Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 120-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche takes bodhicitta—the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings—as the essential foundation of the Mahāyāna path. He opens with Śāntideva’s image of the precious human rebirth as a boat crossing an ocean of suffering, then explains why enlightenment must be pursued for oneself first: like a father who eats meat to gain strength to find food for his starving family, we must develop our own realization before we can help others effectively. The heart of the talk unfolds the seven-point (or eight-point, including equanimity) mind training: seeing all beings as one’s mother across countless lives, remembering their kindness, and cultivating the determination to repay their debt. An extended reflection on equanimity applies this to friends, enemies, and neutral persons—showing that all have harmed and helped us equally across innumerable rebirths. The teaching closes with Q&A on bodhicitta as the indispensable cause of Buddhahood. Pitched at practitioners committed to the Mahāyāna path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2003-08-06 – The Three Principle Aspects of the Path. Bodhicitta – KR.mp3
UUID: 1cf2e2e9-6bf4-4703-8c13-d0b3f65dd34e
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Three Principal Aspects
Date: 2003-08-06
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~7,884
So Śāntideva said that having a precious human rebirth was like having a boat that could traverse the ocean of suffering. So what this means is that in this analogy, the suffering ocean is likened to saṃsāra or the ocean is likened to the sufferings of saṃsāra in that if we just have one suffering, it doesn’t make a whole ocean. But because there is so much suffering in saṃsāra, it’s as vast the suffering is as vast as the ocean. So the sufferings of saṃsāra are said to be as vast as an ocean because of the amount of beings that are suffering and the amount of suffering that is experienced. So what this means is that we need to get across the ocean, we need to cross the ocean in order to stop experiencing suffering.
Now this human body that we have with eight leisures and ten endowments is said to be the best boat for us to cross the ocean of saṃsāra in, to cross the ocean of suffering, that is saṃsāra in relying on this precious human rebirth with its endowments and leisures we actually have the ability to cross over this ocean. Without this boat then we can’t cross the ocean so in this example the precious human rebirth is said to be like the boat that can take us across the ocean of samsaric suffering. So this boat that we have, this precious human rebirth that we have that can take us across the ocean of saṃsāra suffering is very difficult for us to find, especially considering that it has eight leisures and the ten endowments, rebirth with all of these conditions, human rebirth with all these conditions is incredibly difficult for us to find. Now that we have found it, then we have to make the most of it. We have to make it as meaningful as possible.
We have to make this rebirth as meaningful as possible. The way that we make this rebirth as meaningful as possible is by practicing Dharma. If we practice the Dharma then we’re not wasting this precious human rebirth and that means not focusing on the things of this life but practicing Dharma So in order to make this life incredibly meaningful, then what we need to do is to create merit, which will be a cause for us to achieve enlightenment, which is in order to benefit all sentient beings. We need to create this merit in order to be able to do that. So the best way to do this is by focusing on the mind while working towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.
So focusing on this, then we should meditate for a few minutes. Tonight we’re going to talk about And in order to talk about bodhicitta, then we need to establish what bodhicitta is. Ārya Maitreya in the Clear Ornament of Realization gave a description of what bodhicitta was. And in this text, he said that bodhicitta was the generation because there’s a word that means mind literally translated as mind generation in Tibetan, which is a synonym of bodhicitta. So the mind generation that seeks to generate or establish ourselves and all sentient beings in the happiness, the completely excellent happiness that is completely separated from all faults, is completely separated from all things that need to be abandoned, is completely separated from any grasping and anything that could cause suffering.
So the wish to establish or the thought to generate the mind seeking to establish ourselves and all sentient beings like this, going completely free from suffering, completely free from afflictive emotions, and having this happiness or bliss with all the with everything excellent established in it. So from our side if we can say what is it that we need to do, what is the goal that we need to establish for ourselves in order to be able to accomplish that, in order to be the person that works towards establishing all beings in this state, then from our side we need to completely get rid of all our faults and completely establish all our qualities and achieve the the completed enlightenment in order to be able to do this. That’s what our goal should be. Our purpose needs to be in order to to do this. So we need to in order to establish our beings in this state, then from our side, we need to be able to attain this enlightenment because this final enlightenment because until we have completely gotten rid of all our faults, gotten rid of all the things that we need to get rid of, and completely developed all our qualities, then we are unable to lead other sentient beings to that state.
Until we have achieved enlightenment for ourselves, then we can’t lead others to that state. We don’t have the ability to be able to show them how to do that. So because we can’t lead them to that state without first developing our own enlightenment, then we must strive for our own enlightenment and do whatever it takes to put in as much effort as possible towards our own enlightenment in order to then be able to be of benefit to sentient beings in this way. So whatever experiences that we need to have or whatever we need to do then we do it in order to attain that goal
So in order to establish all sentient beings in this state beyond suffering, which is completely qualified by all qualities, then we first need to attain the complete Buddhahood for ourselves. That’s what we need to do first in order to be able to establish all sentient beings like this. So what this means is that in terms of bodhicitta, in terms of working towards enlightenment, there’s actually two aspirations that we have. We have the aspiration for self and we have the aspiration for others. Now, the aspiration for others is that we wish to establish all sentient beings without suffering and establish them in happiness that’s completely qualified by everything excellent and is free from all suffering.
We want to establish them in that. We have the aspiration to establish them in that. Because we have that aspiration, then we also have the aspiration for ourselves and that in order to do this we ourselves have to attain completely qualified highest enlightenment in order to be able to establish other sentient beings in this state free from suffering. Therefore there’s these two different aspirations that are connected to bodhicitta, so there’s an aspiration for self and an aspiration for others. Now in order to develop bodhicitta then we need to keep familiarizing ourselves with these two aspirations or keep meditating on these two aspirations.
Then when we develop bodhicitta, what will happen is that just by meeting one person, we will think that we wish or one being, then we will think just for this, then I must achieve enlightenment. So we’ll only take that because we’ll we’ll have that developed in our mind that we will work towards enlightenment even for one being but actually for all beings. And this is when we’ve developed bodhicitta. This is when we’ve entered the Mahāyāna path. Okay.
Rinpoche wanted to give an example of how bodhicitta works. So his example is that we imagine a country which is in the grip of a famine. There’s no food in the in the country anywhere. Nobody has anything to eat. And because there’s no food in this country, then there’s this one household that has absolutely no food.
There’s there’s no food in in this one household. Now in this household, the head of this household is the father and he has many different children. His father actually finds a big chunk of meat, a leg of meat, and he thinks, Okay, I have this leg of meat. What am I going to do with this leg of meat? If I chop it up into little bits and give a little bit to each of the children or each of the people in the house, then that’s not going to really help anything.
That’s not going to stop them from starving. It’s only going to temporarily give them some relief, but it’s not going to stop their starvation. Whereas if I eat all of the meat myself and make myself really strong then I can go all around the place, all around the country looking for food for my children. I can find the strength myself. Like if I give myself the strength, I have more ability to try and find food for my children and those people depending on me.
So that’s what he did. First of all, he ate all of the meat and that made him strong because if he hadn’t ever eaten the meat, he would have been too weak to walk all over the country looking for food for his children. With the thought that by eating the meat, would benefit his children, he ate all the meat, made himself strong, and then looked high and low all over the place for food for his children and managed to find a lot of food to give to his children. Then he brought the food back and gave it to the children and managed to stop them all starving by doing this. That’s similar to us developing bodhicitta.
If we develop bodhicitta, if we work towards developing bodhicitta means working towards enlightenment so then we can be of benefit to all sentient beings. So it’s a similar thing to the man looking for food for his family first of all he made himself strong so therefore he could help them properly. Did did you understand? In order for us to be able to help sentient beings, then we first need to get to a place. We first need to get rid of all our faults and develop all our qualities in order to be able to help sentient beings.
If we ourselves are stuck in saṃsāra, if we don’t have the strength to help ourselves, then we can’t help other beings. If we’re hunched over in saṃsāra and we are suffering from afflictive emotions and the thoughts of being stuck in saṃsāra, we can’t help other beings out of the same situation. We need to be able to lift them out or lead them out of saṃsāra from outside of it. We can’t do it in it. We need to have established ourselves without fault and with all qualities in order to be able to get other beings out of that same situation.
So we need to work towards our own enlightenment first in order to be able to help all sentient beings. Achieving our own enlightenment in order to be able to help sentient beings is what we call the Mahāyāna path. The Mahāyāna path doesn’t just focus on our own suffering, it also focuses on the suffering of all sentient beings. So we’re seeking to attain enlightenment in order to be able to be of benefit to all sentient beings, not just ourselves. If we’re just practicing to achieve happiness for ourselves then that’s the lower path, that’s the Hīnayāna path.
In the Hīnayāna path they chuck away other sentient beings and they only focus on themselves. So there’s this sense of focusing on self and not focusing on other beings in that path And the Mahāyāna path isn’t like that. The Mahāyāna path doesn’t focus on the self alone. It’s working for the benefit of all sentient beings, and because it’s working for the benefit of all sentient beings, that’s why it’s considered the greater path. The Hīnayāna path is a path where someone or a being decides that they don’t like the sufferings of saṃsāra, they’re scared of the sufferings of saṃsāra, they don’t want anything to do with them and they’re going to work to establish themselves beyond that suffering in order to get out of that.
It’s working for their own benefit only, for their own benefit in order to get out of saṃsāra. The Mahāyāna path is not like that. The Mahāyāna path isn’t just for our own benefit, it’s for the benefit of all sentient beings. It’s working towards enlightenment for all sentient beings. That’s how we can make this distinction.
If we’re working for the benefit of all sentient beings, then it becomes the Mahāyāna path, and this is when we need to develop bodhicitta. So I forgot something from the previous one that we should be trying to establish ourselves like Buddha Śākyamūni because Buddha Śākyamūni, having understood or achieved the final enlightenment, was able to show the path to being so they could follow Dharma path. Now if trying to work towards our own enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, then there’s many different things that we will have to do in order to attain this enlightenment. Buddha Śākyamūni actually spent six years in meditative equipoise without eating, without speaking, in these extreme ascetic practices in order to get rid of the negativities or faults and to completely facilitate or generate these qualities in order to be a benefit to sentient beings. So he started in meditative equipoise in order to be able to benefit sentient beings like this and that was the reason that he did this.
So that was six years of this intensive meditation practice at the beginning he ate a little but in the end there was no food no speaking six years of meditative practice
So the Buddha Śākyamūni, he went through these meditation practices in order to completely get rid of his negativities and completely develop his qualities. So what happened after he was doing these practices is that at Bodh Gaya he achieved enlightenment. He completely got rid of all his negative qualities and completely developed all his positive qualities and hence achieved enlightenment. The the Tibetan word for Buddha is sangya with the sang meaning to get rid of. So they’re completely getting rid of the faults.
After attaining this enlightenment, he then went to a place called Varanasi. And in Varanasi, he first turned the wheel of dharma. He first turned the wheel of Dharma so that other people could benefit from his his his insight, so he could benefit all sentient beings. And this is, like, where the greatness comes in, the vastness of his the vastness of the Buddha’s Buddha’s the vastness of the Buddha’s intention. So after that, the Buddha went Buddha Śākyamūni went to all different places.
He went to Vulture Peak. He went to to different places around Varanasi, and he taught innumerable different discourses on on the Dharma. He taught enumerable different beings and enumerable different beings achieved liberation from suffering. They achieved complete enlightenment. They achieved arhatship.
They became aryas, they developed all these different realizations because he taught so many different beings, so many different things. He showed them all these different paths towards attaining liberation from suffering. And all of this, all of these things that he did, all of these countless beings that were helped, all the countless teachings that he gave, all of these were due to the kindness of bodhicitta or due to the kindness of the intention that he had to help other sentient beings? So if Buddha Śākyamūni had not achieved enlightenment there would not be any Buddhist Dharma there would be no Mahāyāna there would be no Hīnayāna there would be none of the different paths to follow there would be no tantra, there would be none of these practices. We would not be able to rely on the Buddha’s teachings if Buddha Śākyamūni had not achieved enlightenment.
So we are the followers of Buddha Śākyamūni, and need to be and because we are the followers of Buddha Śākyamūni, then we need to do like what Buddha Śākyamūni did. That is, we need to meditate. We need to completely get rid of our faults and completely establish our qualities and attain the complete Buddhahood, attain the final Buddhahood. And then after attaining the final Buddhahood, need to show teachings or show the path to many people to be able to help many people. Because of our bodhicitta we need to show the path to many people so we can establish many beings in happiness that is separate from sorry So if we have a strong mind, we think, yes.
I can do that. If we have a small mind, we think, no. No. I don’t I can’t do that. So we need to be able to do this.
We need to be able to work towards enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings. At some stage, the teachings that Buddha Śākyamūni had had delivered and that we rely on will will will fade away, and some other Buddha has to come along to be able to so in order for us to achieve it doesn’t sorry. This is the practice that we have to we have to focus on, is to achieve enlightenment in order to be of benefit to all sentient beings, in order to establish all sentient beings in a happiness that has no suffering in it. In order to do that we need to attain Buddhahood ourselves. Attaining Buddhahood ourselves is a very difficult thing.
It’s a very difficult thing to accomplish. There’s many different ways of doing it. There’s many different teachings on it. But most of these can be summarized in the two aspects of method and wisdom. If we have method and wisdom then we can achieve If we don’t have method and wisdom then we can’t achieve Buddhahood.
So what is method and wisdom? Well the method aspect is the bodhicitta, the mind working towards the enlightenment of all sentient beings. Wisdom aspect is wisdom understanding reality. These two are the different aspects that will take us towards Buddhahood. If we have these two different things, method and wisdom, then we will attain Buddhahood.
So these two, method and wisdom, are like the two different the two different wings of a bird. If a bird doesn’t have both wings, if it only has one wing, then it can’t fly. And the same with if a person wants to walk, they need two legs. And if you if a car wants to drive, needs four wheels but two sets of two. So we need these two aspects.
We need the method and wisdom. They’re the two aspects that we need to get to enlightenment. They’re the two different wings that we need to get to enlightenment. Are two different legs that we need to get to enlightenment. So this is the way of the Mahāyāna path.
We need these two aspects in order to complete the Mahāyāna path. Now how do these two different things of method and wisdom work together? Well, there’s two different ways that wisdom and method work together because there’s two different types of being that transverse the Mahāyāna path and develop method and wisdom. Now the first type of being is called the being of sharp faculties. Now the being of sharp faculties first of all develops the wisdom that understands emptiness directly and after they’ve developed the wisdom that understands emptiness directly they then develop bodhicitta and work towards enlightenment.
The being of lesser faculties or dull faculties first of all develops bodhicitta and then after they’ve developed bodhicitta then they develop the wisdom that understands emptiness directly and with those two works towards enlightenment. So this is the way of the Mahāyāna path. The difference between these two different types of beings is that the beings who are of the sharper faculties don’t have the ability or the inclination to work towards the enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings first. First of all, they develop the wisdom that understands emptiness directly and after that they realize that they are close to Buddhahood and then start working towards Buddhahood to be of benefit to all sentient beings. Now the beings that do have the ability to work towards do have the capacity to work towards enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings do that first and then after that then they develop the wisdom understanding of emptiness so this is the difference between the two.
So the beings of dull faculties when they hear the teachings on bodhicitta and they think yes these teachings are incredibly special I need to focus on those and after hearing those teachings and they focus very hard on the development of bodhicitta, on meditating in order to develop bodhicitta and focusing on that in order to attain enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings. After they’ve developed bodhicitta then they start focusing on the wisdom understanding emptiness directly and develop the wisdom understanding emptiness directly after this. So as to how we develop bodhicitta and it’s like we said before there is these two different traditions of developing bodhicitta. The first tradition of developing bodhicitta came first from Ārya Maitreya through Asaṇga, through Vasubandhu, through Candrakīrti. This tradition came down and it’s called the seven point mind training or another way of saying it is the mind training that has six causes and one result, this one result being the development of bodhicitta.
So in this seven point mind training then the the result of of the the seven point mind training is the development of bodhicitta. bodhicitta is the thing that comes at the end of the mind training exercise or practice. Now before we develop bodhicitta then or what the base or the step before developing bodhicitta is, is the
Intention or universal responsibility, taking responsibility for all sentient beings. That’s the the the thing that comes before bodhicitta. If that’s what the base for bodhicitta is, if there’s no universal responsibility or special intention then there’s no bodhicitta. Before we develop this then we need to develop great compassion and before we develop great compassion we need to develop great love and kindness. So what this means is if there’s no great love and kindness, there’s no great compassion, there’s no special intention, and there’s no bodhicitta.
Great love and kindness has to become before the other three, any of the other three. Before we develop great love and kindness, then we develop the idea of wanting before great love and kindness comes the idea of wanting to repay the kindness of our mothers. Before we develop the idea of wanting to repay the kindness of our mothers, we have to remember the kindness that they have shown to us. Before we remember the kindness they have shown to us, then we have to first of all see them as our mothers because if we don’t see all beings as our mothers then we can’t want to repay their kindness. So that’s the way it goes in downward order.
If we go in upward order then we start with the idea of seeing others as our mother, then the next one is remembering their kindness, then wanting to repay their kindness. After wanting to repay their kindness, we generate these three come together. Then after wanting to repay the kindness of people we see as having been our mothers, then we generate great love and kindness. Then we generate great compassion then we have this idea of taking on the responsibility to do it ourselves or special intention then we generate bodhicitta which is the result of the previous six causes So this is the seven point mind training The way that we work through the seven points of the mind training is first of all by meditating on seeing others as our mothers and then thinking about remembering the kindness they’ve showed us and wanting to repay their kindness, developing great loving kindness, great compassion and universal responsibility and bodhicitta. We gradually, in a graduated manner, meditate on all these different stages until eventually we develop bodhicitta.
That’s how to do it based on the seven point mind training. Now this tradition and this practice comes to us via teachers, teachers, Atisha, and then through a teacher and then through the Tibetan teachers. There was also a great meditator, a great teacher called Kamalaśīla who went to Tibet. He was a great Indian teacher who went to Tibet. Now he said that developing bodhicitta should be done in three stages of small, medium and large.
The beginning stage he said was that we needed to develop equanimity. We needed to develop an idea of equanimity of all beings having the same experience. Because Kamalaśīla who was this great teacher said that before the seven points of the mind training then first we need to develop this feeling of equanimity then it’s often presented as being eight different points or eight different aspects to the mind training exercise of this mind training exercise because the Tibetan teachers say that because Kamalaśīla was such a great teacher and pointed this out that it was true and followed his teachings. In this case there would be eight different aspects to this training process if we first used equanimity to start off with. So the idea is to keep meditating on these things until we develop bodhicitta.
Okay, let’s try English this time. Right, so first of all before we do any of these practices we need to develop this sense of equanimity. Equanimity is one of the four immeasurables. It’s this idea of having all beings having the same feeling for all beings, not taking some to be friends and some to be enemies. This is a negative thing, holding some people close and pushing others far, and we need to develop a sense of equanimity to all beings before we start doing these practices.
It’s considered to be incredibly important to use that as a base before doing any of the bodhicitta practices to develop this sense of equanimity. The thought that holds some close and others far and doesn’t have equanimity can be very dangerous because in that way then we’re not working towards the benefit of all sentient beings. We hold some people dear and then others we distance ourselves from. Now the reason that we usually do this is because of either anger or attachment. This is the way that our minds work with regards to people.
In order for us to develop equanimity we need to make a level field. It’s the same as if we were going to plant, we’re going to try and sow some kind of fruit or we’re trying to grow something in a field. If in that field we have little bits of grass and we have lots of rocks and there’s divots and there’s mounds all over the place, then we’re not going to be able to sow the seeds properly to grow whatever it is that we want to grow. In order for us to grow something properly then we have to make the field level. We have to get out the lumps straighten everything out.
After that then we can start growing and we can start sowing seeds properly and know that they will actually bear fruit as opposed to being wasted in the divots and on top of the rocks and so forth. If we want to know why it is that we usually hold some people close and push others far, then we have to look at both our anger and attachment. It’s because of our anger and attachment that we do these things, So we need to get rid of our anger and attachment with regards to people so therefore we can be equanimous towards all sentient beings to have this quality with regards to our feelings for all sentient beings because this idea of holding some close and pushing others away is not a positive thing. It’s something that we need to abandon, especially if we want to do these practices of trying to develop bodhicitta. It’s the same with the field.
Once we have a level field then we can start doing things we know will get a result and it’s the same with this practice. We need to develop this equanimity in order to be able to develop these feelings towards all sentient beings and not just towards some. Lama Tsongkhapa said that if we develop a good ground, that if the ground is like equanimity, then the seed that we put into the ground will be our compassion, the water we pour, and it will be our kindness, and the root that comes out of it will be our bodhicitta. This is the way that he taught that the generation of bodhicitta would come about. Now, in order for us to develop this equanimity then we need to get rid of the idea or the holding on to some people as being close to us and pushing others away from us.
The usually way that develop this equanimity is to actually look at the relationship between those that we consider to be our enemies, those that have harmed us, and those that have shown us kindness, those that we consider to be our friends or those close to us, and beings that we don’t really have any feeling towards one way or the other, whether it be that we don’t consider them to harm us or we don’t consider that they’ve helped us particularly. So first of all, we think of of of these three different types of beings with the person who has neither helped or harmed in the middle, and we, yeah, we concentrate on this being to start off with. We think that we have we don’t particularly
We have any negative feelings towards this person, but we don’t particularly have any positive feelings. We don’t feel any particular any friendship or any closeness towards this person. But when we think about it, at some stage in the past this being has showed us great kindness even though we don’t associate that with them now. Because of this great kindness then we wish them to be free from suffering even this being that we know we don’t particularly have any feeling towards one way or another. We concentrate on this being in the beginning when we’re doing this practice in order to develop equanimity.
After we’ve developed that sense for the being in the middle, we then turn our attentions to the being that we consider has shown us kindness, the person that we consider to be our friend, that we consider ourselves close to. Now when we look at this person, they may have helped us a little bit in this life and because they’ve helped us a little in this life then we consider them very positively. We have great friendship towards them, but in actual fact we’re only talking about one life here where they’ve helped us, only a little. If we were to look in other lives then we could find many other occasions where they’ve actually harmed us, they’ve killed us many times, where they’ve beat us up many times, where they’ve caused us to be ill many times. If we could see all their different lives, then we would be able to see that we were having that experience.
We’ve had these experiences with that person in many different ways. The fact that we’re considering them to be very close to us at the moment because of some small kindness they’ve shown us in this life, it doesn’t have any valid reasoning. In actual fact they’re just the same as every other being. Once we’ve finished meditating in this way or contemplating in this way about that person, then we turn our attention to being on the other side who we consider has harmed us, who we consider an enemy, we consider someone who has done us wrong in this lifetime. Now, this being that we consider has done us wrong in this lifetime may have only done something fairly slight to us, and even if it was serious, it’s only one lifetime, so the thing that they’ve done to us isn’t really that important.
And if we think about it, if we could see into other lifetimes, then at some stage they have been incredibly kind to us. They have given everything to us. They have been our parents and shown us great kindness in past lives. So in actual fact, us deciding that this person is our enemy because of some slight thing in this life is not valid. It’s not a real reasoning that we can pin to this.
We can’t hold on to that reasoning as being valid, so we have to have some kind of equanimous feeling towards this person as well. So in this way then we can see that we should have equanimity towards all three different types of beings. Right. So this is we need to establish this sense of we we need to establish a sense of equanimity through all these three different types of beings in in terms of Buddhist Buddhist Dharma or the Buddhist presentation. So we look again at these three beings and we see that the person that we consider to have been incredibly friendly to us, he’s only been friendly to us in a little way in this lifetime and in many other lifetimes they have done a damage to us, have hurt us in one way or another.
And it’s being in the middle that we have no other feeling, no particular feelings towards has been both beneficial and negative to us different lifetimes and we’ve had close connections with them in different lifetimes. Likewise, this person we consider an enemy, this person we consider someone who has harmed us greatly, that has only been a slight harm in one lifetime and in other lifetimes they’ve shown us inconceivable kindness. The being that has caused us we consider to be friendly in other lifetimes has killed us, hurt us, and maimed us. And the being that we consider to be a negative to us in other lifetimes has been our mother has shown us great kindness, shown us kindness. In actual fact, this being that we consider to be harmful to us has shown us great kindness in other sorry I’ve got the wrong way around.
The being that we consider to be our friend, that we consider to be very close to us in this lifetime has an actual fact in many lifetimes before harmed us greatly, killed us and maimed us. Also a being that we have no particular feelings to either way in many lifetimes before has harmed us, has hurt us, has maimed us, and the being that we consider to be our enemy in many lifetimes before has hurt us and maimed us. There’s no difference between our relationship with any of these three beings. Likewise, the being that we consider to be our enemy in past lifetimes has helped us greatly, has shown us great kindness. The being we have no particular feeling towards has helped us and shown us great kindness.
And the being that we consider to be very close to us in this lifetime, in other lifetimes, has also shown us great kindness. So there’s no difference between these three different types of beings. They have all harmed us. They have all showed us great kindness. There is no we shouldn’t differentiate between whether we consider them to be friendly or we consider them to be an enemy, whether we hold them close or push them far, and none of this differentiation actually has any basis.
So if we want to practice the Mahāyāna path then we need to develop equanimity towards all these beings and in actual fact because we have both types of vows, because we have tantric vows and we have we’re bound to see all these beings equanimously. If we want to practice the Mahāyāna path we have to see all these beings equanimously. So in order for us to practice then we have to understand that all these three beings, the person that we consider has harmed us, the person that we have hatred towards, the person that we have no particular feeling towards, and the being that we consider very close to us, all of these beings have in past lives, whether we consider them now to be close to us or far from us, in past lives they have shown us great kindness, they have been our mothers, just once but in countless lives they have been our mothers. Countless times all three of these types of beings have been our mother and shown us incredible kindness. In this way we have to say that all these beings are exactly the same in that all these beings have looked after us, have cared for us, have shown us this immense love and kindness.
We can’t differentiate and say, Okay, this person is closer to us and this person is not closer to us. They’re exactly the same. They’re exactly the same in that they’ve all shown us this kindness. So this whole idea of having some clothes and some people that we consider to be far from us is not valid. They’re exactly the same.
I understand of of of we had when we were a child. The mind continues backwards. And if we go backwards from there, then the mind we have as a child, where did that come from? The mind we have as a child came from the the mind that we died within our last life. And then we have to go backwards from there and then if we keep going backwards then we see that mind has no beginning and then because mind has no beginning then we have countless births and because we have countless births that means that we have countless mothers and so because we have countless mothers then that means all beings at some stage have been our mother and shown us this kindness.
So not only have we had countless births, but we’ve had countless births as a human. We’ve had countless births as a horse. We’ve had countless births as a dog. We’ve had countless births as a cat. We’ve had all these different types of countless births because there is no finite end, finite beginning so there’s all these different births that we’ve had therefore all beings have been our mother There’s actually also four different ways that we can be born.
We can be born from an egg. We can be born from heat, in the same way as some small insects or bugs are, we can be born from magical emanations like the gods are, and we can be born from a womb in the same way that we are so there’s these four different ways that we can actually take birth. Then a horse, a cat, a dog, and a human they’re all births that take place from a womb so they’re all considered that type of birth they’re taking is a womb if we’re going to if there’s a being that has taken birth as a horse, then they had to get they had to be born, you know, begat by a horse. If someone was going to be born as a cat, then a cat had to give birth to them. If someone was going to if a being was going to be born as a dog, then a dog had to be born to them.
And because we were born as humans, then we had to take birth through a human mother. Now if we have a lot of merit and we’re going to take rebirth in our next life as a human, then again we will have
Come through into that next life as a as a human through a human mother. So if we’re going to keep taking rebirth as a human then it’s not as if we’re going to take rebirth in the same the same woman we can’t take rebirth through the same mother we’re going to have new mothers every time that we take rebirth So because we’ve taken birth through so many mothers in so many different ways then we can’t say then our mothers are countless and we can’t say that any being has not been our mother. In the past, if we took birth as a horse, then we had to have a horse mother. And if we took birth as a cat, then our mother was a cat. And if we took birth as a dog then our mother was a dog so we have all these beings have been our mother in different incarnations or in different births and so we’ve had all these different mothers and all these different experiences so that means that if we die and we take rebirth as a dog then the mother that we have now can’t be our mother because they’re not a dog So that means that we’ve had all these different mothers.
We can’t count our births, we can’t count our mothers so that means that because there’s countless births and there’s countless sentient beings that all sentient beings we have to see them as having been our mother because of the countlessness of our birth and the countlessness of beings and it’s not just all sentient beings having countless rebirths but one person has countless rebirths so we have to look at the way that our mothers, the kindness that our mothers have showed us in this life, our mothers, especially when we are small children, if they don’t give us food, if they don’t protect us, if they don’t give us warm clothing in some way today, then there’s no way that we can survive. They give everything of themselves. They even give their milk to us in order to keep us living. So Oh, what’s that? We owe them this incredibly great kindness.
If if a bay when a baby is really small, if their mother just forgets about them for five minutes, can even die from that. So their mother has to constantly be attentive to the child and aware of the child’s needs in order to keep their child alive. All different mothers have to be this attentive to their children in order to protect them and in order to nourish them. If a mother doesn’t look after their child, if our mothers didn’t look after us, then we wouldn’t be here now. If someone wasn’t looking after us when we were a child, then we wouldn’t have the conditions to be here now.
We owe them a great kindness. And other animals as well look after their children like birds fly everywhere and have to protect babies and give them food and protect them from cats. So they have to protect them from the different things that can get to them. All the different mothers that have been our mothers in countless times have shown us this incredible kindness by protecting us and giving us food and so forth. So in the Mayana Dharma practice, we need to understand that all beings have been our mother and shown us this incredible kindness countless times because we’ve had countless rebirths and we’ve had countless mothers and they’ve all shown us incredible kindness.
Because they have shown us this incredible kindness and because they’re suffering then we have to their kindness and try and repay their kindness. In the Mahāyāna tradition or the Mahāyāna teachings, to have been given some amazing benefit from someone and not think to repay that benefit is considered very, very bad. If someone has shown you great kindness, then you want to repay that kindness. So this is the whole point of going through the process of seeing beings as our mother, understanding that beings have been our mother, remembering their kindness and seeking to repay their kindness. If we decide we don’t want to repay their kindness then that’s considered very bad in the Mahāyāna teachings.
So we have to want to repay their kindness because they have shown us great kindness. Okay. So even put if Dharma practice to the side for a second and think about it from a worldly perspective, If someone shows someone a great kindness in in just in worldly terms and that person doesn’t have any idea to pay them back their kindness, we consider that very bad. We know it’s not something that’s considered very in a very in a very kind light. If someone doesn’t wanna repay a great kindness that we’ve shown to them, in the same way as if we speak to someone and they don’t speak back to us, we consider them to be dumb or or or or not being able to speak.
So there if there’s something that’s shown in way, then even in a worldly sense, it is expected that there will be a response to that. So if anyone has any really important questions, and there’s about five minutes for questions. So you can’t have So you can’t have an effect if you don’t have its cause. So the cause for Buddhahood is bodhicitta. So if you don’t have the cause for Buddhahood then you can’t achieve Buddhahood.
You need the cause in order to have the effect. Now there’s many different types of Buddhist practice. There’s many different types of things that are considered to be Buddhism. There’s many and some of these do not accept do not even accept the concept of bodhicitta, for example, the Theravāda and the different Hīnayāna practices, they don’t accept the concept of bodhicitta. They’re working towards their own liberation and they can achieve that, but they can’t achieve complete enlightenment unless they have bodhicitta.
This is why bodhicitta is considered to be so incredibly important because it is the cause for enlightenment. But there’s many different Buddhists who don’t don’t strive towards bodhicitta, they don’t strive to generate bodhicitta or consider bodhicitta. But if someone wants to be a Mahāyāna practitioner then they have to work on bodhicitta it’s something that they need to develop in order to follow the Mahāyāna path Okay. It’s up to you if you don’t want to accept this or not then that’s up to you you have the autonomy or the independence to be able to do that so people have the autonomy or independence to be able to practice Mahāyāna Buddhism or not that’s up to them and they have the autonomy or the independence to practice Buddhism or not, that’s up to them. But if something’s Mahāyāna Buddhism, it has to have bodhicitta.
Okay. If you don’t want to achieve enlightenment in order to be of benefit to all sentient beings then you don’t need bodhicitta. If you want to achieve enlightenment to be a benefit to all sentient beings that is bodhicitta. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Yeah.
I’ll take care. Take care.