Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Using the image of sweetening a cup of water — drop by drop until the water itself becomes sweet — Khensur Rinpoche illustrates how bodhicitta develops through consistent practice in this 19-minute talk from the 1994 Easter retreat at Buddha House. He opens by framing the motivation: recognising Buddhahood as the only adequate means to benefit all beings, and the strong inner oath that crystallises into genuine bodhicitta. He then walks through the meditative sequence — loving kindness, compassion, taking and giving, exalted thought — explaining why regularity matters far more than rare, halfhearted effort. He closes with encouragement: diligent practice plants a seed that will ripen in this life or, if necessary, in a future one.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 16 GS 1994 Easter.mp3
UUID: 55189291-6cc6-443e-b602-544dcd770191
Teacher: Khensur Rinpoche
Collection: The Great Scope (Khensur Rinpoche)
Date: 1994 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 19.3 minutes
Words: ~1,233
So in this way, one finds it is possible to achieve the state of enlightenment, Buddhahood — freedom from all faults and endowed with all excellent qualities. Through that way, one then thinks, in order to remove other sufferings and bring them excellent happiness, I must there’s no other alternative. There’s no other thing to go after apart from this that I definitely must achieve this state. Used in the sense that any other means is inadequate. I must achieve this adequate means, the state of Buddhahood, the enlightenment.
So I must achieve it. There’s no other means. But it is the only means. With such way of conviction, when one makes a strong oath, a strong oath within one’s mind that I must achieve state of enlightenment in order to benefit all other. And then such a strong, stable oath becomes what is called the bodhicitta mind of enlightenment.
One must not merely rest in the aspiration to achieve enlightenment to benefit others. Instead, one has to repeatedly familiarize in meditation with this mind to enlightenment, thinking that it is extremely precious as it is the source of all dedication to others’ welfare. And in this way, it is necessary to repeatedly familiarize with it through which it can be strengthened. And in the course of repeatedly familiarizing in order to strengthen it, it is necessary that one occasionally has to go down to the meditation on loving kindness, compassion through which one does the practice of taking and giving. And then one does the meditation on exalted thought.
And by doing meditation on them, one can intensify this mind to enlightenment. And occasionally one can go in reverse order in meditation, meditating on mind of enlightenment, then on exalted thought, then on practice of giving and taking based on the force of loving kindness, taking based on the force of loving kindness and compassion. In this way, through repeated consistent meditative familiarization, when the strength of the mind of enlightenment increases, one’s very mind can acquire the quality of mind of enlightenment. That mind of enlightenment can be formed as part of one’s mind. And when that happens, it is called the mind of enlightenment that requires no more effort for its arising.
One needs to then attempt to arrive up to that level because then one has what is called genuinely generated the actual mind of enlightenment in one’s mind. Our mind can be given an example as water, which personally is not in the nature of sweetness. But if one drops a drop of sugar or a brown sugar or a juice, then one can drop it and can drop another drop and second drop, third drop, and so forth. Similarly, on the mind, one can bring about the drop of meditation of loving kindness, compassion, not in the mind one after another as if like a drop being added onto the water. Later on, when so much drop has been poured, the very nature of the water becomes not separable from sweetness, generally speaking.
So it is transformed into nature of sweetness. Likewise, the mind can acquire the very nature of precious bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. The mind itself can completely wholly can become mind of enlightenment. For the water to acquire the nature of complete sweetness, not just few dosage of sweetness would not do as well as well just a very, very low a very low content of sweetness would not do. It has to be repeated pore of drops as well as strong content of sweetness.
Likewise, in one’s meditation, to develop a genuine mind of enlightenment, it has to be repeated meditative familiarization on it with as much strength as possible through meditating on the other necessary factors as loving kindness, compassion, exalted thought, and so forth. And then it is possible to acquire that mental state of the mind being inseparable from enlightenment mind. If one simply meditates when one feels like it, one day or two days, and then stops and meditates again later on, then it is not possible through that way of inconsistent, weak means to develop mind of enlightenment. In our life, if we spend much time not doing meditation on bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, then it will come to a point where if we are asked, “Did we do meditation on the mind of enlightenment?” we cannot completely deny that we haven’t done it.
We did some, but was there any result, any potency? There isn’t because the meditation has been very inconsistent and a few in number, few days, few occasions when we rarely felt like laying on it. And if that happens, then it is obvious that there would not be any effect of actively producing experiences and realization as in the case with the water in the cup. If the dropping of the sweetness is weak and with less content and not frequent, then it won’t be easy to change into sweet water. Yes.
Well, in most ordinary people’s cases, we don’t realize that we don’t have the aspiration to achieve enlightenment free of all faults and complete with all excellent qualities. Because of no aspiration for that, we as well do not try to generate mind to enlightenment. Also, do not recognize that it is extremely precious that it would produce that result of enlightenment. And that’s how it happens. So in this way, we need to realize that it is extremely precious in order to accomplish our welfare and welfare of others.
Through this way, then we can come to repeated consistent awareness that mind of enlightenment is precious. It’s something we need to develop. Yeah. So in the afternoon, you can discuss on these topics and can do meditation and similarly can do tomorrow and if there are any questions on which you think you haven’t clarified answers then you can bring the questions on to one of the Wednesday evening when there will be an evening set apart for for question answer. So in this way, as in last note of advice, it would be good to attend your best to meditate and familiarize with our mind of enlightenment by realizing how precious it is in accomplishing perfectly one’s welfare and others.
So one in such way attempt one’s best. Also from another point towards one’s conclusive analysis one will find that the time one spend in one’s life meditating on this mental development of precious mind of enlightenment has been a meaningful time of one’s life. If one is extremely diligent, then it is possible definitely even in this life to develop such mind of enlightenment because on one hand there is the possibility even the potency even to achieve enlightenment Buddhahood, then why not to as well achieve mind of enlightenment? It is possible even in this life. At any rate, if one, after all efforts and with one’s best attempt, still lacked enough diligence to produce in this life, a seed has been sowed, therefore it will definitely ripen, the potency will remain continuously ripen in some time in our future rebirths.
Eventually one will reap results of one effort, So, yeah, there would be the point. Even if we are not able to reap the good crop of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment, we must at least make the effort to plant the seed. Okay?