Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. A vivid image anchors this 106-minute session: beings swept down four churning rivers — desire, wrong views, grasping, and ignorance — arms bound by karma, too blinded by fog to call for help, ending in an endless ocean where crocodiles of suffering never relent. Khensur Rinpoche uses this to frame bodhicitta as the “uncommon cause” for Buddhahood, more essential than renunciation or understanding of emptiness alone. He details the benefits concretely: bodhicitta destroys past non-virtues like fire destroys wood, scales merit to the limitless number of sentient beings (even feeding a cat becomes immeasurable virtue), and generates merit even during sleep. The session closes by tracing two lineages of bodhicitta instruction — the seven-point mind training for mixed audiences, and the Tonglen practice of exchanging self and others for sharper students.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 3PA 2003 07 30.mp3
UUID: 2a435e27-83eb-4a30-8ce9-dbc3e31b6ccf
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: 3 Principle Aspects of the Path (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2003-07-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 106.0 minutes
Words: ~6,326
First of all, we have to assess our motivation. What this kind of relationship is that we wish all sentient we wish that in order to separate all sentient beings from all types of suffering and to establish them in everything that’s good, then we should try and work as hard as we can towards enlightenment. And this is what we call bodhicitta. And so we should try and generate the idea that we’re doing this, we’re listening to the three principal aspects of the path, and we’re going to think about the three principal aspects of the path and then meditate on this in order to to be able to achieve this goal. And so should we should be trying to generate the idea that this is the the reason that we’re trying to do this, and that’s what we’re doing is is a Mahāyāna Mahāyāna So the Buddha Śākyamūni gave us this advice.
He said, thoroughly get rid of all negativities, practice all virtues, and subdue your mind. This is the teachings of the Buddha. So and this is the advice that he gave us. So what this means is from the point of view of the beginner is that we should, at the beginning, try and get rid of all the things that we may do that may be be considered negativity and then practice all the positive things that we can. And when he said completely stop doing activities, what was meant by this is that we don’t want to experience suffering.
This is how we are. We don’t like to experience suffering. Want to do whatever we can do in order not to experience suffering. So if we stop doing negative things, this means that we’ll stop generating cause for suffering. So in that instance, if we stop doing negative things, then we stop experiencing suffering.
So this is what’s meant by stop doing suffering when the Buddha said this. And when he said that we should we should do virtuous things or we should try and collect all virtuous things. What is meant by this is that if we don’t do positive things, then we don’t experience the result of positive things, which is sorry. It’s making noise. We don’t experience the results of our positive actions, which is happiness, which is pleasure and happiness.
We can’t experience those results unless we create the cause for that to come about. So in order for us to experience happiness, we have to do positive things. So so this is what what is meant by the the phrase to try and practice all good things. So what we mean by negativity is anything that’s going to stop us from being able to practice anything that’s gonna create suffering. What we mean by practicing positivity or anything positive is that that’s going to be something that results in happiness.
So that’s what we mean by these two things. So whether we do something positive or negative, the actual fact depends on our minds. It depends on what we what type of what way we’re thinking at that time. So if we’re if we’re doing something because of of attachment or aversion or or dislike and or ignorance or pride, if we do something for one of these reasons, then whatever we do becomes negativity, becomes something that will cause suffering. If on the other hand, we are working from a position, we are working from the thought of compassion or bodhicitta or love and kindness, then these things will become a positive those actions we do become a positive thing.
They become a cause for us to experience happiness. So if we can think about this for a couple of minutes. So we’re talking about the three principal aspects of the path, and we talked about how a renunciation, the thought that turns away from saṃsāra and is focused on our own liberation, is a very important and a very meaningful thing, that we need to turn our mind away from saṃsāra and focus on liberation. Renunciation by itself is not a cause for us to achieve complete enlightenment or to achieve Buddhahood, come to the ground of a Buddha. In order for us to achieve Buddhahood, we also need to develop bodhicitta.
If we just have renunciation, then we can’t get all the way to buddhahood. We need a helper for renunciation. We need this bodhicitta. So while renunciation is incredibly important, it’s not enough to take us all the way to So in the three principles aspects of the path, it says that if the renunciation also is not qualified by the pure awakening mind, And what this means is that along with renunciation, we also need a bodhicitta, and these two things work together. They help each other.
They help each other. They benefit each other. So the renunciation benefits the bodhicitta. The bodhicitta benefits the renunciation. But what it’s saying is that even the renunciation is important, we also we also need to be qualified by bodhicitta.
We also need to have bodhicitta in our minds in order to go full distance to becoming a Buddha. So if we have these two things, if we have renunciation and bodhicitta that are helping each other along, then that means that we can do as the bodhisattvas have done before, we can accomplish the wisdom and method of the two different collections and follow the path all the way to Buddhahood, all the way to the final enlightenment. Enlightenment. So this depends on bodhicitta because without bodhicitta, renunciation alone cannot do this. So bodhicitta becomes the reason for us to be able to achieve this.
Very natural factor in terms of the the three principal aspects of the path, and then we could also say that from renunciation bodhicitta and understanding of emptiness, then bodhicitta could actually act as the principal even among these three. And what we mean by this is even if we have renunciation and the mind understanding emptiness, if we don’t have bodhicitta, then there’s no way that we can achieve the final enlightenment. There’s no way that we can reach the ground of a Buddha. That depends on whether we have bodhicitta. Also, at the same time, whether we have bodhicitta or not determines whether what we are doing is practicing on the Mahāyāna path or whether we’re practicing on the lower paths.
Renunciation and the understanding of emptiness by themselves don’t generate the idea of don’t take us onto the Mahāyāna path. It’s only the generation of bodhicitta that does this. So what this means is that if we have an understanding of renunciation, we have an understanding of emptiness, and we do these practices of patience and ethics and so on, then even still those practices won’t be Mahāyāna practices, they won’t be practices that will take us to Buddhahood because there is no bodhicitta there. So then bodhicitta is what’s called the uncommon cause for Buddhahood. All of these things are a cause, but bodhicitta is the uncommon cause or the unique cause for us to achieve buddhahood.
So even amongst these three, we could say these three principal aspects, we could say that bodhicitta is the principal or the main amongst the principles. So Lama Tsongkhapa said that whether something’s Mahāyāna or not doesn’t depend on the Dharma, it depends on the person. So what he meant by this is that if somebody is doing a Mahāyāna practice or is involved in some kind of Mahāyāna Dharma and they don’t have bodhicitta, then whatever practice they’re doing isn’t a Mahāyāna practice. On the other hand, if somebody, if some being has bodhicitta in their mind stream, if they possess bodhicitta, then whatever they do becomes a Mahāyāna practice. So this is what he meant, that it doesn’t depend on the Dharma, it depends on the being.
So first of all, it’s it’s good to know what the benefits of are. The reasons that we talk about the benefits of bodhicitta is that if we understand the good qualities or the benefits of bodhicitta, then we really want to practice in order to develop them. In much the same way as if we understand if we do business, if we think, because I’m doing business, I’m going to get a really good profit, then we’ll do the business that we need to do without thinking about how difficult it is or we will do it no matter how difficult it is because we think about the profit we’re going to get from it, the results we’re going to get from it. So we need to know the benefits of for the same reasons. If we know the good qualities of bodhicitta, how much it’s going to benefit us, then no matter how hard we have to work in order to attain it, then we’ll keep working at it because we’ll be encouraged by the results or encouraged by what the benefits will be to us if we develop So there’s many different ways that the benefits of bodhicitta is explained, and is said that there’s many, many different benefits to bodhicitta, that there’s big benefits to bodhicitta, that there are exceptional benefits to bodhicitta and that their scope is immense in terms of the benefits.
But one way that we can describe the benefits of bodhicitta is in terms of its temporary benefits and its ultimate benefit. So in terms of its temporary benefits, the way that that is described is that we won’t be born into the lower realms. There will be no we will not go down into the lower realms at all. And in contrast to that, we will experience happiness and that happiness will get greater and greater and greater and greater. So this is the temporal benefits of bodhicitta.
Now the reason that we won’t go into the lower realms is that the cause for going to the lower realms is the ten non-virtues. And the development of bodhicitta, generating bodhicitta completely wipes out the ten non-virtues. It completely wipes out the inclination towards the ten non-virtues. The way that it does this is likened to the way that fire destroys wood. So fire completely burns wood.
It completely destroys it. It completely turns it into. And that’s the way the bodhicitta is is with the ten non virtuous actions. It completely destroys them. It completely turns them into nothing so that they cease to be a cause for the lower realms.
So this way that the bodhicitta destroys non virtues, the non virtues that we’re talking about, there’s non virtues that we have accumulated in the past, non virtues that we’re yet to experience the results of. So the bodhicitta acts to completely destroy the results of those non virtues we’ve accumulated. Also, bodhicitta, once it’s generated in our mindstreams, once we have bodhicitta, then we cease to create any new non virtuous actions. We cease to participate or generate new non virtues. The reason for this being that if we have the bodhicitta motivation, then everything that we’re doing is for the benefit of other beings.
Everything that we’re doing is working towards enlightenment for the benefit of other beings. So if we have this motivation, then we’re not going to do anything negative. We’re not going to do any of the ten non virtues because they don’t help other beings in in any way. So therefore, from the bodhicitta motivation, because of the bodhicitta motivation, then we’re not going to create any new non virtues. And because non virtues are the reason that we go to the lower realms, then we won’t be going to the lower realms.
So in this way, because we’re not creating any negativities, then we’ve shut the then we’ve stopped ourselves from going to the lower realms. But as well as stopping ourselves from going to the lower realms by not participating, we’re not creating any nonvirtuous action, we’re not doing any nonvirtuous action, we’re also essentially happier and happier experience, more and more pleasant results, more and more more bliss and happiness from having bodhicitta. Now the way that this works is, for starters, because we have we’re practicing ethics, then we stop doing anything negative that’s going to create suffering for us, create results that we have to experience as suffering. But along with this, we’re also going to be practicing we’re going to be practicing generosity and joyous efforts and patience and meditation, meditative concentration and wisdom, and all of these things are going to act as causes for us to experience more and more and more happiness. We’ve been doing all these things because we have developed bodhicitta, so these are the practice to do with bodhicitta.
At the same time, any of the positive things that we did before we achieved before we developed bodhicitta, any of the the stores of merit that we have from positive actions done before we developed bodhicitta, they all turned into causes for us to reach enlightenment. Before we Before we developed bodhicitta, they were just any old type of merit. They didn’t have a specific end result, but by developing bodhicitta, we turned all those stores of merit into causes for enlightenment so we become much more powerful in this way. And then finally, the final result the final result we’re working through is that after achieving the two accumulations of of merit and wisdom, then you reach the final result, which is the omniscient mind of the Buddha. So that’s the the final result of of bodhicitta.
Okay. Now so in a way that it it it described as a bodhicitta is like the the root or the cause of the of the Mahāyāna path. And once we’re practicing on the Mahāyāna path and everything that we do becomes incredibly vast, it is vast in terms of the practice of wisdom and it is vast in terms of the practice of method. So it’s like when we’re dealing with an ocean, because it’s so vast we get these really good waves inside the ocean which are really powerful. So because we have the aspiration, then everything we do becomes incredibly vast and because of that becomes incredibly powerful.
So the the the method practice and the wisdom practice on both sides, both of them become much more vast and powerful when we’re doing them as part of the Mahāyāna path, and the root of this Mahāyāna root of this Mahāyāna path is is bodhicitta. So then in this ocean, so vast, we can see big waves in terms of how powerful these things, and the waves come together in there because of the the power of the practice that we’re able to do because of bodhicitta. Another way that having bodhicitta benefits us is in terms of the way that we can create merit. So for example, if we have bodhicitta in our mind stream and just giving a little piece of bread or meat to a cat becomes a very vast, vastly profound action. It becomes a way to generate enormous amounts of merit.
The reason for this is because if someone has bodhicitta in their mind stream, when they’re giving this piece of meat or bread to the cat, they’re not giving just to the cat, they’re giving it to the cat in order to benefit all sentient beings. So because all sentient beings is limitless, we can’t count how many sentient beings there are, then this one action of giving bread to the cat or meat to the cat is also we can’t count how virtuous that one action is because its focus is all sentient beings. Likewise, if we are meditating on the emptiness of a table, for example, and we have bodhicitta in our mind stream, then we’re not just meditating on the emptiness of a table. We’re meditating on the emptiness of a table for the benefit of all sentient beings, and because all sentient beings are limitless that means that the virtue that we create by meditating on this table also becomes limitless because we can’t count all sentient beings, therefore we can’t count the results of our of our practice. So the way that bodhicitta works is like they say there used to be this substance which is like a like a philosopher’s stone it sounds like, that whatever this thing touched it turned to gold.
So we don’t know if it’s around these days, but it used to be. They’d say that if you boiled up metal, some kind of metal, and melted the metal and just put a little bit of this special substance inside the metal, then all of the metal will turn to gold. So this is the way that bodhicitta works in our mind stream. If we have a little bit of bodhicitta in our mind, then everything we do becomes this cause for achieving Buddhahood. It’s the same as if we put a little bit of milk in tinny, and then it it goes right.
So that’s the the same sort of process we’re talking about. Well, I believe it’s Okay. In this way, it is said that the the bodhisattva makes this practice incredibly vast. He’s in the The practices that are incorporated with bodhicitta are incredibly vast. But in a similar way, just as we from bodhicitta everything expands out, if we condense all these practices and take the essence from these practices, then that essence as well is bodhicitta.
So it doesn’t just go outwards, also can be condensed inwards. So the essence of all these practices, patience and generosity and so forth, the essence of the six perfections is in fact this bodhicitta as well. So it’s not just going out, it’s also when we condense it in, find bodhicitta. So in this way you can see that it’s incredibly beneficial. Okay.
So another way that the the benefits of bodhicitta are described is that bodhicitta is called the son of the victorious one, the offspring of the victorious ones. What this means is that when people, when gods and humans, everyone’s experience for a bodhicitta then they are prostrate, the parents are very pleased with their children, pleased to see their children, then the Buddhists are very pleased to see the Bodhisattvas, people who have developed bodhisattva because it’s like their offspring, so this is another way that bodhisattva is described. In fact, there’s many different ways that bodhicitta is described. There are many more different ways that we can explain the benefits or the qualities of bodhicitta. Another way that we can think about it is if we meditate on bodhicitta even for a short while, then the virtue of that is likened to the sky.
It’s as vast as the sky or the atmosphere in terms of the vastness of the scope of that practice. Just meditating on bodhisattva for a few minutes is an incredibly beneficial thing to do. And we’re not just Rinpoche said he’s not just just saying that these are the benefits of of bodhicitta. It’s not just something to say. There’s actually a reason behind saying how beneficial bodhicitta is and how vast the benefits of bodhicitta is.
The reasoning is this: if you give something to someone with the hope that it benefits that person, then you receive the virtue of trying to help one person. If you give something in order to help ten people and you’re thinking when you think about it, this will help ten people, then you receive the merit of helping ten people. Likewise, if you give to a hundred people or if you give in order to benefit a hundred people, then you receive the merit of trying to benefit a hundred people. Likewise, for a thousand, and ten thousand and a million people, even up to a million people, if you give with the idea that you’re benefiting a million people, then you receive the the merit of having benefited a million people. If you if you give with the idea of benefiting all beings on earth, then you receive good merit of of having benefited all beings on earth.
But where we if someone has bodhichila, then when they give, they’re giving with the idea that what they’re doing is for the benefit of all sentient beings. All sentient beings is countless. If we try to count all sentient beings there’s no way we can do it. We’re not just talking, you know, all beings on earth is difficult to count, but not just earth, there’s different places. So all sentient beings, not with with help, they’re doing it to benefit all sentient beings.
So that means that the merit that they receive from giving with the motivation benefit or sentient beings, which are countless, that merit is also countless. So this is the logic behind this description or the assertion of how beneficial bodhicitta is and that there’s a reasoning behind it. This is the reasoning. We could also think of it in terms of if we’re giving doing something in order to relieve someone’s suffering, then then that’s a a meritorious act. And if we’re doing something in order to make someone happy, then that’s also a meritorious act.
That’s also a positive action. So if we’re doing something in order to relieve someone’s suffering and give them happiness, then the there then there’s double the benefit. There’s double the the the result. There’s double the merit. Okay.
I was trying to figure out who was saying what to who. Okay. So if someone were to ask a meeting of all the Buddhists and said to a meeting of all the Buddhas, what is the thing that will benefit sensitive beings the most, then it would be they would say it was bodhicitta. If we have bodhicitta in our mindstream, if we possess bodhicitta, then this has the ability to get rid of all the negative things that we’ve done, and it has the ability to create enormous merit even when we’re not doing anything, even when we’re in our better sleep, and then we’re still creating enormous amounts of merit. So this is another one of the benefits of bodhicitta.
Of we should remember that if we have bodhicitta even when we’re in our bed asleep, then we’re still creating all these enormous amounts of merit just by having bodhicitta. So this is another one as a benefit of bodhicitta. But you probably all understand the benefits of bodhicitta now because we’ve talked about them. You need to remember this as well and if you want to not forget, if you want to try and remember, then you should try and remember that with bodhicitta even the smallest So these three principal aspects of the path we’re talking about are actually taught to Lama Tsongkhapa by Mañjuśrī. They were given down to Lama Tsongkhapa from Mañjuśrī.
And in this, it is said, we are carried away by the intense force of the stream of the four floods, tied by the strong bonds of karma difficult to break, smeared in the iron net of self grasping, and completely enveloped by the great gloom of the darkness of ignorance. Now in the first instance where it says, we are carried away by the intense force of the stream of the four floods, and this is what this talk is talking about is is an example. And in actual fact, it’s an example of two things. So the four floods are the four very fast flowing rivers or great bodies of water. They’re the things that carry us along.
And from one point of view, we could refer to these four floods or these these fast flowing rivers or forceful water as desire, grasping because of desire. Also the wrong views could be the second river or flood. And the third one is the the grasping at existence, which is in the the higher realms, the former, former realms. And the fourth of the four floods is ignorance. Now these are negative thought patterns, negative emotions that carry us along.
We are pushed along by these and we get taken down and down and down. And because of these, we through the force of these negative views or these negative ways of thinking, then we actually create karma. And what that karma results in another four things that could be seen as four floods or four fast flowing or four very powerful bodies of water. So these four things is the suffering of birth, the suffering of illness, the suffering of old age, and the suffering of death. So we’re also carried along by the four streams of the suffering of birth, illness, old age, and death.
These things carry us along as well. So first of all, we have the four streams of these four negative emotions or negative thought patterns and then they take us along to the four results of those which is birth, illness, old age, death. So in accordance with this example, what happens is people are getting pushed along by these fast flowing or fast flowing rivers in one way or another. Now what happens is, in accordance with the example, if they have very good legs and very good arms and they’re like an Australian because they can swim well, then they can create merit and force their way up the stream. They can swim upwards and that’s creating merit and forcing their way up the string.
But if their arms and legs are tied because of their karma, because if their arms and legs are tied so that they can’t swim, then they’re just going to get pushed downwards by the force of these negative ways of thinking. Those negative the streams of these or the rhythms of these negative ways of thinking are going to force them downwards, and because their arms and legs are tied by their karma, they’re not going to be able to do anything in order to stop that. So these four these four street and these four rivers are carrying us into the way of birth, illness, old age and death because our arms and legs are tied by karma. So this is when it says tied by strong bonds of karma and they’re are difficult to break. So this means that the ideas that we have, thoughts that we cling to, like a desire and so forth, they tie us so we can’t that we’re in a net that’s holding us stopping us from being able to push against the stream.
That’s like the desires and the negative thought patterns that are holding us or have wrapped themselves tightly and that we can’t escape from. They’ve tied us tightly and we can’t push our way up the stream. We’re stuck in them. So these things that are tying us are like our desires that are tying us. And then also if people have everything tied up and they’re getting fossil on the river, then they may also call out to people and say help me, help me, I can’t, I’m stuck, please help me.
But if they have the fog of ignorance, if they’re so clouded over by their ignorance that they can’t see what’s around them, they can’t see if anyone can help them, then they can’t even see to call out to people. They don’t know that anyone’s there in order to be able to help them. So this is what their ignorance is like. Their ignorance is blinding people so that they can’t see who can help them. They can’t see their way out of their chains, they can’t see anything because of this fog that they have.
So so what happens is then that this this stream is carrying their people in it down and down and down, and finally they come to the ocean, which doesn’t have an end. So the ocean is there without an end. If people are caught in these streams then that’s where they end up, going around and around in the ocean that is endless. So that that is, like, the the result of of of where these these streams go to. So in this ocean then there is this continual suffering as if there are three different types of suffering.
The suffering is suffering, the suffering of change, and all pervasive suffering. So this is the experience in that suffering. And that’s almost like crocodiles or alligators that are in the ocean, they keep biting at the people that are stuck in the ocean. So continuing along with this metaphor, that’s what the suffering is like. Because they haven’t had a choice but to be in that situation, then they have to accept the crocodiles biting at them because they can’t do anything about it.
So that’s what the suffering is like. So this is the bit in this exorcist. Tormented continuously by three types of suffering, and through contemplating the condition of our mothers who are in who are in such a state we develop the suffering mind. We have to understand that this is a situation of sentient beings that are tortured by these three different types of suffering which are like the crocodiles biting them. So we understand that not only that, not only is this happening, but the people to whom it is happening are our mothers.
So when it says through contemplating the condition, what that’s talking about is understanding developing this sense of equanimity. So they talk about the three different types of equanimity, what this is talking about is limitless equanimity, so develop that sense of equanimity of ourselves and others being equal. Then from that we go through the different stages of developing a sense of feeling for the mothers who are that situation. So if you go through the idea of seeing everyone as being our mother at one stage or another, then remembering their kindness, then we think, okay, who’s going to get them out of this situation that they’re and such? And we think, well, I’m their child, then I should do it.
I’m the one who should help them. So then we develop this idea of wanting to repay their kindness, loving kindness and compassion, this what’s here as the the the supreme mind or or the the supreme mind or a universal responsibility. That those bees that are suffering are our mothers and that because we have been their child, we should be the one that helps them and that we will do it ourselves, then this is the idea of universal responsibility or special insight. After that then we develop bodhicitta, the mind seeking to reach enlightenment in order to be able to help mother sentient beings like this. So when we were going through the explanation of renunciation last week, we talked about the benefits of developing renunciation, the faults of not developing renunciation and examples and explanations and enumerations.
So it’s a similar thing when we’re talking about bodhicitta. We talked about the good qualities of developing bodhicitta. We also have to talk about the faults of not developing bodhicitta. Now one of the faults of not developing bodhicitta is that if we don’t have bodhicitta, then whatever we do, whether it be practice or any of the practices Dharma practice or any other types of practice, then none of these become a cause for attaining Buddhahood. None of those become a cause to take us to Buddhahood.
They are virtuous but not a cause for Buddhahood. So we’ve already mentioned today what the benefits of and talked about that a lot tonight, so I so we already have heard what the benefits of developing bodhisattva are. The idea of bodhicitta or what we should be concentrating on bodhicitta being about is that we see these beings that are in this constant state of suffering that are continually going through all these different types of suffering and have to experience the suffering of birth, the suffering of illness, the suffering of age, the suffering of death on a continual basis. We think, I need to do something in order to help these beings. What is it that I can do that can help them?
And then we think that we have to take on responsibility ourselves because we have a situation now where we have a human rebirth, where we can work towards enlightenment and we can do something that will be of benefit to them so then we take on this responsibility to use the situation we have in the best way possible to try and be of benefit to these suffering beings. So there’s actually, in fact, two different ways of developing that we have in terms of instructions on how to develop bodhicitta, and they came down to us from two different lineages. One of the lineage is from from the lineage of con of vast conduct of great conduct, sorry, and the other one through the lineage of of profound view. And so one of these came down through Ārya Maitreya, through the great teacher Asaṇga, and then it was passed down and and and it came to us through that lineage. The other one came through Nāgārjuna and from Mañjuśrī to Nāgārjuna and then from Nāgārjuna to Śāntideva and then it was passed down to us via that lineage, the lineage of the profound view.
So we have these two different lineages and two different instructions on how to develop bodhicitta. So the one that came to us through Maitreya, Asaṇga, and down through Kamalaśīla, this image of of developing of that instruction on how to develop bodhicitta is called the seven point mind training. In actual fact, it’s it’s it is six causes and one result. So the first six of the seven points of the mind training are the cause and the seventh, bodhicitta, is the result of the mind training. So so the other way, the the other instruction that we have on how to develop bodhicitta, that came through Mañjuśrī and Nāgārjuna, then down to Śāntideva. And the way that it was explained in that tradition is that with this we think about equanimity, and then we have the idea of exchanging our own situation with others.
Once we develop this idea of exchanging our own situation with the situation of others, trying to understand their experience, we do this practice called Tonglen or the giving or taking practice where we try and take on all the sufferings of other beings and try and give them all of our happy experiences, give them all of our happiness. So that’s the main essence of the other practice of the other instruction on how to develop instruction on how to develop bodhicitta. So even though there’s these two different types of instructions, whichever one of these instructions we use, if we do it, then they do it properly, then the result will be the development of bodhicitta. So it doesn’t matter which one of these ones we use because the result is essentially the same. So the reason, if we’re going to ask why there is these two different types of instruction, the reason is that the audience of whom it was explained to so on the one hand the seven point mind training instruction was explained to a group of different people and on the other hand exchanging self and others training was explained to very specific students.
So the seven point mind training exercise or the seven point mind training instruction was given to a group of people that had different abilities, different capacities, a collection of all different types of people. Therefore the seven point mind training was given to them. So some of them had a great sharp a great capacity. Some had a lesser capacity. Some were people with sharp intelligence and some with lesser intelligence.
Lesser intelligence. The group of those was given the seven point mind training as an instruction. Now the exchanging self and others instruction was given to a group of students who all have sharp intelligence, also to have a sharp capacity. So that’s why these two different types of instructions were given. The reason that these were given was that if So the reason that the seven point mind training, it was given to the group that was a collection of different types of people is that if they were given the other type of mind training exercises in order to develop bodhicitta then they would have gotten a bit confused and agitated and not understood it properly.
They were given this instead they were given this seven point mind training exercise which they really liked because they could put it into practice. Were happy about having the seven point mind training exercise, right, so exchanging self on others wasn’t taught to them specifically because some of them would have been afraid or not being able to understand it properly. And so so that’s the that that this is the reason why these two different traditions were taught. So so so Rinpoche says we we should leave it this night, and because his his body isn’t being very nice at the moment and he feels like he has a cold and he’s feeling a bit funny, then if we can forego the questions for this evening, then that would be better. Just wanna make an announcement that on behalf of the enlightenment stupa project that’s happening on Conqueror Island, We’ve organized a dinner for Saturday night, and it’s booking out really fast.
So if anybody wants to go, please don’t delay in booking. There’s a fire on the back notice for where