a question that Buddha inspired Maitreya to answer, so therefore it’s still called a sūtra.
Right? So, the benefits of bodhicitta were explained, in this sūtra. And in this sūtra, the limitless benefits of bodhicitta were in particular explained by Maitreya. And Maitreya, the sūtra, again, is called the Gandavyuha Sūtra. And in this, it’s Sudhana who is described as the young Bodhisattva.
And the young Bodhisattva Sudhana asked asked Maitreya to explain in if he if he could explain in words, the benefits of bodhicitta. And so in in response to this question, Maitreya, being inspired by the Buddha, delivered this particular sūtra which explains the benefits of bodhicitta. Okay. So what he actually said in this sūtra, this, Gandavyuha Sūtra, was, he said, son of the lineage. So he’s talking to this young, Bodhisattva called Sudhana.
So he calls him son of the lineage. And he says, the bodhicitta is the seed is like the seed for all of the Buddha’s Dharma. Now the reason it’s called the seed for the Buddha’s Dharma is this, and Buddha’s bodhicitta acts as the cause for beings to become a Buddha. And so therefore, it acts as a cause for their being a Buddha’s Dharma. Because without, their wish to attain Buddhahood, there would be no Buddha’s and there would be no Buddha’s Dharma.
So in this way, it’s like a seed from which, Buddha’s Dharma Buddha’s Dharma comes about. And then he says, it is like the field which enables the propagation of the positive dharmas of all sentient beings. And so what this means is that through through bodhicitta, through the development of bodhicitta and the teachings of the buddhas, then ient beings are able to perform positive actions. And so in this way, bodhicitta is said to be like the instigator or the the the basis on which these positive actions can come about. This one?
Mhmm. Okay. The Buddha also said that bodhicitta is like the bowl that fulfills all wishes. So when you make the mandala offering, one of the things that you’re offering in the mandala offering is a bowl a bowl that fulfills all wishes, a bowl that can give you anything you want. So in this way, bodhicitta, because it’s said to be the cause for attaining enlightenment, it can be the cause for all known happinesses, all known instances of happiness and, all positive qualities that can be experienced.
It’s also said to be like a it says it’s like a machete for chopping up the or something like a machete for chopping up the enemy of, afflictive emotions. Now, this thing that I’ve loosely translated a machete is one of those, like, big sticks with a knife on the end. That’s yeah. Big stick with a knife on the end. Right?
And Geshe just said, so it used to be the case hundreds of years ago that this was the cutting edge in weapon technology. Alright? Having a stick with a knife on the end of it because it meant you could attack people from a distance and it was a cutting edge. He said, it’s a bit of out of date now. Alright?
So if we wanted to know what bodhicitta is really like, he said, it could be the atom bomb of getting rid of negative emotions. It’s the it’s the cutting edge of weapon tech whatever is the cutting edge of weapon weapon technology that can get rid of enemies, then bodhicitta is it is like it. Not it, but like it, for getting rid of our negative emotions. Mhmm. Yeah.
Mhmm. This means that bodhicitta is the best weapon we have for getting rid of our negative emotions. It’s the it’s the the cause or the container in which we can develop all the positive qualities of Mahāyāna or positive qualities of the path to Buddhahood and all the positive qualities of a Buddha. It’s the thing that propagates or spreads the positive qualities and the good deeds of all sentient beings that relate that result in their happiness. So in this way, it has it has enormous or it has almost incomprehensible qualities that we really need to and there’s there’s many reasons then that we should meditate on it, that we should develop understanding of it, that we should try and develop it and then increase bodhicitta.
Said, so we seem to be able to work really hard, really long hours, and put in a lot of effort into getting things that we’ll get back in this lifetime that we will then proceed to die and leave behind. Right? And so we put in a lot of effort, do a lot of work, and it seems that we’re able to do that. Right? But as soon as it comes to developing working to get out of saṃsāra or become a Buddha or develop bodhicitta, we do it for a tiny little amount of time, and we don’t wanna do it anymore.
We’re bored. We’re tired. And he wants to know why. He said, why? Ask them why.
So Geshe said the only he’s been thinking about this, and the only reason he’s been able to come up with, is that if we do things about this lifetime, if we do something, we work really hard to get something back in this lifetime, we see the results. We get paychecks. Right? If they’re if someone told us we weren’t gonna get a paycheck, regularly and we might get one at some stage in the future and we had doubts about it, he doesn’t think we’d be working very hard. Right?
It’s the same. If we we have our doubts about attaining enlightenment, our doubts about attaining liberation, then we don’t wanna work too hard towards getting it because we can’t see. We don’t have the the we we can’t see the results that clearly. So what this comes down to is we need to work at developing faith. If we had, you know, like clear faith that by doing this we were going to end up as Buddhas, we’re gonna end up as arhats, then it wouldn’t be a problem.
We work pretty hard. Right? But but because we don’t get a, a paycheck at the end of the week, for our, working towards Buddhahood, then it’s a little bit more difficult to, put in the effort to to get there. So the way that we, develop faith in the in the, the ability to attain Buddhahood and and to become to, get out of saṃsāra is by thinking about it, by analyzing it, by, doing analytical meditation on the results of bodhicitta and how how much it will benefit us. Going over and over again in our head, what will how it will help us, how not having it will harm us, and so on.
If we think about this again and again, then we’ll develop certainty about it. Will If we question it, if we look at it, and we, deal with all of our doubts about it, then we’ll develop certainty about it. And if we do that, then our understanding of bodhicitta and our wish to attain enlightenment will become clearer and clearer and clearer. And eventually, we’ll be as certain about attaining enlightenment as we are about getting our paychecks. Alright?
And then when we are as certain about attaining enlightenment as we are about getting our paychecks, then we’ll be able to do as much work for attaining enlightenment as we do to get our paychecks. Okay. So, Okay. So if, if we do keep working on it in this way, if we keep working on developing understanding of exactly what it is that you get out of being a Buddha, how much you can help beings, how and if we keep thinking about the negative things that happen in Samsāra and how we wanna get out of Samsāra, then the more we think about this, the more certain we become about this, then the easier it will be for us to want to work towards that state. And it’s a bit like if we are going to do a little bit of work and get a lot of money, then the little bit of work isn’t gonna seem like that much.
We’ll be very, very happy to do a little bit of work to get a lot of money. Alright? And so, this is what Geshe-la said, this is the way he thinks Bodhisattvas view things. They understand what they’re going to get out of working for the benefit of all sentient beings. They understand, what the results of what they’re doing are.
So then they’re very happy to do what they’re doing. They don’t have any sense of feeling tired or frustrated or bored by what they’re doing because they understand the results. They understand what’s gonna what their paychecks gonna be. So that they’re very very happy to do it. Alright?
But until you develop that certainty, then you’re not going to be as happy about doing it. So that’s what we need to keep working towards is developing that, certainty and that understanding of exactly what we’re going to achieve by becoming Buddhas or attaining Okay. So that was a description of how bodhicitta benefits us in the last couple of verses. The next section actually deals with the nature of bodhicitta. And in terms of its nature, it describes the nature of bodhicitta in a number of different ways.
The first one is, by way of its divisions and the second one is by way of analogy. And the third one is, in particular, describing the benefits of the two different types of bodhicitta. Alright. So the first of these sections then is the divisions of bodhicitta. Then, this is described in the next verse, which is verse fifteen, which says, bodhicitta, the awakening mind, in brief,
In brief, it’s said to have two aspects. First, aspiring bodhicitta in intention, then active bodhicitta practical engagement. So these yeah. So the two different ones again are aspiring bodhicitta and active bodhicitta. Uh-huh.
Uh-huh. This one. This? Mhmm. Okay.
So then, Right. So the next this this is, the next couple of lines are in debate form. Right? So this is the the standard way of Buddhist debate goes. Take for example the supreme bodhicitta.
It is necessarily of two natures because by way of its nature, it has two divisions. Is the aspiring mind focused on enlightenment is one type. And the bodhicitta that is the engaged mind focusing on enlightenment is the other type. Alright. Now, when it says in this that in that that’s like that’s like putting forward an argument or a syllogism.
It says, the mind that is focused on enlightenment in both like an aspiring way, wishing to make it come about, and in an engaged way that is doing things in order to make it come about. Now, when it says focused on enlightenment, the enlightenment it’s talking about is the enlightenment of the being who has this bodhicitta. Right? So it’s not focused on enlightenment bodhicitta isn’t focused on the idea of enlightenment in general or whether there is an enlighten enlightened state or not. It’s focused on the individual enlightenment of the being in whose mind it has developed.
Alright? So it’s focused on the become they that individual becoming a Buddha. Not that there are Buddhas, not that there is enlightenment possible, but that person themselves is going to become a Buddha focused on their own enlightenment. Mhmm. Mhmm.
Mhmm. Okay. So definition of the yeah. The definition of a Mahāyāna mind of enlightenment or the greater vehicle’s mind of enlightenment or the mind seeking enlightenment is a mind that is characterized by having the aspiration to attain enlightenment complete enlightenment, for the benefit of others. Right?
So in actual fact, hang on. I didn’t translate that properly. It’s a mind that is characterized by having aspiration to attain a complete enlightenment the complete enlightenment for the perfected benefit of others. Alright. Left out perfected bit.
Now, this has two aspects to it. There is an individual’s personal enlightenment that they’re focused on, and then it has the reason that they’re doing that which is the perfected benefit. That doesn’t make sense. That’s not English. Anyway, the the ultimate goal or the ultimate the ultimately beneficial state of of because I noticed that people say the ultimate benefit, they have to achieve the ultimate benefit.
That doesn’t make sense really. We say it, but it doesn’t make sense. So to achieve the to to lead other beings to the state that will benefit them ultimately. Right? It’s tongue twister, but it makes more sense.
Right? So the the so this means that an individual being is working towards their own enlightenment. But the reason they’re working towards their own enlightenment is so that they can lead other sentient beings towards other sentient beings enlightenment. So you have two different enlightenments happening here. So when you talk about the mind of enlightenment, the bodhicitta bodhi is enlightenment, citta is mind.
Right? Then you’re talking about the mind looking towards the enlightenment of self and others. Alright. So it’s not a mind. It’s a mind focused on one’s own enlightenment, but for the purpose of benefiting others.
So the mind of enlightenment has these two different aspects to it. There is the motivation which is the light is actually the enlightenment of all beings. And then there’s the goal, which is the, is the enlightenment of that individual. So basically, what this means is an individual is working towards enlightenment. They have the mind focused on a mind focused on enlightenment.
And the reason they have a mind focused on enlightenment is that by achieving enlightenment, they can lead all other sentient beings to enlightenment. Uh-huh. So we shouldn’t be confused and think that the mind of enlightenment is mind focused on enlightenment for an individual’s benefit because this is actually a contradiction in terms. You can’t attain enlightenment, complete enlightenment for your own benefit. The motivation would be too narrow.
So what we’re talking about then is one being or the mind of enlightenment or the thought of enlightenment is this idea of attaining enlightenment in order to lead all other sentient beings to enlightenment. So the goal is your own enlightenment, but the reason isn’t your own enlightenment. The goal is your own enlightenment, but the reason is the enlightenment of all sentient beings. And when you have these two characteristics to an uncontrived thought, then you have bodhicitta. Mhmm.
Okay. So the way you’re thinking about it is that, alright. I see all these people suffering. I don’t want them to suffer. I see all these beings suffering.
I don’t want them to suffer. How do I get them out of that? The only way I can really get them out of that is if they will become Buddhas. Now in order for them to become Buddhas, I need to become a Buddha so I can show them how to become a Buddha, I need to become a Buddha. So then that that those two aspects to the one thought is what we’re trying to develop.
That’s the mind of enlightenment. That’s the if we this the way that we should be meditating on bodhicitta. We should have these two different aspects to our meditation. We should be thinking, I’m working towards attaining enlightenment, in order to be of benefit, in in order to lead all sentient beings to Buddhahood. If we aren’t aren’t doing that and we’re just focused on the idea of our own enlightenment, then we’re not meditating on bodhicitta.
We’re not working towards developing bodhicitta. We’re only, we’ve we’ve missed an important part of the equation. So in this way, bodhicitta has enormous benefits, but it is also very difficult. If we think about it in terms of transforming the way we think to think of others and leading others to Buddhahood as opposed to the way we usually focus on ourselves. So in this way, bodhicitta is very important, very beneficial, and also very difficult.
If it wasn’t difficult, then we’d all be Buddhists. If it wasn’t very difficult, then all of us would have developed bodhicitta and be, have been becoming Buddhas. It’s difficult, so it’s rare, so we have to work at it, but it’s enormously beneficial if we can work at it. Mhmm. Okay.
So the reason that it’s difficult for us to to develop bodhicitta, in uncontrived bodhicitta, is because we are under the influence of an overpowering self-cherishing. So it’s because we have this very deep, overpowering wish to be happy ourselves, to be comfortable, to be happy, not to not experience suffering. Alright? And so as long as we have that, as long as we’re holding on to those this idea of us being happy, then no matter how many times we sit there saying, I’m meditating on bodhicitta. I’m going to attain enlightenment to be a benefit to all sentient beings. We’re not gonna get there.
Alright? This this this wish for our own happiness, this wish for our own comfort, even at the expense of others is diametrically opposite to the mind of bodhicitta. It’s in it’s it contradicts bodhicitta. So while we have one, we can’t have the other. Alright?
So in order for us to really develop bodhicitta instead of sitting there thinking that we are meditating on bodhicitta and just thinking it, we need to get rid of that self-cherishing, that, that idea of our own comfort. Alright? We and we start thinking about others.