Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Geshe Pema Tsering opens this 45-minute commentary with a candid provocation: even dedicated practitioners, if they watch their minds honestly, will find their motivation for meditating is mostly about personal happiness in this life — not Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. Drawing on Atisha’s Lamp on the Path, he explains why cultivating bodhichitta must begin with recognizing suffering in one’s own experience, including the subtler suffering of change we habitually mistake for pleasure. He then distinguishes aspirational from engaged bodhichitta, explains how the Bodhisattva vows formalize both, and gives practical guidance for protecting those vows once taken: recalling bodhichitta’s benefits daily, mentally retaking the vows three times each morning and evening, and resisting the impulse to exclude difficult people from one’s aspiration to help all beings equally.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 21 D BC 2004 07 03.mp3
UUID: 69f5139e-4305-4235-adb6-9410347c9f3d
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: DB How to Develop Bodhichitta (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2004-07-03
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.0 minutes
Words: ~4,115
In The Lamp on the Path to Enlightenment by Atisha, he said that the being who recognizes their own suffering and sees that suffering in all sentient beings and therefore develops the mind to free all sentient beings from suffering is a being of the highest scope or the greatest type of being. Now, what this is referring to is the development of the mind working towards enlightenment. So, the first thing that we need to do in order to develop the bodhicitta mind, the mind working towards enlightenment, is to develop an understanding of the suffering that exists in our continuum. If we don’t understand the way our mind is and understand the suffering that’s in that conditioned state, then we’re not going to be able to understand the way that people are experiencing suffering. So, first need to look at our own sense of suffering, the way that our mind works and how we experience suffering in our own experience.
Then, we can use that as an example and extrapolate that experience out to all other sentient beings and realize that all other beings, all other sentient beings, want to experience happiness, don’t want to experience sorrow. So, if we develop the understanding of our own experience and how we are experiencing suffering and don’t want to experience suffering and then are able to extrapolate that out to all other sentient beings, next thing to do then is to figure out a way of stopping that. So the way that we can stop the experience of suffering in our own continuum and in other beings’ experience is to achieve Buddhahood and show them how not to create the causes for suffering. In this quote, Atisha describes the being who does this, the one who recognizes suffering in all sentient beings as well as in our own continuum, our own mind stream, and then decides to work towards Buddhahood in order to put an end to this. The being who behaves in this way or being who has this motivation, which is the motivation of bodhicitta, that’s what’s called a being of the high scope, a Mahāyāna being.
Now, we all keep talking about being Buddhist, being Mahāyāna Buddhist, liking the Buddha, liking bodhicitta. I like bodhicitta. I like the idea of compassion. Compassion. We have these ideas in our mind but to actually put them into practice, to actually live up to the labels we’re giving ourselves, we need to develop motivation for any actions we do.
Because it’s only with this motivation of working to eliminate suffering from other sentient beings’ continuum by becoming a Buddha that we can actually call ourselves Mahāyāna Buddhists or beings of the greater scope. He said, though, that if you’re anything like him, then developing this attitude or this motivation is difficult. And let alone this but even developing the ability to find suffering in his own experience is difficult. So, he can understand the suffering of suffering, or manifest suffering. It’s easy not to want to experience manifest suffering because that’s something that we can develop renunciation from without even trying.
Anyone can do that. Anyone can have this idea, I don’t want to experience manifest suffering or the suffering is suffering. But to develop a mind that perceives the suffering of change, which we usually view as pleasure or pervasive suffering as suffering, something that is very difficult, at least if you’re anything like him. If you’re anything like him, he says, then you spend most of your time trying to experience the suffering of change, trying to experience manifest pervasive suffering, the nature of our existence and the things we consider happiness that aren’t. Chasing after these things means that we can’t recognize suffering even in our own existence, even in our own mind stream.
We have trouble recognizing what is suffering in that mind stream, in our own experience. So, let alone other people’s experience, we can’t do it even in our own mind. And if we can’t recognize our own suffering, we can’t recognize other people’s suffering. So, developing the mind or the way of thinking that seeks to liberate all beings from this experience of suffering which we haven’t recognized is very difficult. So as beginners, we really need to train train ourselves in developing this mind of bodhicitta.
We need to train ourselves in developing a way of thinking that focuses on others as opposed to focusing on ourselves. At the moment, we don’t recognize the things that we grasp at in this existence are actually suffering, so we spend all that time chasing after them. And this chasing after them is motivated by or we do it because we grasp at ourselves as an inherently existing thing and we treasure this inherently existing thing. We have this idea of ourselves being the most important things and most of the actions that we perform, most of the things that we think about are based upon the idea of how to make this being, this self that we consider so important, happy how to make this self wealthy and happy and how to get profit for this self and how to make yourself comfortable. And not just ourselves, if we look at the city of Adelaide and we watch the people going around and working really hard, all the different people here, it’s safe to say that most of the people’s motivation for whatever it is they’re doing is for their own profit, their own gain, their own comfort, their own happiness.
So this is a constant motivating force from the way that most of our minds work. So if we think about the way that everybody works, the way that everyone thinks, and if we just forget about the rest of the world for the moment and focus on Adelaide, out of the approximately a million people that live in Adelaide, most people, if you ask them why they’re doing things, to make themselves happy in this lifetime. And from amongst those, there’s very few people that have even contemplated the idea of an altruistic motivation of trying to practice the Mahāyāna path of altruism. And even amongst those people who have contemplated the idea that perhaps come to Buddha house or something and have this idea of meditating, have this idea of working towards Buddhahood, see Buddhahood as a goal to be respected, something to strive for amongst all of us who come here and consider ourselves to be Mahāyāna Buddhist or someone working towards Buddhahood. If we watch our mind streams, then most of our motivation isn’t actually to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of sentient beings.
It focuses on this life, whether we’re reading a text or whether we’re meditating or whatever we’re doing. If we watch our minds, then most of the time we’re actually thinking about how meditating, reading the text, studying, listening to teachings these things will make us happy in this life. We’re not thinking about achieving Buddhahood. We’re not thinking about others. We’re thinking about ourselves.
So, this idea of self-cherishing is something that is very ingrained in our mind stream and we need to work very hard to turn it around. To perform the work of a bodhisattva, to actually achieve Buddhahood, we need to completely turn that around. And instead of cherishing ourselves the way that all of us tend to do and we’re so habituated towards doing, we need to turn around completely and cherish others the same way we cherish ourselves, think of others to the same extent that we think of ourselves at the moment. So what we need to do, the motivation that we need to try and establish is that this isn’t about us, it’s about focusing on others, and that we need to think, as beginners, we need to concentrate on changing the way we think. We’re not focusing on ourselves, we’re focusing on all other sentient beings.
And in this way, we should think that the reason I’m going to Buddha house, the reason I’m listening to the teachings, the reason that I am going to try and train my mind in accordance with what the teachings say. The reason that I’m meditating, the reason I’m doing any of these things is in order to achieve Buddhahood to benefit sentient beings. Because as Buddha, I can benefit sentient beings to the utmost extent. So, should think to the best of my ability. So, then we should think, Okay, the reason I’m doing this is to benefit beings, to lead them to a state they’re not experiencing suffering.
We should remember that all sentient beings in exactly the same way as us don’t want to experience suffering, are experiencing suffering, and don’t know the way to actually create the causes for happiness. So, they’re just like us. We want to experience happiness, don’t know how to to do that properly, so we need to train in how to develop the causes for happiness, training in bodhicitta and so forth. So, all sentient beings are the same as us. Want to be happy.
They don’t want to experience suffering. So, if we have our motivation for whatever we do to be achieving Buddhahood in order to benefit them, then that’s the best type of motivation we can have. So then we should think, this evening, gonna listen to an explanation of the bodhicitta vows. By listening to this explanation of the bodhicitta vows, may that be a cause for me to be able to achieve these vows, to take these vows and actually be able to keep them. And may that be a cause for me to develop bodhicitta.
By developing bodhicitta, may I then be able to, by training my mind in developing bodhicitta, and eventually developing bodhicitta, may I then be able to work towards Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings because in that state I can lead them to a state beyond sorrow. So we should think about how this should be our motivation for listening to these teachings and meditate on that idea for a few minutes. Okay. So this evening, we’re talking about the Bodhisattva vows. Now talking about the Bodhisattva vows isn’t easy because the Bodhisattva vows are based on bodhicitta. To take Bodhisattva vows, keep them properly, we need to have this foundation of bodhicitta.
First of all, to describe the vows, need to start at the beginning and to get a rough understanding of bodhicitta itself. The bodhicitta or the mind of enlightenment is this idea of working towards enlightenment in order to be of benefit to all sentient beings. So, this bodhicitta has two elements to it. It has the idea of aspirational bodhicitta and then engaging bodhicitta. Aspirational bodhicitta, the desire to develop bodhicitta, and then the desire to work towards Buddhahood, and then engaging in activity.
We need to know what bodhicitta is. And bodhicitta is this idea of working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. But this can sound a bit obtuse for us to think, I’m going to towards enlightenment, I’m going achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. So, we need to get it a little bit more clear to So if we think about it clearly, there’s this part of bodhicitta which is this idea of an intense wish or an intense aspiration to become a Buddha. If we’re saying, I want to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, we re actually saying, I want to be a Buddha.
I have a hope of becoming a Buddha. I have a strong wish to achieve that. So we have this one goal that we re working towards and then we also need to have a cause or a reason for that goal. So the reason that we have that we’re working towards this goal is to be able to liberate all sentient beings from suffering. So, we have this idea of working towards something and then we have a reason for that, the reason being for all sentient beings.
Now, with this motivation, this is the kind of the motivation of bodhicitta and the aspiration to work towards Buddhahood in order to bring this about is what we call the first part of the bodhicitta, aspirational bodhicitta, the wish, the desire, the conviction of working towards that goal. But, in order for us to become a Buddha, we need to keep that desire, that wish, that hope alive. We also need to put something into action in order to bring this about. There are two aspects to the path to Buddhahood. There is what’s called method and wisdom.
The motivation or the determination to become a Buddha and the activities that we engage in, in order to bring this about is the method aspect of this. We need to have something that we’re doing that’s going to bring this about as well as the wisdom that will help us to become Buddhas. So the method aspect, way to get there is based on bodhicitta and involves the activities that we engage in in order to bring this about. Mainly when they talk about engaged bodhicitta, it refers to the practice of the six perfections. So, with this idea of whatever it is we’re doing, we’re doing in order to achieve Buddhahood, we then engage in the six perfections.
This is engaged bodhicitta. In order to solidify this wish or in order to strengthen it, take the Bodhisattva vows. Now, Bodhisattva vows are usually linked with the idea of engaged bodhicitta because we’re vowing to work towards Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. So, the people that we take these vows in front of, the witnesses to our vows or our oaths, are said to be all of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, so we’re taking them as our witnesses, and our cause for taking the vows is all sentient beings. So, if we think about the fact that there are countless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas beings who have achieved these realizations and they are all supposed to be witnesses to our vow, our oath to work towards enlightenment, then it makes this action very serious or very not to be taken lightly.
It’s a very strong action for us to perform a very I’ve lost the word, but anyway, you know what I mean. It’s a strong action for us to perform. There’s another word, but can’t remember. Anyway, so this action of taking a vow is something that we ask a preceptor to give us but the witnesses to it aren’t just that one person. We think that all of the Buddhas and all the Bodhisattvas are actually witnessing our commitment towards working towards Buddhahood.
Now, when the vows are taken there’s usually eighteen root vows and forty six branch vows that are involved. These different root vows and branch vows are something that comes along with the engaged aspect of So the actual practice of taking the bodhisattva vows is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly and is a difficult practice for us to engage in. It’s not something that we can be flippant about. So there’s two different aspects to the taking of the Bodhisattva vows. The first one is the Vowel of Aspiration.
Now, this Vow of Aspiration is this idea that we all of the positive actions that we performed in the past that they may become a cause for us to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. So it’s called an aspiration because we have this aspiration or this wish to work towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. It’s not any solid activities that we’re we’re vowing to engage in. It’s a motivation or an aspiration. So that’s the first part of the vow.
We take this vow by having the prayer that may I achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. And then we also vow not to forsake this intention until we become a Buddha. So that is all part of aspiration. And then we take the engaging bodhicitta vows or bodhisattva vows. The engaging bodhisattva vows is that we imagine that we’re saying this in front of all of the Buddhas and all of the bodhisattvas and we say to them, Please listen to me, so we’re getting their attention.
And then we say, just in the same way that you all abandoned negative actions, practice positive actions, work towards whatever you could for the sake of sentient beings, in exactly the same way as you did this, then I’m going to behave likewise. I’m going to abandon negative actions and practice positive actions to work towards Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings. So, this is the engaged bodhisattva vows, or engaged bodhisattva vows. These engaged bodhisattva vows commit us to working towards enlightenment, not just aspiring to enlightenment but working towards it, practicing the same things as the Buddhas and the bodhisattvas of the past did, working hard until we achieve enlightenment. These vows then are very vast in their scope and while they grant great benefits if we can keep them, it’s also said to be a very negative to abandon those vows.
So this is the main aspect of the vows, of the Bodhisattva vows or the bodhicitta Bodhisattva vows. You are taking a vow of keeping that aspiration, keeping that wish to work towards or hope to work towards enlightenment, guarding the hope and also guarding the vow to engage in the activities of bodhisattvas to train in the activities of bodhisattvas in the same way that they trained in in order to achieve enlightenment. The bodhisattvas are the path they trained. So this is the next part of the vow. But once you’ve taken this vow, then you need to know how to protect these vows.
You need to know how to strengthen them and to encourage them, and you do this through the instructions that are given in order to help us keep these vows. So actually taking vows is pretty easy. You just sit there and say whatever the teacher says three times at the end. Says, you got the vows? And you say, yeah.
Taking them is pretty easy. So that’s pretty easy to take. No one should have a problem taking them. But the the trick is that after you’ve taken them, you actually have to protect them, and this can be very and you have to keep the vows, and that can be trickier, more difficult. Okay.
So with regards to the advice that comes along with keeping the bodhisattva vows or the bodhicitta vows, then there’s advice that relates to keeping the aspirational form of bodhicitta, and then there’s advice that relates to keeping the engaged form of bodhicitta. Right. Now, we’ve got little compartments here. And the first one, there was advice for keeping the aspirational vows, advice for keeping the engaged vows, and then within the advice for keeping the aspirational vows section, then there is advice on how to keep the aspirational vows in this life and advice on how to not be separated from the aspiration to achieve bodhicitta in your remaining rebirth. So the first way that you train yourself for the advice that is given in order to protect the vows of aspirational bodhicitta in this lifetime is recall the benefits of developing bodhicitta.
So, are many ways that developing bodhicitta helps us. If you have bodhicitta, you are never sad. You’re experiencing great happiness all the time. You’re continually doing positive actions and you’re working towards Buddhahood, which is for the sake of all sentient beings ultimate state. So there’s many different positive elements to training in bodhicitta and developing in bodhicitta.
If you want to protect the vows in this life, the aspiration vows in this life, then thinking about the benefits of bodhicitta and recalling them is very helpful. So this is something that’s Oh, it is. If we don’t work at it, if we don’t think about this, this isn’t something that we naturally do. We don’t wake up usually first thing in the morning and think, I’m going to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of sentient beings. We’re usually thinking about something else.
We’re usually thinking about what it is that we have to do today, the work we need to do, the things we have to achieve, some way that we can make ourselves happy in the daytime. These kind of things come to our mind. It’s not something that naturally springs into our mind. Now, I must work towards enlightenment for the benefit of our sentient beings. So, this is something that we need to focus on.
We need to work at reminding ourselves of bodhicitta and reminding ourselves to work the benefits of bodhicitta. So another advice another piece of advice to keeping the bodhisattva vows or bodhisattva vows is to remind ourselves or retake the vows three times in the morning and three times in the evening. So if we do this, we don’t have to go through the whole process. We can just think, I work towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings and engage in activities to bring this about. We can just remind ourselves of the vows that we took three times in the morning and three times in the evening.
So the next thing that we need to do is to prevent ourselves from thinking we don’t want to help people. If someone does something bad to us, we should try and stop ourselves from thinking, I’m not working for their benefit. So and even though we may not have this idea all the time, I’m not gonna work for their benefit because we are constantly distracted by our own working for our own benefit, it’s not something that we think about regularly. So, even if we don’t have a direct negative thought, I don’t wanna work for their benefit because we’re so caught up in working for our own ends, then we won’t spend a lot of time thinking about actually helping others. So, what we need to do is remind ourselves, just keep trying to remind ourselves to work for the benefit of others, work towards enlightenment, and if we keep reminding ourselves in this way, this is the way we train in developing bodhicitta.
So what we need to do is is not to think in this way. I’ve done a lot for that person before, and they have done nothing in return for me. I’ve worked really hard to help them out and they have not given me anything back. So, I’ll work for the benefit of all other sentient beings but not them. Yeah?
If we start thinking like this, we’d lose the vows, right? So, it’s something that we need to try and stop ourselves from thinking. And then by doing this, we need to constantly keep coming back to work for others’ benefit and not our own. So we need to be developing the idea of working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, even the ones that have annoyed us or bugged us. We need to stop thinking about beings as being our friend, our enemy, or someone, whether it’s a stranger to us, and start thinking about working for all of them.
So, if we have this idea of working for some and not others, then that’s not the bodhicitta motivation. So we need to keep reminding ourselves of equanimity and how we need to work for the benefit of all sentient beings. So now I guess he wants to know if you think the Bodhisattva vows are easy? No. He said he doesn’t think so.
Then we have the danger of losing them. So the next thing that we need to do, the next piece of advice for keeping bodhisattva vows is to try and increase our stores of positive karma or merit in order to help us to develop bodhicitta or to expand the glimpses of bodhicitta that we may have experienced. The way that we can do this is by practicing giving, practicing ethics, practicing patience and so forth. If we keep doing these actions and dedicating them to the development of bodhicitta, then this helps the experience of bodhicitta to expand. So the next section then was back to what we were saying before about how to practice in order not to be separated from bodhicitta in future lifetimes how to