Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 6.5-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun recites a classical first-person bodhisattva aspiration — a sweeping vow to free all beings from the full range of samsaric suffering: birth, old age, disease, bad rebirths, and the ignorance that drives them all. The language is formal and vivid: sentient beings are “entangled in nets of their own desires,” the bodhisattva willingly takes on suffering in every realm “until the last eon,” and pledges to become “a bearer of a lamp, a guide on their journey to peace.” The session closes with a brief dedication of merit and the classic aspiration that bodhicitta may arise in those who lack it and never diminish in those who have it.
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File: 21 HoM 1993 12 01.mp3
UUID: ac25eca1-770d-4c15-abb7-e8ad85d7e9ce
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: The Heart and Mind of Awakening (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1993-12-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 6.5 minutes
Words: ~871
Be it so. If you question why, it is because I bear the burden of all that lives. This not out of desire for my own pleasure, but that I have vowed to free all sentient beings and thus to fully unfold them. I shall free all wandering beings. Free them from the suffering of being born, from the suffering of old age and of disease, free them from the suffering of the rounds of birth and death, from the suffering of all bad migrations and of never ending unrest.
Free them from the suffering of all that is conditioned, of all obscuring views, from the suffering of the depletion of virtuous actions and of unknowing arising from the depths. From all shall I liberate all. All those creatures entangled in nets of their own desires, shrouded in veils of ignorance, clinging to their worlds of conditioned being in their final moments afraid. All those creatures plunged into the depths of pain, subsisting in prisons of repeating patterns of existence without wisdom, without honor in their words, in doubt, irresolute, knowing only sadness, unknowing of dependent arising, alone, swept round in whirlpools of afflicted minds and subjugated lives. All these creatures shall I establish in the kingdom of sovereign wisdom.
My struggle is not for liberation for myself alone, but by the mind of very omniscience shall I unbind all others from the wheel of existence, the ever turning wheel from which it is hard to be freed. I shall deliver them from out of the awful abyss, save them from all harm, rescue them from the torrent of their own swirling minds. Upon myself do I rest the load of sorrow of all of them. It is my pleasure to suffer the pain of each and every tortured existence in all however many realms of existence. I shall not defraud all the world of my roots of virtue.
I shall strive to abide in even a single bad migration until the last eon to come. And just as in one bad migration, I shall without exception abide in all bad migrations in all the realms of existence for the sake of all living beings. If you question why, is it not reasonable for one being to suffer rather than all beings fall to realms of ruin? I myself here let my blood that I might redeem all wandering beings from the wilderness of the Lord of Death’s domain from places of birth as animal and as hell being. With this very body shall endure all suffering aggregates of feeling for the sake of all sentient beings.
I take joy in reaffirming the trustworthy truth of my proclamation, I am the yoke bearing nape of all sentient beings for the sake of all sentient beings. I shall not forsake even one sentient being. If you question why, with all that lives as my object, I shall engender the very mind of omniscience itself. That is, not for my own pleasure, but that I may altogether liberate all living beings, have I wholly set forth towards unsurpassed perfect complete enlightenment. Thus, whenever and for however long all beings are attaining great happiness, from happinesses never before known up to the ecstasies of very omniscience, shall I wholly dedicate my roots of virtue.
Dedicate them that I may be a leader drawing others along, a bearer of a lamp, a guide on their journey to peace, provisioner for those on their voyage towards leisure. Dedicate them that I may be skilled in methods and wise in meanings, that I may abide on the furthermost shore having navigated the seas of cyclic existence and the wisdom ship of all knowing, that I may be a master of pure dedication and a teacher pointing the way to transcendence. I shall in every way cultivate roots of virtue for the sake of every living thing. I shall totally dedicate these roots of virtue. Dedicate them that I may liberate all sentient beings, that I may appear to all sentient beings, that I may be known to all sentient beings and free all sentient beings, that I may care for them, spiritually mature them, fulfill the needs and dispel the doubts of all sentient beings.
I am like the sun. I depend upon no other’s help. I shall not surrender the bodhisattva’s armor to another. Indeed, I shall eliminate the very need for others. I shall not pause from effort to protect but even one being and as one, all living beings.
I shall not cease from utter devotion to assuage all suffering. I shall not settle for trifling roots of virtue. I shall know no peace with less than all consuming dedication. So, we dedicate the creative potential, the skillful actions that we’ve accumulated, and in our hearts that we can dedicate it in a like manner. May I quickly become an awakened spiritual teacher and lead each and every sentient being to enlightened realm through these skillful actions.
May the supreme jewel of the awakening heart that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen never diminish, but increase more. Thank you. So I’d like to get a cup of tea.