Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 96-minute talk, Khensur Rinpoche examines how bodhicitta — the mind of enlightenment — can degenerate after it has been developed, and what prevents it. He opens with a guided reflection on love and compassion, then introduces the image of bodhicitta as the door of the Buddha house: the sole criterion that makes a practitioner a Mahāyānist. The two main protections he covers are ritual reinforcement through refuge prayers and seven-limb offerings, and sustained love and compassion as the grip that keeps the vow from slipping — drawing on Candrakīrti’s teaching that great compassion sustains the path at beginning, middle, and end. A mala-bead analogy makes the point vivid: mentally drop even one sentient being and the aspiration is broken, just as a mala missing one bead is no longer a mala. The session closes with Q&A on whether personal affection obstructs equanimity and whether bodhicitta can be maintained before directly realizing emptiness.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 20 LR 2000 06 27.mp3
UUID: 48fc7c63-5e67-46e3-a6e3-c360dfdb9e2b
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: Lam Rim (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 2000-06-27
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 96.3 minutes
Words: ~4,472
We’ll develop the motivation of altruistic intention and then follow the practices of listening, contemplation, and meditation. By doing so, all this contemplation, meditation, and so forth, after having developed the altruistic intention our practice would become very helpful. Sentient beings are same in nature, they’re wishing happiness and do not want suffering. The sentient beings have occasionally have happiness which are the uncontaminated happiness, but they don’t have the happiness of uncontaminated happiness and the ultimate happiness. So, those motherly self and others, motherly sentient beings lacks the ultimate happiness.
So, they will have a huge compassion, excuse me, huge love towards both self and others wishing them to have all the happiness and the causes of happiness like parting from grounds, the great qualities, accumulation of great qualities, and so forth, and wishing to do so, to develop a strong love and make a special make prayers for them to have the happiness and its causes and develop the special insight that I will give them or I will bring them to the state of ultimate happiness. And at this stage, one makes always praise but one hasn’t had all the capability of doing so due to that make a request or seek a blessing from the gurus, the Buddhas, and so forth to give you a capability to accomplish such wish. By doing so, the practice will become very beneficial. Doing meditation on love by developing above motivation is much greater, so collects greater virtues than making an offering to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who are making an offering to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, say, as number as food, the huge space. Or say it’s even greater than making an offering grant a huge space full of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
And also, those motherly sentient beings not just lacks ultimate happiness, they are also tortured by great suffering and some of them, numbers of sentient beings are also suffers very strongly that some of them can hardly move their body as well. Although they are suffering, some numbers of sentient beings they don’t recognize, they can’t realize that they are suffering. So by focusing on all those entire sentient beings including oneself, developed with great compassion, wishing them to free from all the sufferings and its causes, and making prayers to let them free from sufferings and develop a special insight to take responsibility of freeing all those sentient beings from the sufferings and making request prayers towards Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to bless you to have a capability of doing so. So by along with certain motivation and converting one’s mind into huge compassion by such practices and meditate on compassion for five minutes is is also very beneficial as developing as meditating on a compassion just mentioned about now. So taking those two, love and compassion, as the basis and then focus on sentient beings the the self the suffering sentient beings.
By focusing on suffering sentient beings and wishing them to free from all free not just free free them from the suffering, also in order to bring them to the state of ultimate happiness, I shall here develop I shall here abandon all the negativities and the faults and it and attain entire entire good qualities to become to reach the Buddhahood or become Buddha for the sake of all the for the sake of sentient beings. By doing so, and not not just not just a mere word, converting one’s mind into into that into that altruistic intention. And by doing a meditation on it, it’s even greater than the even greater than doing a meditation on above two. And maintaining a meditation on such a mind, enlightened mind or altruistic intentions, and whenever one attains gain experiences or one fully familiarize one’s mind with altruistic intention, that is the criteria or that is the time one has developed a bodhicitta and one becomes one receives the name of bodhisattva and also one has reached first part of the great vehicle, which is the gate gate, the first one has reached the first part, which is the first gate.
And if one does the practices of listening and meditation by the influence or taking that altruistic intention as a motivation, then the virtuous collect virtuous one collects by doing so is very powerful. It’s as vast as space and the result of that virtuous action will be inexhaustible like the ocean. It can’t be exhausted. One can use as much as one can. So whatever practices the Mahāyāna practitioner does, the practice should be done along with the motivation of altruistic intention, bodhicitta.
If the person if the Mahāyānist does does a Mahāyānist does a practice without the motivation of altruistic intention, then his his or her practice won’t become a Mahāyānist practice. So at this stage we practice and we are also imitating Buddhas Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, or we are taking Buddhas and bodhisattvas as our role model that and we practice this. At this stage, we haven’t had fully developed or yeah, developed a way of a beginner, but we still cultivate a similar type of bodhicitta and practice the way Buddhas and Bodhisattvas do. These Buddhas and Bodhisattvas have performed practices with the motivation of altruistic intentions, and as a result, they have enjoyed or received a huge amount of results from their practices, from their practices. We are imitating the way they have imitating their practices, and it is to be sure that at this stage we can’t fully practice what they have done, but if we are able to practice exactly a part of the practices they have performed and they have done, the result of it would be immeasurable.
We can’t achieve one hundred percent they have achieved, but if you attain one percent of it, the huge benefit is there. Very, very good. So we’ll do a short meditation here on The numbers patient numbers of the prayers are at the back. The altruistic intention, bodhicitta is the one is the entrance to Mahāyāna vehicle. Mahāyāna or great vehicle.
Great vehicle, it is like a door of the Buddha house. If one steps inside the door, which one is inside the Buddha house, if one does not, then if one is not in the Buddha house, the door is the main entrance. It’s the one that distinguishes whether a person is in or out. Likewise, bodhicitta is the one which establishes the person whether a person is a bodhisattva Mahāyānist or not. If a person has developed or a person has a bodhicitta, then a person becomes a Mahāyānist, and if a person hasn’t had bodhicitta, the person is not a Mahāyānist.
No. The bodhicitta is the quality as well as it’s the mind, and where does this bodhicitta exist or how one measure where the bodhicitta is, then the bodhicitta is within the five parts of the Mahāyāna starting from the gate, which is the first part of the Mahāyāna, no? From until first to the fifth. So this is the criterion of the bodhicitta, which started from the first part which is gate until the end of the bodhicitta is the fifth part which is bodhicitta. So bodhicitta exists in this part, the lower or Hinayanists, they don’t have the bodhicitta.
The love and compassion are the root of the bodhicitta. And when one divides the bodhicitta, it has been divided into two called the conventional and the ultimate bodhicitta. The bodhicitta which we are talking currently talking discussing about is the conventional bodhicitta, which is in the first two parts, and the ultimate bodhicitta exists or starts from the third part which is gate gate which is the para starting from the paragate, the third part. And so as we said, the bodhicitta which we are discussing currently is the conventional bodhicitta, and the way of cultivating a bodhicitta or way of training in the the cultivation of bodhicitta has been set forth earlier classes. The training developing a bodhicitta through or by training in the seven point cause and effect instructions and through training in the exchange equalizing and exchanging and equalizing of self and others.
So, by training in those seven points, cause and effect instructions and equalizing and exchanging self on others, after having trained in those, when whenever one attains the one is being able to develop a bodhicitta without without effort, effortlessly attain the bodhicitta, then one has attained the altruistic intention. And after having attained that, it’s just enough by attaining it, one should be able to manage or maintain that bodhicitta continuously with practice. If not, then there is a danger danger of degenerating that developed altruistic intention. If an ask how it can degenerate after having developed? So bodhicitta is developed through making excuse me.
bodhicitta is a promise or also a promise made through agreement than making promise to to free sentient beings from the sufferings and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness, Buddhahood. So as the bodhicitta, developing a bodhicitta is like a is also making a promise that attaining to to to attain in the promise which is which is to attain enlightenment in order to free the sentient beings from suffering and bring them to the state of ultimate happiness. So but after having made that promise or developed the altruistic intention, now one needs to practice or train to culture to fulfill that that to to fulfill that promise. And so there is a do then if one does not maintain that that promise continuously through in one’s practices, there is a danger of losing the promise because because because because to attain that to fulfill that promise, it takes a long time long time long time through one’s practices because one have to practice in the six perfection the the the characteristics of Buddhist deeds of Bodhisattvas, like training in the six perfections, patience, ethical discipline, giving ethical disciplines, patience, effort, and concentration and wisdom.
So and according to the perfection vehicle, it takes very long to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And because of that because the duration of attaining the enlightenment for the sake of sentient beings is so long, and and in some times, it’s also a danger of losing it because of limitless sentient beings, numbers of sentient beings, and and some of the sentient beings have very bad nature. And so due to this, some person with a small strength of mental sense, the people have danger of becoming discouraged or losing their promises. It’s like the Tendrasis. Our look is the Teshwa which we have the story of Tendrasis was set forth in the previous classes, one of the previous classes.
So in order to the altruistic intention from degeneration, there are a number of methods to maintain that altruistic intention forever. So and one of the methods is method is said that protecting the altruistic intention from degeneration by way of ritual practices. For example, like when we take the Edmahayana precepts, we recited the refuge prayers along with the developing the altruistic intention, and that is the practices of the ritual practice of protecting the altruistic intention. So, in the worldly terms we have saying that it’s important to take time in order to accomplish something huge or big, that if one wants to achieve something huge, one can maintain patience for years and years to fulfill that. So likewise, likewise, maintaining love and compassion is very important.
Love and compassion are the one which which which which helps one to maintain altruistic intention forever. If and it is likely it is like a strength. If one has strong love and compassion, one will never feel disheartened, and one will never be tired of working for sentient beings. For years and years or and years or in eons and eons, one still has if the love and compassion are strong enough, one will never feel disheartened. Instead of that, one feels much happier and have a greater strength to work for work for the sentient beings.
And it is like as we said, it’s like a stent. If one’s hand is not strong enough to hold something, then it will slip off. They drop the things inherently. Likewise, if love and compassion are not strong enough, then there is a danger of losing one’s promise or altruistic intention. If they are strong enough, one will never feel tired of holding that.
One can never let go of it. Love and compassion are the main which maintains which help one to maintain the altruistic intention, And and, also, the compassion is the main is is is very important in all in in in all three terms, beginning, middling, and the end, which means compassion great compassion is the one from the beginning which helps one to generate an altruistic intention, and it also in the middle, it helps one to maintain that altruistic intention and and, yep, maintain altruistic intention of from not to degenerate. And it and at the end, after having enlightened also both the compassion is the one which help wants to influence or which help wants to teach the sentient beings. So therefore, the great master Candrakīrti in his Madhyamakālaṃkāra has the Middle Way School. He set forth that great compassion is the one which helps in all the time, the beginning, middling, and the conclusion or the very end.
So, in order to protect the altruistic intention, the two methods have been set forth. The altruistic intention has two divisions, said another two subdivisions we said in the last week’s class, the two types of altruistic intentions which are the aspirational aspiring bodhicitta and the engaging bodhicitta. So because of those two types of altruistic intentions, they set forth the two methods of protecting those two altruistic intentions alone. So, those two methods are protecting those two altruistic intentions through intention by the way of visual. So, To develop the altruistic intention, first, one receives the bodhisattva’s vows, and the bodhisattva’s vows are taken from first, in order to take the aspiring bodhicitta, there has to be three objects to be presented there: the place where one receives the aspiring bodhicitta, on what basis one receives the aspiring bodhicitta and the ritual.
The first one is the place where the place is the person whom one receives the aspiring bodhicitta. So that person has to be a bodhisattva or a person who has developed the engaging bodhicitta, and the Buddhas are also a suitable place to receive the aspiring bodhicitta. And the person who receives the aspiring bodhicitta should be a person who trained in the three scopes and has developed a great compassion within one’s mind stream? And the third, on what ritual one receives the aspiring altruistic intention? That is what we normally recite, the refuge and the generation of mind verses starting from sanjutsuya namal.
So, of receiving vows is repeating that the refuge and the generation of mind verses three times after the master or the guru. So, person who has received the tantric and the bodhisattva vows have already known. Likewise, the taking the vow of engaging bodhisattva is more or less the same. Engaging bodhicitta is more or less the same. So, if you go explain through the easier point of view, the methods of maintaining bodhicitta, maintaining bodhicitta and not maintaining it from degeneration, then knowing the importance, the advantages, the qualities of the bodhicitta is very important because if one understands all the advantages of keeping and having maintaining that bodhicitta, then one will never have feel discouraged to protect it.
It is having a very valuable, it is like possessing a very, very, very something very invaluable or, yeah, very expensive object and knowing all the qualities of that particular thing, how expensive it is, others you are the only one who has such things, others don’t, usefulness of the thing and the reality of the thing. So these are the qualities, and by thinking the advantages or the qualities of the object, we will look after the thing very well and will never fail to take care of the thing because it’s very important or useful. The thinking of, the understanding, the advantages of bodhicitta is one method to protect bodhicitta from degeneration. And about the advantages of the bodhicitta, we have explained many times in the previous classes. Our goal is to attain two, which is higher rebirth and the definite goodness, and those two achievements are achieved through or by Buddhism by altruistic intention.
If we slightly revise the advantages of bodhicitta, then here the Buddha Śākyamūni has set In relation to this, Lord Buddha Śākyamūni has set forth that the merit you gain from doing a five minute meditation on altruistic intention, If the merit you gain from doing a five minute meditation on bodhicitta is visible or affirmed, then it can’t fit in this endless space. So which means the benefits of five minute meditation on bodhicitta is much, much greater than much, much it’s very, very huge. If has a form, it can’t fit in this space. And also, the one method to protect their bodhicitta from degeneration and to increase their bodhicitta should make offerings to Buddhadharma and Sangha, and also make seven limb posts along with the prostrations. Recite the verses of taking refuge and generation of mind starting from I take refuge in Buddhadharma and Sangha and and recite that verses three times in the morning, three times in the night during evening in order to increase that mind.
It should maintain that altruistic intention forever. It’s also said that we are attaining enlightenment in order to free all the sentient beings from suffering and bring them towards the state of ultimate happiness. Due to this, one should never drop or never separate your minds away from sentient beings and should never get rid of sentient beings from one’s mind because sentient beings are very kind to kind to kind to oneself, and they are very important and have and also very helpful to one because I have because there are lots of reasons that how why how or why one should put one should consider sentient beings as very important and kind to you about this. I have explained it many times in the previous classes that that that there is none of sentient beings who has never been your parents or father and the mother. And not just have become your it’s not just once, they have become your parents numberless time.
And each time during your parenthood, they have they have helped benefit you through many ways like your current parents does. And so this is how the sentient beings have been helpful to you and the reason how one should work for sentient beings and consider them as very important. And it’s not it’s not only the one case. It’s also we have to attain enlightenment. And in order to attain enlightenment to reach the Buddhahood, one has to cultivate a great deal or a great deal of merit or virtuous actions, and those virtuous actions are cultivated depending on sentient beings.
Depending on sentient beings because of this, sentient beings are also very important to you. So in this so, yeah, sentient beings are also very important in from the point of from from that point of view. So due to this, the sentient beings are very, helpful and kind to you from the beginning during the path or one is training in the path, and it’s also important during the results when one attains the results of one’s practices. So the importance and the kindness of our motherly sentient beings I have explained during the topic of cherishing others as well as the recognizing sentient beings as one’s mother and remembering their kindness and so forth. Not only that, the Geshe Langri Tangpa, the great master Geshe Langri Tangpa who has also set forth that our whole sentient beings are more important.
Geshe Langri Tangpa in his Eight Verses of Mind Training, Eight Verses of Mind Training that our whole sentient beings are more important than the world full of wish-fulfilling gems. It is because he he considered he considered sentient beings more important to to him and more helpful to him than the the the world full of wish-fulfilling gems. It is because because because sentient beings sentient beings or by depending on sentient beings or sentient beings help him to attain, to accomplish both the two purposes, the purposes of self and others. Whereas whereas by depending whereas one cannot whereas one cannot or he cannot accomplish both the two wish two purposes, self and others by depending on the world full of wish-fulfilling gems. That is the reason he comes to sentient beings, more important than the wish-fulfilling gems.
So, therefore, one should not give up sentient beings from one’s mind. And about the way of giving up the sentient beings, it could be in many ways, like saying that this type of sentient beings I don’t want to work for, and that includes this, plural, could be a number of sentient beings. There’s also a danger of saying that that person, I don’t want to work for that person, is including extracting what a single sentient being. So whether one does whatever one does, either the approval or the single one one loses the altruistic intention even for a mere sentient being because like an organization. If a part of our organization drops down, then all the organization or association degenerates and also a single bead of the mala is absent in the mala, then one can’t really call mala because it hasn’t has all the characteristics of the mala because one number is missing.
There should be a certain number in one mala there should be a certain number of beads presented with them. Likewise, but just by thinking that I don’t want to work for that person, one loses the altruistic intention and make sure that it will not happen to you. Losing bodhicitta has this huge negativity because after having once made the promise to help or maintain that after making that promise to develop the bodhicitta and you lose it, then it becomes very bad. Therefore, one should not give up even a single sentient being from one’s mind. So if if one if one practices a six perfection not six perfection, six session Yoga, and it’s clearly clearly written in the six-session Guru Yoga Yoga that’s saying, the mind I shall develop develop the mind which wish written enlightenment in order to free sentient beings from the suffering of cyclic existence free from cyclic exist suffering of cyclic existence.
And from today onwards until to the attainment of enlightenment, I will never give I shall never give up that altruistic intention, that mind, even at the course of my life, yes, even at the course of my life. So therefore, the saying that one should never give up a sentient being from one’s mind one’s mind and even single sentient being. And it is there is not nothing so don’t give up sentient being, which means that it’s entirely a mind work, the way of one’s mind thinking, converting one’s mind saying, I don’t want to work for that, or it’s a matter of thinking that way. Rather than that mind work, there’s nothing extra one can do because by doing such a practice is not that hard, it won’t cost anything, just the mind’s work. And it’s like cultivating the positive and the negative action.
The cultivation of negative and the positive action depends on the way or which or how, on what way one converts, directs one’s mind. So these are the method of maintaining bodhicitta or altruistic intention from degeneration. Also, cultivating positive actions and purifying the negativity is also a matter of maintaining a bodhicitta. So we shall stop here today and if you have any questions, we’ll give a few minutes, sisters. Can you repeat that?
I’ve got a bit of that, yeah individual. And on individual level, you have some appreciation. So, you know, that’s a kind of affection. Okay. Okay.
So the question was, is that causing trouble for developing equanimity or not. Now, it actually depends on how you pay or develop the feeling of appreciation. For example, if that appreciation has been developed by attachment, then it could be a trouble or cause be an obstacle to develop the equanimity towards sentient beings. If the appreciation is done developed without attachment, for example, remembering their kindness and how helpful they have been and develop that appreciation along with remembering of their kindness, it won’t be an obstacle for the development of the equanimity too. We can convert the affection with attachment, but not that easy. One needs to familiarize one’s mind first for a while.
And the fifth Dalai Lama in his Lamrim the Lamrim of fifth Dalai Lama, is the Jambal Shalun, the words of Mañjuśrī sorry, words of Maitreya, as said for the analogy of taking those three persons as an object develop equanimity, the relative at the left and middle in the neutral person in the middle and the enemy at the right. The affection or the love you develop at the left hand person, which is your relatives, that affection is conjoined with the attachment. I can’t see you. Anybody? Yes.
Can you speak a bit louder please? Mean I missed part of the question, I’m very sorry for that. You can maintain that altruistic intention by training or preserving all those training in those methods which we have just set forth without having realized emptiness directly. It is because the way of entering in the parts of Mahāyāna are different types, but some people, they first train in the heavier schools, the lower schools, and after having trained in those lower schools, then they enter the Mahāyāna or the way through path, the Gate Gate, starting from there. Some type of person, they don’t train in the lower schools, like Hīnayāna schools, and from the beginning they start to enter the Mahāyāna path, which is the first path, Gate Gate.
That type of person, when they’re training in the path of the Mahāyāna, the Gate Gate Pāragate, the person will not that type of person realizes emptiness directly when they reach the third path, which is paragate. During the gate gate path, during the first two paths, the person maintains the bodhicitta but hasn’t realized the emptiness directly. Pāragate, the third time, then the person is the part where a person realizes the emptiness Yeah.