Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. The measure that separates ordinary compassion from great compassion — when it arises as spontaneously as a mother’s anguish over her sick child — sets the opening of this 134-minute Lamrim commentary by Geshe Pema Tsering. He then addresses why generating that same feeling toward apparently comfortable, wealthy people is genuinely hard, and why training in the three levels of samsaric suffering is the antidote. The session moves through the extraordinary attitude (personally resolving to liberate all beings), the two-part definition of bodhicitta — aspiring mind and engaging mind — and how to build the second half by contemplating the qualities of a Buddha’s body, speech, and omniscient mind. Geshe closes by citing Śāntideva and insisting that for beginners, no practice outweighs this training.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 17 2009 07 23 BP.mp3
UUID: b7dc09ba-5cba-4ca4-af2e-5b779bd144de
Teacher: Geshe Pema Tsering
Collection: Middle Lam Rim (Geshe Pema Tsering)
Date: 2009-07-23
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 134.1 minutes
Words: ~7,102
So then we we we proceed where we stopped. So the the next topic is then, the measure of having generated compassion. So the measure of having generated compassion is taught in the first stages of meditation by Kamalaśīla. At the point where the compassion that has the aspect of the constant desire to remove the suffering of all sentient beings, as if your own beloved child was unhappy, operates naturally in you and operates in accordance with your own nature, then it is complete. Thereby, it obtains the name great compassion.
Producing great compassion, again, we have to go through all those previous steps that we have been seeing before. So again, from knowing beings as one’s mothers, recollecting their kindness, repaying their kindness, and and so on. So we cultivating all these steps, then we’ll we’ll create such we’ll be so have have so much care for them, so much concern for the for their well-being that when then we come to contemplating the predicament in which all sentient beings find themselves in in this great ocean ocean of suffering that they all find themselves, then we will have this this intense, this very intense desire to free them from suffering, to liberate them from their suffering. In the same way that a mother who who who loves her child very much when the when her child is sick or is experiencing suffering, that mother has this overwhelming desire to relieve her child from suffering. And this is the type of of this is the intensity, the quality of the feeling tone that we that our great compassion has to have.
So when we have such a spontaneous and very strong and intense feeling of compassion towards all sentient beings then we have great compassion. And this one. And Geshe-la goes through the through the text that says, thus if compassion towards all sentient beings naturally arises to the extent of the compassion generated by a mother when the child she loves with all her heart suffers, it is said to be a fully qualified great compassion. And then again, hence, the same is true for the measure of the generation of great love. And again, so, in this the same we’re talking about a great love that has, again, the same intensity as as this great compassion.
So in the same way that we that mother is wishing for her child, you know, may my child be free from suffering with such great intensity in the same way, she’s wishing for her child to be endowed with happiness. Because I wanna say when when when one arises, the other comes, follow suit. When when when you have compassion, the other follows suit. And this is the the the quality of these feelings that we want to generate. Saying no.
This compassion that a mother feels for her child, that’s that’s relatively easy to to produce because we can see the suffering of the child, and then it’s relatively easy then to produce such an intense feeling of compassion, to have that feeling of compassion. Now the compassion that we are attempting to develop towards all sentient beings that comes by contemplating how all beings are tormented by suffering, overwhelmed by suffering, and that’s much more much more difficult to produce. This one. So again, what the way we think is, okay, I can see the suffering of my child. Of course, I have compassion for my child, but not every sentient being is experiencing suffering.
There are a lot of sentient beings that don’t experience suffering at all. There are a lot of gods and goddesses that don’t experience any suffering. There are a lot amongst us humans. There are those who are very rich and powerful and wealthy and and and and whatnot, and and and they don’t experience any suffering at all. So why why should I feel compassion for them?
Instead, think, you know, may may I may I become rich? May I become powerful? May I have that that wealth? May I have that power? May I have that fame, that authority, and all that?
And we never stop to to we don’t see those beings, those people as as experiencing suffering the way that our child is might be experiencing suffering. So and so that’s then that’s why it is important that we contemplate, sufferings, that we, train our minds in understanding the sufferings of cyclic existence. We have to contemplate the fact in as as in in the case of the training of that is common to beings of small scope as we have seen before. We have to contemplate the fact that all beings that are included in in within cyclic existence, they are all overpowered. They’re all driven.
They’re all governed by contaminated actions and the afflictions. They have no freedom or whatsoever. Whatsoever. We are all being governed by the and the afflictions. And we have to contemplate the fact that within everyone and everything that is included within cyclic existence, within all that, there’s nothing but suffering.
We have to train our minds in that manner. That’s why it is very important that we train our minds in that manner. It doesn’t matter how how rich, how powerful, how famous. Again, we’re all we’re all subject to these sufferings. We’re all tormented by the sufferings.
We have to contemplate the fact that again they are as afflicted as that child that we that’s ill child. They are just as afflicted as tormented by all sufferings they are they’re just as ill as sick as the child and in this manner we can we have to see as contemplate again all these whatever little pleasures and enjoyments they have they’re not gonna last. This lifetime is very brief, very short, and they’re gonna last they’re not gonna last more than a hundred years. So again understanding this, bringing in this understanding, this contemplation, and we can develop the wish that may they have real lasting happiness. And Geshe-la is in saying, so when so when we when we have that when we develop that thought, those minds that think, you know, may all beings be free from suffering, and may all beings be endowed with happiness.
We’re talking about lasting happiness, and we’re talking about absolute freedom from suffering, from suffering. So when we’re talking about, you know, may all beings be endowed with with with happiness, we’re talking about real lasting happiness of liberation and enlightenment. And when we’re talking about may they may all beings be free from suffering, we’re not just talking about the suffering of suffering because that is that doesn’t make for a fully qualified great compassion. We’re talking about complete freedom from every suffering. So, Geshe lazin, so again, it is not without engaging a lot of analytical meditation that we will ever be able to properly produce such minds of great love and great compassion as we have been taught today.
Again as for the wish, the compassion that wishes to be free from obvious sufferings, suffering of sickness, of pain, or discomfort, and so on. The suffering of suffering. Again, there’s no need to talk about. Even animals have that. So, of course, we also have that.
Now we need to take that as a foundation, as the seed, and then by familiarizing ourselves with that, we we we increment that when we’re going to include the other types of suffering and other sentient beings. So that’s that is where we start. That is our starting point, that mind. And by by familiarizing ourselves, by habituating ourselves, by increasing that that the power and and and and the scope scope of that of that mind through habituation, then we we eventually train our ourselves all the way up to great compassion. So again, Geshe-la says that we all have we all have compassion already for those those people we we love, those people that are dear to us, our relatives, our partners, our children, whoever that may be.
We already have compassion for those for those beings. We we have the wish that they be free from from pain, from suffering, from sickness, from discomfort, and all that. So what we need to do then is is increase the increase the object of observation of that of that compassion. So if the object of observation now is only those that are close and dear to us, we increase it, gradually gradually increase it to include all beings. And then and then also we need to increase the aspects, the its aspects, the aspects of the sufferings that it is intending to relieve beings from.
So, again, if now we only intend to release to release beings from the suffering of suffering, we have to include in that, you know, the suffering of change and the upper various component suffering. We want to free all beings from every suffering there is, from all the three types of suffering. And in this way, we train our minds gradually. We train this compassion that we already have gradually to make it grow up into something that embraces all beings. So, again, Geshe-la goes on to the next topic of meditating on the extraordinary attitude, and that that has two parts.
So the actual way to meditate on the extraordinary attitude. Again, at the end of having meditated on love and compassion in this manner, so having completed the meditation on on love and compassion in this manner, then you will think, alas, if these sentient beings who are who are so dear and pleasant and and and and kind to me are thus deprived of happiness and tormented by suffering, I must make them meet with happiness. I must endow them with happiness, and I must free them from suffering. Why is that a a question mark here? It’s I must.
It’s not a question mark. Then in taking upon yourself, at least in mere words, the responsibility to liberate them, your mind is trained. And then, Geshe-la is saying, going back to that to that sentence. Again, having having gone through all those steps of of meditation, recollect ing being someone’s mother, recollecting their kindness, repaying their kindness, love, compassion, and all that. And, again, we we we think of all those beings, and the words here are attractive and pleasant.
So, again, though Geshe-la was just saying having contemplated having contemplating how all beings have developed those those that awareness that all beings are very kind to us. They’re all very beneficial to us. They’re all immensely kind to us. So then they’re all dear to us. They’re all close to us.
So having developed that, having recognized that, we we come to understand. We come to to we come to feel like, again, just to leave them helplessly in this ocean of suffering, tormented by suffering is not alright. I cannot do that. I must do something about it. I must free them from suffering, from this ocean of suffering.
And Geshe-la was saying that, again, in taking upon yourself, at least in mere words, the responsibility to liberate them. Just by merely saying that, and Geshe-la was pointing out, this is this is indicating how difficult it is to produce this extraordinary attitude, this superior resolution here. This resolve that I myself must I alone must free all sentient beings. I must do this job. I must free all sentient beings from suffering and all of them with with happiness.
And and to to generate this resolution is something which is extremely difficult, and you have to start just by repeating the words and trying to bring the thoughts and the feelings together with that. And, eventually, if you if you persist in your training, then, eventually, you will you’ll be able to produce that. Geshe-la is explaining, going for the next topic, clearing up doubts. So, again, although this point has already been made briefly has already been briefly explained in the context of repaying the kindness of sentient beings. So, again, when when we are contemplating, we have content recollected their great kindness, and then we the third step is that we we develop the wish to repay that kindness.
And, again, so this point has already been brought briefly in that in that context that we wish we have to free all of them from suffering. We have may all may all them be free from suffering. May all them be endowed with happiness. Now although it has been shown already in that context, it is it is shown here that the love and compassion, that thing, how wonderful it would be if they were to meet with happiness and how wonderful it would be if they were to be free from suffering, they are not sufficient. This is because it is shown that it is necessary to generate the love and compassion that are able to induce the thought, I myself must accomplish the happiness and benefit of beings.
And then again, this is this is not to be done just during meditation sessions, but it is to be sustained continuously through remembering it during all activities after the sessions and between the sessions and so forth as as it states in the middle stages of meditation. So again, there is no need to to say anything about the meditation session. Of course, the meditation session, this is what you are cultivating. But again, even in between the meditation sessions, during every other activity that you are engaged in, eating, sitting, sleeping, and and whatever else that you are going to do, again, you should be also be cultivating, training your mind in this manner. And, again, so, in that during in in every activity that we are going to engage in, we give rise to this thought before we are going to engage and once we are engaging.
So I’m going I’m going to do this activity. I’m gonna do this job. I’m going to work today again so that I can relieve all beings from every suffering, so that I can liberate all beings from every suffering, so that I can accomplish so that I can accomplish the perfect happiness of all beings and so on. And Geshe-la wasn’t saying, and you you you hear what Geshe-la was saying. Again and again and again, you keep on bringing this to mind, and eventually, it’s gonna get clearer and clearer, stronger and stronger.
And Geshe-la is saying, again, so the way we we all go about it, again, whatever it is that we are meditating on, be it loving kindness, compassion, recollecting their kindness or remembering sentient beings as one’s mothers or equanimity or whatever it may be that we are meditating on. We meditate for a few minutes, and then we leave it at that. And we just go on about our days without thinking about it at any other time of the day. And that’s and it it is good. It’s beneficial.
It leads some imprints, but that’s that’s not the way that we are being instructed to train. That’s not the way that we are going to accomplish great love and great compassion and all that. Now, again and even if you might if you might stay for one or two hours deeply involved, seriously involved with the thoughts of this of this meditations and teachings of great love and compassion and whatnot. Again, if you just get off your meditation cushion and just go about your day and and and giving into whatever distracting thought arises, then again, again, a very powerful thing to do. It’s a very powerful imprint that you are leaving in your minds.
But, again, that’s not quite the right way to accomplish perfectly accomplish great love and great compassion. It’s not quite gonna lead to to that end. Thank you, so again, there is no no question about the great benefit that can be that is that is created when one generates generates those thoughts of great love and kindness or great compassion and all that. It is definitely greatly beneficial. We have gone through that already.
Just one moment of that real mind of great compassion creates immeasurable benefits. But, again, if we want to really fully accomplish it in in in in this manner that we are being taught here, then, again, we really have to engage in it more more than just, you know, in the meditation sessions or just for a few minutes a day. We need to we need to engage in it. We need to think of it. We need to contemplating the great benefits that can be derived from generating these minds of great love and kindness, great compassion, and all that.
And then, again, we need to cultivate it. We need to bring it to mind with the intention of increasing it. In with the intention of increasing their scope, their momentum, and really making them grow to to its to its to to the greatest, making it the the greatest that you can make. So we need to have this intention. And with this in mind, with this understanding mind, we need to habituate ourselves.
We need to familiarize ourselves with the intention of familiarizing, of habituating, of increasing those minds. And, again, we keep on bringing them to mind. We keep on training our minds in it. Whatever activity we are going to engage in, we just think about it, bring it to mind. Let’s go.
So, again, Geshe-la is saying so with regards to the mind of enlightenment, of bodhicitta, it is that mind that has these two that is that is endowed with these two aspects. The one aspect, which is the aspiration to accomplish the perfect well-being of all beings, of all sentient beings, and the other aspect, which is the aspiration to accomplish one’s own enlightenment. And, So the first one of those aspects, the aspiration to accomplish the welfare of all sentient beings, again, order to be able to produce that, we have to go through all these steps that we have been going through. We have to start with equanimity.
Recollecting all beings as one’s mother. Recollecting their kindness. We’re repaying their kindness, great love and kindness, great compassion, all the way to the superior resolution, to this superior attitude, the extraordinary attitude. And this is having produced every one of those steps, having generated every one of those steps well enough, then you we will have this first aspect of the mind of enlightenment, the the wish, the the the intention of accomplishing the welfare of all beings. And then so again training, Geshe-la goes on to the next topic, training in the mind striving for enlightenment.
So again having trained in all these previous steps and developed that strong intention to free to to accomplish the welfare of all beings, and, again, one must then generate we generate generate then the second half of the mind of enlightenment, which is then the the the intention of accomplishing enlightenment to be able to accomplish that. So, again, training in the mind is striving for enlightenment. So when inspired by the steps explained so far so, again, all the steps starting from with equanimity all the way up to the extraordinary attitude, you see that it is necessary to become a Buddha for the welfare of others. You will also develop the wish to attain it, to attain Buddhahood. So then, nonetheless, since that in itself is not sufficient, at the beginning, you should increase your faith through thinking about the good qualities of the exalted body, speech, and mind, and the enlightened activities as they are as they were explained before in the context of going for refuge.
Then since that faith is said to act as the basis for aspiration, you will generate the wish to attain those qualities. And Geshe-la was so again, going back to the beginning of of that last sentence, again, one has to contemplate the qualities of of the Buddha, of the fully enlightened being as has been explained at the in the context of refuge. But even more than that, I don’t have to contemplate the quality of the exalted body of a Buddha and the speech and the mind and the activities. So, again, one the things of the of the enlightened body of a Buddha, is not a body like our bodies, which is made of flesh and bones. It is a body that is is made of of of of mind matter, and and it has no obstructions whatsoever.
It has no limitations whatsoever. It it there is no issue of distance. There are no issues of distance. It can cover any distance any way it likes. It can emanate.
There’s no there’s no limit to the number of emanations it can send for. There is no there is no obstructions whatsoever to the to the enlightened body of a Buddha. It cannot it can fulfill it can manifest the wishes of all sentient beings all at once, all at the same And Geshe-la, there’s a quote from one sūtra in in again, which says, if you if you believe, if you develop the faith in your heart that there there is a Buddha in every little atom there is, there is a Buddha, then you will derive all the benefits of of there being actual Buddhas in all those little atoms. You will derive all the blessings, all all all the benefits. Because from the side of the Buddha of an enlightened being itself, there’s no obstruction whatsoever.
So but we all we need is from our side to develop that faith. And by the power of that faith, and, again, we’ll be able to derive all the all those benefits. And And Geshe-la illustrating again the exalted qualities of the enlightened speech of of a Buddha. Again, the the enlightened speech of a Buddha can answer all the questions of all beings again with this one word. Geshe-la was giving illustration.
If there were a hundred thousand people here, and each one of those hundred thousand people had one different question, one different issue in their minds, so a hundred thousand different questions, the Buddha, by proclaiming just one word, will be able to answer all those questions, or will have all those questions answered by proclaiming only one word. And, again, and then as for the the qualities of the exalted mind, the enlightened mind of a Buddha, again, there is nothing the that the enlightened mind of a Buddha does not know. Every object of knowledge, everything there is to be known is known by the Buddha, by a Buddha. There is no issue of distance, of there being light or or darkness. Buddha knows everything.
If a Buddha doesn’t know it, it doesn’t exist. That’s how it’s put. And, again, as for as for the enlightened activities of a Buddha, Geshe-la wasn’t saying the enlightened activities, Geshe usually explains that as being every virtue. Every virtue there is, every virtuous action there is, is the enlightened activity of a Buddha. So every every happiness that we experience is is a result of an action.
It’s a result of a virtuous action. And all those virtuous actions are the enlightened activities of the Buddha. And as such, the enlightened activities of of the Buddha have, again, have no obstruction whatsoever. This one. And then so if we contemplate again if we study the text and we contemplate those qualities in that manner then naturally will arise.
The thought will arise in our minds. May may I may I be like that? May I attain those qualities? May I be like that? And then all we have to do is really cultivate our faith in it.
And there is Geshe-la was saying, is no there is no there is no better object of of our aspirations or of of our faith now, is it? It’s there. And Geshe-la is saying so now we have we have again, we have the Buddha Śākyamūni and we have Avalokiteśvara and Mañjuśrī and Tārā. And we have and we have so many Buddhas. As we have been told already before, are innumerable Buddhas.
Buddhas are really countless. And then we think about all this we think about all of them, and we think, you know, they’re they’re such impressive beings. They’re such great beings, and we have this faith that arises with regards to all of them. And in this manner, we do generate a lot of merit by relating to to them in this manner. But that is, Geshe-la is saying, that is not the faith that is being spoken of here.
The main thing is that we have to contemplating all these qualities, all these amazing qualities of all these amazing beings, we have to develop the aspiration that I myself may I myself attain enlightenment. And that enlightened being, which is the result of one’s enlightenment, which is the result of oneself having got rid of all faults and having developed all qualities. So that enlightened being that is the result of that, that is the main object of one’s faith and aspiration. So, again, visualizing and saying so that that enlightened enlightened being is not there yet. So because we are not enlightened yet.
We still have faults and shortcomings. But then we develop the aspiration that we may attain that enlightenment, that we may that we may attain that enlightenment, that we may be that Buddha, which is the result of which is the result of us getting rid of all our faults and being endowed with every good quality. And so so that is our object of aspiration. We we develop great faith, and we have this strong aspiration that may I then may may I attain that enlightenment. May I may I may I become that Buddha.
And in this way, having become that Buddha, attaining enlightenment in this manner, then I will be able to perfectly accomplish the happiness of all beings. I’ll be able to perfectly relieve all beings from every suffering. Geshe-la is saying right now we we do not have that. There is no such enlightened being as this one that’s being talked about. So we we think to ourselves, there is no such being.
So how is it that I’m going to attain that? And Geshe-la was then saying, so even though it might seem that way, the fact is that we do have Buddha nature. And all all we need to do is is get rid of all the obscurations. By getting rid of all the obscurations, then what is left is is that is that Buddha nature. And it is and so we have the seed already.
We have the cause already. Our task is to is to get rid of the obscuration, the afflictive obscuration, the obscurations to omniscience. That’s our job. And then so this then is what is this mind striving for enlightenment. The mind is striving for one’s own enlightenment.
Is that right? So then when we when we develop this, when we have fully developed this aspiration that strives for one’s own enlightenment, then we have the second half of bodhicitta. Then we have the whole bodhicitta. That’s what is called the mind of enlightenment. So we have gone we have developed first the mind that is striving to accomplish the perfect welfare of all beings.
That is the the the mind is striving to this mind strives to establish all beings in enlightenment, in Buddhahood. So having gone through all those types of meditation from equanimity, recollecting one’s mothers, and so on, great loving kindness, great compassion, then we develop that that that aspiration. May all beings attain enlightenment. And then in order to be able to accomplish that, in order to be able to accomplish the enlightenment of all beings, I myself must accomplish enlightenment. I myself must attain enlightenment.
That then is bodhicitta. And so, again, this this then is the mind of enlightenment. May may all beings wishing that all beings be endowed with wishing to accomplish all beings, may I attain enlightenment. And, again, when we’re talking about that is not just and and it’s not just it’s a very specific thing. So it’s just not not just all beings, not just anyone, but every being without exception.
And when we’re talking about the welfare, accomplishing the welfare, the perfect welfare, we’re talking about accomplishing unsurpassed happiness of enlightenment. And in order to be able to do that, one must accomplish perfect enlightenment. And Geshe-la is just going through the the the rest of the sentence again. Then since that faith is said to act as the basis for aspiration, you would generate the wish to attain those qualities from the bottom of your heart. And that will induce certainty that the achievement of an exalted knower of all aspects, omniscient being is indispensable also for your own welfare.
And I can just go for the last clause again, and that will also induce the certainty that the achievement of omniscience is indispensable for your own welfare. So then again, in order to develop bodhicitta, in order to develop the mind of enlightenment, need to train in these two aspirations. The aspiration, the the the mind that strives to accomplish the perfect welfare of all beings, and the the mind that strives to accomplish full enlightenment oneself. So we need so we need to engage in these two trainings in order to be able to develop bodhicitta. And then so then the cultivation of that attitude that is striving for accomplish the perfect welfare of others is done is done by from from the development of equanimity, from the cultivation of equanimity all the way up to the cultivation of the exalted, the extraordinary attitude.
Okay? And that’s that’s how those are all the steps that are necessary in order to cultivate this mind that is intent on accomplishing the welfare of others. And then the cultivation of the other half, the other aspect of the mind of enlightenment, again, the mind that strives to attain enlightenment, oneself, is, again, is done by contemplating, again, all the the exalted qualities of the enlightened beings, of the body, speech, mind, enlightened activities, and then developing great faith and great aspiration, and then developing that certainty that one must attain enlightenment. That’s the only way to accomplish one’s aspirations. So, Geshe is going for the next the last topic again of this section.
The result of of the training, identifying the mind generation. And there is two parts of that. So the the the general definition itself. So the general definition, it reads, the general definition is as taught in the Ornament for Clear Realization. The mind generation is a desire for perfectly complete enlightenment for the welfare of others.
And and, Geshe lah, I just going for the the Tibetan because the form of the Tibetan is very is a technical definition. So it says, the mind generation. So for the for the for the welfare of others, for the sake of the welfare of others, the wish to attain perfect complete enlightenment. And that’s the the Tibetan is a very formal way to put it. So I guess I was just explaining what what it means.
That’s what it means. And so just, again, you said just rephrasing it another way in Tibetan. Just saying again, so this mind of enlightenment is what it is then. It is that for the sake of the welfare of others, for the sake of was explaining, because sort of an abbreviated version, for the sake of the the the perfect welfare of others, for the sake of the enlightenment of all others, I might I must accomplish perfect, complete enlightenment. So again, one one one contemplates that the mind generation, mind of enlightenment, the desire for perfect and complete enlightenment for the welfare of others, for the sake of the welfare of others.
So one contemplates the meaning of that. One contemplates this definition and keeps and keeps it in mind and memorizes that. And then so, again, this is the definition then of the mind of enlightenment. And then when we go for we go for the definite the divisions, engaging in the Bodhisattva conduct and following the Gandavyuha Sūtra teaches the two, the aspiring and engaging bodhicittas, saying in the same way that the peculiarities peculiarities of the wish to go and going are to be understood, the wise should respectfully understand, the wise should respectfully understand the peculiarities of these two, again, the aspiring and the engaging bodhicittas. And, again, we are giving the analogy of the engaging on on a on a travel to going or to reaching a destination.
So again Geshe-la was then saying if you if somebody intends to travel by car to Sydney, again, that person has to make all the preparations, the necessary preparations. And then and and those that time during the preparations is what is equivalent to the aspiring, the aspiration. A person has aspiration to go. So that’s what’s the equivalent to the aspiring bodhicitta, the aspiration to attain enlightenment. And then and when when when that person actually starts driving on the road to Sydney in that direction, then, again, that is the engaging that person is engaging in the actual action that’s going to lead to that destination that where that’s going to end up in that destination that is Sydney.
So, again, so we have the engaging bodhicitta. So when when one has developed the aspiring mind of enlightenment and one one finally engages in the enlightened in the perfections from morality, effort, and so on, that is then said to be that that that one is that being then is is exercising the engaging bodhicitta. And there are other beings who have not yet started to engage in the actions in those perfections, and they are just cultivating the the aspiration. You know? May I attain enlightenment?
Do they just cultivating that that thought may attain enlightenment for the sake of all beings. So they are still at the stage of the aspiring bodhicitta. So again, we all need so we all need to train in these in these minds of enlightenment, these bodhicittas. Again, because the the the merit that is generated by that is, again, as as we have been told already so many times, is immeasurable, is is inexhaustible, and that is because that mind of bodhicitta has those two aspects. The one aspect that is striving to accomplish the perfect welfare of all sentient beings without exception.
The other aspect that is that is intent striving to accomplish full enlightenment oneself. Because of those two aspects, that mind is is truly powerful. So one moment, only one moment of such a mind generates already inexhaustible benefits, inexhaustible merit. And, Geshe-la, let’s go through the rest of the text. If there appear to be a lot of inconsistencies in this respect, there is also the statement in the first stages of meditation that the mind that thinks, may I become a Buddha for the welfare of sentient beings is the aspiring mind.
And that having taken the vow, that mind is the engaging mind generation or the engaging bodhicitta. Then is what we should be training our minds in at all times when we are sitting to meditate and every other time between meditations and between teachings we should be cultivating these trainings on the mind of enlightenment, all these steps, all these steps that we have been going through. We should be cultivating that. For us beginners, Geshe-la said, there is nothing that is more important than this. There’s absolutely nothing more important than this for beginners.
Geshe was saying all this talk about tantric deities and all that. This is for those who have already accomplished bodhicitta. Those who have not accomplished bodhicitta, if if they accomplish any good from those practices, it’s of no it’s of very little significance. The words Geshe lah actually said is that they accomplished no good whatsoever. So for us, beginners Geshe lah again always reiterates that, the only important thing for us bodhicitta.
Geshe-la was quoting again the the quote from Śāntideva, which says that with with that, even if one does harm, again, a measure of benefit is accomplished, to that, to the source of such immeasurable good, I go for refuge. And, again, that’s making reference to bodhicitta again. And that’s and Geshe-la was saying, so then we should always cultivate this faith, aspiration, liking. We should really cherish the mind of enlightenment at all times. So, again, we should always be meditating with it, familiarizing ourselves with it.
Even though accomplishing it, really accomplishing it is very difficult, nonetheless, there is still already a lot of an immeasurable amount of benefit. Thank you. By familiarizing ourselves with it. And then if familiar if we start familiarizing ourselves with it now, then again, would make it much easier in in a future life for us to accomplish it. And Geshe-la wasn’t saying that there was a person who was engaging in this training of the mind of enlightenment.
Even even if that person had not accomplished it, just by or continually engaging in such a training, that person would already be reaping so many benefits. The person will be liked by everybody. That person will be helped by everybody and so on and so on. And those are the the the the by the force of of training the mind of enlightenment. And Geshe lah is saying, so again, it benefits us in the present life.
It benefits us in our future lives. So for us, therefore, for us, and Geshe lah points out for us beginners, there’s absolutely nothing more important than it. So then this this then concludes then those the the section of the text, which is about the the seven point cause and effect, instruction for developing the mind of enlightenment. And then we’re going to start next with the equalizing and exchanging self for others. So I have a few minutes for questions.
So again, yes, you still you still can train. You you can still train in the mind of enlightenment. You can still develop the give rise to the thought and try to produce as to the best of your own ability. You know, that the thought that may all beings without exception be free from every suffering, and may I myself attain enlightenment. And if if if if that sounds maybe too foreign at this stage, Geshe-la was gonna say you can think of the Buddha Śākyamūni.
You can think that may all beings attain that state of the Buddha Śākyamūni. In order to accomplish that, may I myself attain the state of the Buddha Śākyamūni. You can think like that too. And Geshe-la was saying, no. And and we we and and whilst we are doing that, then again, we we keep on studying.
We keep on familiarizing ourselves with all those steps of equanimity, knowing beings as one’s mothers, recollecting their kindness, and so on. And because there is there’s really there’s nothing that we cannot understand there. There’s nothing there that we cannot understand. So we we must we must train our minds in that. So again, Geshe-la was saying that we can contemplate how all beings are experiencing suffering.
How they do experience suffering. We can develop in the wish. Again, understand how Buddha Śākyamūni is free from all that. And then when we have the wish, again, may all beings have that state, attain that that state of Buddha Śākyamūni. And in order to be able to accomplish that, I have to attain the state of Buddha Śākyamūni myself.
And that’s that makes a bit easier to to think about it. Can you can you you think, like in this manner? So that that’s that’s what it is in a nutshell. That’s what it is. Alright.
Or if you have any doubts, throw in a question. Yes? He was a foreigner right? And and so I said what you said, and just and that’s it. In order to be able to help all people, you have to work your own mind and get rid of all your afflictions.
I just failed to see a difference. Maybe it’s I heard of. The way you put it, there there was no difference. It was the same thing. Understand.
This is like what we are doing. And so, Geshe-la is saying, so, you know, what what what he said is right. It’s it’s in accord with with what we are saying here. Because in order to be able to accomplish the welfare of all beings, we ourselves need to first attain enlightenment. That’s what we are doing here.
It’s not to say that we will stop helping people in any way we can right now, you know, with temporal benefits, we we can still keep on doing that. But in order to accomplish this goal, so I think the ultimate happiness of all beings, we need first to attain enlightenment ourselves. So, again, it’s important that we continue to work for the ultimate welfare, but also for the temporal welfare. We keep on doing what is good, what is right, because that also brings results. Because, again, in order to attain liberation ourselves, we need to attain in the on on the basis of having obtained this human body, and this human body is obtained by engaging in good deeds.
So with that and all beings also, they have to do the same. They have to they have to attain their enlightenment on the basis of of this basis of this human body. So they also need to engage in good deeds. So we need to, you know, keep on helping people as much as we can, intending to accomplish their ultimate benefit, of course, but also temporal benefit in the things of this life. So then what the person said, you know, is totally alright, totally correct.
Shall we shall we shall we finish so we will have time to catch up after that?