Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 47-minute session, Ven Jampa Gendun turns to Buddha nature as the motivating ground for renunciation within Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects. He anchors the theme with a concrete image: sitting at a kitchen table after breakfast, you catch a flag flapping on a rooftop and a sudden flash of freshness enters your being — that, he argues, is a taste of unconditional basic goodness. He reviews the eight worldly concerns (pleasure, gain, praise, fame, and their fearful opposites) as the prison obscuring that goodness, then distinguishes two types of Buddha nature using Nāgārjuna’s water analogy — the same water called warm in winter and cold in summer, just as ordinary beings and Buddhas differ only circumstantially — and Asaṇga’s similes from the Sublime Continuum: gold in slag, a statue wrapped in dirty rags. Best appreciated by those following the series.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 3 PA 1990 03 30.mp3
UUID: c3e186e5-f3ca-4e53-8e3b-f3efeb1bad10
Teacher: Ven Jampa Gendun
Collection: Three Principal Aspects of the Path 1988-1990 (Ven Jampa Gendun)
Date: 1990-03-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 47.1 minutes
Words: ~5,477
Variables that you acquire, all of these variables outside yourself do not determine your happiness or the quality of your life but only your own mind and how you relate to all these things. It becomes exceedingly apparent to me that you have to grow and this is like your full time job. Everything else is somewhat subservient to this one priority in your life and to continually be resetting this priority. Reprioritizing your life in terms of what actually brings you happiness as a unique act of self actualizing individual, very autonomously beginning to drive your own value system and taking recourse to that again and again And making the consistent choice of growth in all the various possibilities which life is continually confronting us. And we call this Buddha Dharma in Sangha.
Taking recourse, I’ve mentioned this, taking recourse to your own Buddha. And I’m going to talk about that tonight, the idea of Buddha nature. Buddha nature. It’s very difficult, I think, for one to appreciate oneself. We’ve been taught, we’ve had it drilled into us that we have some deficiencies, that we develop dependencies, that we don’t quite have what it takes, we don’t have the power to solve our problems, we don’t have the native intelligence to understand that this is wrong.
But it takes a lot of relearning to begin to realize it and taking refuge, taking refuge in your own wisdom, own love and compassion and this exuberance for life. Mental and spiritual energy that we all have within us. And as a method to actualize Buddha, actualize becoming a happy, loving, healthy, sane human being, we take recourse to the Dharma, that which is able to raise the level of our consciousness. And we do it in the social context of a spiritual community. And this becomes a realistic method of solving our problems, the problems of ordinary human existence, which is a problem.
There’s nothing unique about you or me. It’s pervasive. And we don’t need to be ashamed of our problems, but to confront them and to work with them. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings.
To the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, I go for refuge until I am enlightened. Through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha I go for refuge until I am enlightened through the merit I create by practicing giving and the other perfections. May I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all beings. So we’re talking about Tsongkhapa’s three principal aspects of the path.
We’re discussing amongst the various divisions of the text which has four parts: an explanation on how to develop the determination to be free, an explanation on how to open our hearts to others, explanation on how we are to see deeply into reality, and some words of encouragement to get us going on taking up this task. So the explanation of the way to develop the determination to be free It has three parts, three sections. Why one has to develop this determination? The actual way of going about developing it and what is the point that we can understand that we have developed, the measure of having developed the determination to be free. And of these three we’re discussing this the middle, the second, the methods for developing the determination to be free.
We’re discussing this in terms of the four reversals. Four reversals. Becoming aware of our potential and appreciating our chance to change, to actualize it. Becoming aware of the inevitability of the change with respect to death, through death. Becoming aware of the invariable relationship between our actions and our experiences.
And the fourth, becoming aware of the inherent dissatisfactory quality, nature of any state bounded by ego. Anything within these neurotic compulsive patterns which constitute our ego based existence. Any sort of occupation state is inherently by its very nature dissatisfactory. So these are the four reversals. This is the way that we can begin to get the mind unstuck, to begin to withdraw it from these reoccurring compulsive patterns in which it is bound at present and develop the determination to be free.
In other words, determination to be free, it means literally in Tibetan, means definite emergence. You definitely are going to emerge out of this, this situation in which you’re very much stuck in. You develop this determination to be free, to grow out of it. So by means of these first two reversals, becoming aware of our potential and appreciating our chance to change, becoming aware of the inevitability of change through death, the emphasis on the appearance as Tsongkhapa states, the emphasis on the appearance of this life is reversed. By means of the latter two reversals, becoming aware of the inevitability of invariable relationship between actions and their experiences, and becoming aware of the inherent dissatisfactory quality of all states bounded by ego, the emphasis on the appearance of future lives is reversed.
Last week we talked about this. We began to discuss what it means to reverse the emphasis on the appearance of this life. You know, it sounds pretty heavy, doesn’t it? To give up this life. To give up on this life.
To renounce this life. It looks like someone is trying to take away all our fun. We have to wear hair shirts and engage in all kinds of ascetic practices. If we are to renounce anything, we are to renounce the causes of our suffering. Many people can give up their lives, but very few people can live.
Many people can give up their lives, but very few can give up the cause of their suffering. So what does it mean to renounce this life? It means to deemphasize, to give up, to renounce the eight worldly concerns or eight worldly principles. Sometimes called eight worldly dharmas, or another way of saying the same thing, the eight preoccupations of ego-orientated existence. These are eight preoccupations of a normal individual, the average individual.
To give up this life means to cease identifying with these eight primary compulsive patterns of ego. To cease identifying with these eight primary compulsive patterns of ego. If you begin to see that ego is your problem, these neurotic compulsive patterns, these actions, these mental events which constitute ego trying to secure itself in space and time, that this is the source of all your problems, all your pain, all your dissatisfaction, then we have to begin somewhere to begin to withdraw, to emerge out of it. And the way we begin is with ceasing the emphasis on the eight primary preoccupations of ego. And we talked about this last week.
This is just a slight review. Preoccupations of ego. Hope for pleasure, fear of pain, hope for gain, fear of loss, hope for praise, fear of blame, hope of fame, fear of infamy. This constitutes a great portion of our life. It influences our waking moments.
They’re ruled by hope. Hope is ego’s attempt to establish its own priorities, and that solely as a means to confirm itself, to confirm its own existence, while fear is the reaction to any threat to its survival. There’s a verse by Chogyam Trungpa, just a simple four line verse. The external projection is empty of good and bad. The internal fixation of hope and fear imprisons.
Truth and falsehood are at war. The simple minded child is wounded by the arrow of confusion. So we live in a many walled prison and the primary wall of which is our hopes and fears. Our hopes and fears of pleasure and pain, praise and blame, gain and loss, fame and infamy. So out of cowardness, we embed ourselves in this cocoon in which we perpetuate our habitual pattern.
When we are constantly recreating our basic patterns of behavior and thought, we never have to leap into fresh air, onto onto new ground. Simply repeating what has gone before. And these repeating patterns, this repetitive nature makes a kind of prison for us. There’s no freedom, there’s no spontaneity, there’s no aliveness. Simply the mechanical repetitions have sought to, in the hope of gaining some kind of security, some kind of control.
One time master who died about five years ago by the name of Achen Cha talking about the eight worldly dhammas. Eight worldly dhammas. These patterns are called worldly dhammas. Pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and infamy. This is the world.
The person who is lost in the world has no path of escape. The world overwhelms him. This world follows the law of Dharma, so we call it worldly Dharma. He who lives with the worldly Dharma is called a worldly being. He lives surrounded by confusion.
Where is this world? It is just in the minds of beings infatuated with it. It continues. These activities of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and infamy, and so on, are constantly arising because they are characteristic of the world. The Buddha was enlightened in the world.
He contemplated the world. If he hadn’t contemplated the world, if he hadn’t seen the world, he couldn’t have risen above it. The Buddha’s enlightenment was simply enlightenment of this world, this very world. The world was still there. Pleasure and pain was still there.
Gain and loss were still there. They were all still there. If these weren’t there, then there would be nothing to become enlightened to. What he knew was was just the world, that which surrounds the hearts of people, hoping for pleasure, for gain, for praise, for fame, fearing their opposites. Pain, fearing loss, blame, infamy.
And they sink under the weight of the world. So all of our constant anxiety and all of our ceaseless activity created out of hopes and fears is our world. This is our world. This is our life. Your life is not events which kind of fill in the gaps.
Our life is constituted out of this anxiety and ceaseless activity under the influence of our hopes and fears. This is our life. And to give up our life, to give up this world, is to give up these hopes and fears. But we never we never will unless we cease identifying with these patterns. Unless we what?
We step beyond these hopes and fears, the ups and downs of our thinking process. You know, just to be, just let ourselves be without holding onto this constant reference point that ego is constantly manufacturing. This is quite a creative step. That’s why it takes a great deal of determination to let yourself be. But but be what?
The word be is used quite a lot. What are we to be? What am I if I am not these these constantly shifting patterns, these are these hopes and fears which I have now up to now habitually identified? This is who I am. This is the real me.
If I’m not that, then what am I? What can I do to improve myself so that I can be something other than I am now, to get that which I don’t presently possess? You know, I don’t have something. Lacking something. What don’t I have?
What do I have to be? What do I have to be? The struggle to be something other than what you are now. This constant sense of inadequacy, constant preoccupation with what we lack. Talking about Buddha nature as the foundation of the path, In other words, our basic goodness, our unconditional goodness, our brilliant sanity.
Beginning the possibility to recognize these within ourselves. Perhaps you were sitting at the kitchen table. You have finished breakfast, washed the dishes, and you’re ready to go out for an appointment. But you’re not in a hurry, and you sit there looking out of the window at the street. It is a warm day with high clouds.
People are walking down the sidewalk in bright summer clothes, blue suits, red, yellow dress, a white shirt. Some are moving briskly, almost urgently. Others are strolling. A horn toots, a vendor cries, a child laughs. Suddenly, your eye catches a flag flapping in the breeze on the roof across the street.
For a moment, your mind rests with a flag, a sudden flash of freshness, almost of joy, enters your state of being. Your mind seems suddenly fresh and open, your body relaxed and warm. There is a quality of lightness, humor, and almost timelessness. It is very simple. Yet, for the remainder of the day, you feel utterly refreshed for no good reason.
This is a flavor of basic goodness. Unconditioned goodness is said to be the most immediate, intimate and all pervading aspect of our everyday experience. It is always there, it does not come and go. Our recognition of it may be fleeting but it does not depend upon any particular circumstances. We may be in a very mundane situation such as I have just described or in a more extreme situation.
A sudden glimpse of unconditional goodness is always possible. Traditionally such realizations are said to be most likely to occur spontaneously at a moment of sudden surprise or they occur as a result of the practice of meditation. Still the glimpse of openness can come along at any moment. Such moments are our first step. If they are acknowledged and allowed to enter our state of being, then gradually our life begins to open out.
We begin to cheer up and to feel our natural wholesomeness and dignity. If we don’t, if we do not acknowledge these simple experiences, then they are forgotten and our life continues along its particular and familiar grooves. Discovering and acknowledging such moments constituting a journey of opening and the need that needs some discipline and some training. So as Chogyam Trungpa says, discovering real goodness comes from appreciating very simple experiences. We are not talking about how good it feels to make a million dollars or if you finally graduate from college or buy a new home.
But we are speaking here of the basic goodness of being alive which does not depend upon our desires. We are talking here about the basic goodness of being alive which does not depend upon our accomplishments or fulfilling our desires. We experience glimpses of goodness all the time but we often fail to acknowledge them. When we see a bright color we are witnessing our inherent goodness. When we hear a beautiful sound we are hearing our own basic goodness.
When we step out of the shower we feel fresh and clean. And when we walk it out of a stuffy room, we appreciate the sudden whiff of fresh air. These events may take a fraction of a second, but they are real experiences of goodness. They happen to us all the time but usually we ignore them as mundane or purely coincidental. And talking about over and above the fulfilling of our desires, establishing all our various goals, the possibility for appreciating the fact that it’s simple and most basic fact that we’re alive.
And this I think becomes a great source of inspiration. Without this we all have had moments of experiencing our own unconditional goodness when it was enough just to be alive, just to see, just to breathe, it was enough. It was like a real gas just to be alive. And this is a real inspiration. That there there is something, another way of existing, another way of being totally outside our habitual task of fulfilling our desires, our hopes, our fears, a whole qualitative different way of life, a possibility in which it’s unconditioned.
It doesn’t depend upon our fulfilling our desires, possessing, having. Rerooting our sense of identity and being as opposed to becoming this constant struggle to be something that you aren’t now. The possibility of enlightenment, of being a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. Unconditional goodness. So it’s traditionally termed Buddha nature.
Buddha nature. And it’s not something which needs to be gotten or improved. It only needs to be discovered, self existing within our own minds. Self existing within our own minds. And then not seen because not looked for, but maybe we can begin to look for it in our daily experience, The possibility of becoming aware and extending our appreciation of our own basic goodness, own basic wholeness.
Again, Chogyam Trungpa. The Mahāyāna scriptures speak of those who are completely ready to open, those who are just about ready to open and those who have the potential to open. Those who have the potential are intellectual people who are interested in the subject but do not allow enough room for the instinct to spring out. Those who are almost ready are quite open minded, but they are watching themselves more than necessary. Those who are completely ready to open have heard the secret word, the password, tathagata.
Tathāgata. One gone thus. One gone thus. One who is gone with such ness. One who understands reality.
Tathāgata. Someone has already done it. Somebody has already crossed over. It is the open path. It is possible.
It is the Tathāgata path. Therefore, disregarding how or when or why, simply open. It is beautiful thing. It has already happened to someone someone else. Why not to you?
Why do you discriminate between me and the rest of the Tathagatas, between you and the rest of the Buddhas? Tathagatas means those who have experienced the Tathata. Ta which is as it is. Those who have experienced as it is the way things actually are. Over and above our preconceptions, ideas, our idealisms, intellectual projections, but the way things are.
In other words, the idea of is a way of inspiration, starting point. It tells us that other people have already made it, that others have already experienced it. In talking about this in traditional terms, one of the greatest of Indian Buddhist masters who is said to be like the second Buddha, Nāgārjuna, in a very important text that he composed called Praise of the Dharmadhatu. He says that the difference between ourselves and Buddhist is only relative, is not absolute. And the quotation, Just as water in summer is called warm and the same water in winter is called cold, the person ensnarled in nets of afflictive emotions is called an ordinary being.
And when that very person is free of them, he’s called a Buddha. Now if you have some water and we say this water is warm, it’s only warm relative to the atmosphere, to your preconception about your memory about water, your most recent experience of water. That same water, the same temperature water. In winter, it’s warm. In summer, it’s cold.
Same water. Hasn’t changed. Just the context has changed. Its temperature, the way we conceive of it is relative to its context. We consider ourselves as lacking, insufficient, something wrong with us, ordinary beings.
We are simply beings who have some compulsive reoccurring patterns, which we call disturbing patterns or afflictive emotions. Taking taking those away, we are Buddhas. No different. A Buddha is simply someone who is who has removed these afflictive emotions. They’re they’re called the Buddha.
Those with these afflictive emotions are called ordinary beings. No different. A Buddha is not an insufficient lacking without power, without intelligence, without goodness. That’s all there. Simply removing the afflictive emotions makes it apparent that they have the power, the intelligence, the love, and the wisdom to solve their problem.
Simply removing those disturbing patterns, it’s there. It becomes apparent when we call that being a Buddha. When these afflictive emotions are present, these qualities are obscured. We call this person an ordinary being. But there’s never been a time when this person was insufficient, was lacking the means, the power to solve their problem.
Never been a time it simply obscured these afflictive emotions, these disturbing patterns. So Buddha nature refers to this primordial intrinsic wakefulness, the wakefulness about ourselves, intrinsic wakefulness, and the natural purity of our minds. There are two types of Buddha nature. The primordial by primordial without beginning. There never was a time when it didn’t exist within our mind.
Intrinsic wakefulness, wakefulness. And the natural purity of our mind. Our minds are naturally pure by their very nature. They’re pure. So the intrinsic wakefulness, the pristine awareness, immaculate awareness, that is to say we can see things clearly.
We can know them clearly. And that fundamentally we are decent, gentle, and compassionate. And it is only our patterns which prevent the expression of our basic goodness, our brilliant sanity, our ability to know things as they are, and to spontaneously respond skillfully and appropriately. So this is called evolving Buddha nature. On the other hand, the second type of Buddha nature, the purity of our own minds.
That is to say a way to look at it is that we are not our patterns. Our minds are not the patterns which govern them and never have been. These reoccurring neurotic compulsive patterns. All our hopes and fears, attachment, hatred, anger, spite, jealousy, moroseness. Loneliness, alienation, fragmentation, all of these are simply patterns which have been imposed upon the natural purity of the mind.
And this natural purity of the mind is like If you have This is called naturally abiding lineage, naturally abiding Buddha nature, the natural purity of the mind. In talking about these, Nāgārjuna goes on to say, He is comparing this intrinsic awareness, our ability to see things clearly, to uncontaminated water. Just as the water which lies beneath the earth is uncontaminated, likewise the exalted wisdom which lies beneath the afflictive emotions is uncontaminated. No matter how polluted water becomes, the integrity of the H2O water molecule is not disturbed. We can find some method to remove the pollutants and you are left with crystal clear water.
That’s its very nature. No matter how much garbage you have surrounding a molecule of water, it’s still h two o. That’s its nature. Simply finding some method to remove the pollutants and that nature is expressed, crystal clear, pure water. It hasn’t been altered.
Its nature has always existed in that manner. That’s crystal clear. The natural purity of the mind, the natural wisdom of the mind, its ability to know. It goes on to describe natural purity of the mind. Just as the precious lapis lazuli always shines bright, though when encrusted with dirt its brightness is not apparent.
Though the element of quality element of quality here refers to emptiness mind. Likewise, though the element of quality is extremely pure, within cyclic existence its brightness is dimmed by afflictive emotions. But upon passing beyond sorrow, its brightness becomes apparent. So this element of quality which is the emptiness of the mind is from beginningless time. The mind has been from beginningless time free of inherent stains, faults.
It’s unmixed with all of these various disturbing patterns. It is primordially pure, but like the sun behind clouds, it isn’t visible. That’s why it hasn’t been apparent to us. This is within the Korean Zen tradition. The becoming aware, recognizing one’s own Buddha nature is very much emphasized.
Developing this confidence, this conviction that we can solve our problems, that we are not our patterns, and begin to cease to identify them with them and begin to reorientate. If we begin to develop an orientation toward the unconditioned, that which lies outside of our habitual patterns of hopes and fears, then the mind will naturally tend to that direction and we experience peace. So each of us possesses the essence of Buddha. The essence of a happy, healthy, loving, sane human being. Some beyond our various conceptions about who we are, all the various images that we move through about how we conceive of ourselves.
All our ups and downs and moments of confidence and moments of confusion and moments of self affirmation and moments of self denigration. And we move through these various images constantly throughout the course even one day. And trying to always remember and to have some kind of conviction to believe what you have is a faith to choose to believe our essential nature, our basic goodness, our basic sanity, that we have the power and intelligence to solve our problems, to change, and to become whoever or whatever it is we want to be. This is how I know for myself one of my greatest obstacles in my growth, in my even worldly happiness, has been a lack of confidence in myself over and above my other my accomplishments in a worldly sense. But simply that this feeling of insufficiency, lack.
And this becomes a real you know, our only limitations are those we acknowledge. And becomes without we have to have this diamond hard conviction beginning to see the possibility of change that I can. And very deeply, we will never take up the tremendous task which determination that growth requires in us. human nature is Buddha nature and Buddha nature is no nature. By no nature, mean that we can become anything.
That’s human nature. We can become a saint or we can become a sinner, a sinner. You know, this thing called mind, this stuff stuff which we’re working with, which we’re trying to shape, it has one wonderful quality. It would move in any direction that it’s trained. It does not have its hidden agenda.
It does not have some property which makes it unworkable in certain directions. It is nothing in itself. It is no thing in itself. It is emptiness of those inherent characteristics. We can make an ashtray out of our mind, or we can make a Madonna and Child by Michelangelo or Rodin sculpture out of our mind.
This stuff, like a clay of the mind, working with it however we wish. It’s a fundamental dynamic quality of the mind. It’s empty, it’s essential purity, and it’s basic goodness. This is the stuff that I have to work with. Each of us knows, and I remind you of this, that he or she is really a good person.
I wonder how many people would admit that they’re a good person. You have been told you’re not, and in the presence of fresh criticism you get to feel you’re not. But in your heart of hearts you know you’re a good person and that you’ve always done the very best you could, and that is true. Each of us knows that he or she is much smarter than he or she can often show, that he or she has a lot of intelligence that doesn’t come out intentions of final exams or the upsetting situation. And this is true.
I now tell you that what you know about yourself is also true of everyone else. This profound knowledge that you’ve hidden to escape ridicule, that you’re a good person, that you always do your best, and that you’re much smarter than you sometimes act or than people think this is true, not only of you but other people as well. I think I mentioned about the one Jungian analyst from the United States who spoke last year in Adelaide talking about the shadow. The shadow is the repressed aspect of our personality, the part that we can’t deal with, that we don’t want to deal with. Just to repeat what I mentioned before, once he is able to develop a trusting relationship with his client, quite often they’re willing to reveal their shadow.
All the seedy side of their character, the bad things that they don’t want other people to know generally or they don’t even want to admit to themselves possibly. But he says it’s almost impossible to get them to divulge the gold that lies within the shadow. And within the shadow is a golden element, our divinity if you like, our Buddha our basic goodness. And it’s almost impossible. They’ll they’ll tell terrible things about themselves, but it’s almost impossible to get them to admit that they’re a good person.
That there’s something special. This is how we are conditioned. This is a great problem for us. We have to appreciate our own basic goodness and the basic goodness inherent in all people. What this means is that there’s some goodness about ourselves.
There’s something good about it. We all know deep in our hearts which we’re afraid to admit even to ourselves. A basic goodness which is not conditioned goodness. Which is you know, conditional goodness is goodness which is dependent upon being in a particular way. It’s by unconditional goodness, it’s not some stance or some kind of belief we have about ourselves of any kind.
It’s not something we can contrive to be. Something which is beyond beyond our hopes and fears, our hatreds and attachments. Every stance, every position that we take, every posture, every belief we adopt and identify with creates some inner tension. It creates what is called a shadow in Jungian psychology. If we try to be good, we’re going to have to repress that which we conceive of the bad part of ourselves.
If we try to be a saint, then we’re going to have to be always on guard about the sinner quality within ourselves. So basic goodness is not a belief. It’s not taking a position. It’s not a contrived stance. This is what it means by to be unconditioned.
It’s outside of the habitual patterns of the hopes and fears of ego. Is not conditioned by that. It’s more like, you know, it’s compared like to the radiance of the sun. It’s unconditional because it’s beyond both all attempts to be good and bad. Beyond the beyond the good and the shadow that these attempts create.
You know, by trying to be good, you’re going to create a shadow. To trying to live up to some standard, you’re always going to find yourself insufficient, lacking. To come in contact with our that basic goodness which goes beyond our hopes and fears. All our conceptions about ourselves but with our inherent basic nature. We don’t have to create it as unfabricated.
Asaṇga in talking about this basic goodness in a very important text called the Sublime Continuum describes through a series of similes the way in which our basic goodness, our Buddha nature, is presently obscured by disturbing patterns. So he’s talking about our basic goodness, our Buddha nature, and how it’s he’s using different images to show how it’s covered over. It’s hidden from us. We don’t see it. It’s like, for example, a Buddha in a muddy lotus, honey covered by bees, grain in a husk, gold in slag, treasure hidden beneath the earth, a bean in its pod, a statue wrapped in dirty rags, a future king carried in the womb of an ugly woman, a precious object buried in the ground similarly.
The element of one thus gone. The element of one thus gone refers to our Buddha nature, abides in all beings, obscured by the adventitious stains of afflicted emotions. Adventitious means not inherent, temporary, accidental. In the Hīnayāna, the lesser vehicle, the emphasis is on acknowledging our confusion. In the Mahāyāna, it is the great vehicle.
We acknowledge that we are a Buddha, an awakened one, and act accordingly even though all kinds of doubts and problems might arise. In the scriptures, taking the bodhisattva vow and walking on the bodhisattva path is described as being the act of awakening bodhi or basic intelligence. Becoming awake involves seeing our confusion more clearly. We can hardly face the embarrassment of seeing our hidden hopes and fears, our frivolousness and neuroses. It is such an overwhelming overcrowded world.
Yet it is a very rich display. The basic idea was that if we are going to relate with the sun, we must also relate with the clouds that obscure the sun. So that Bodhisattva relates positively to both the naked sun and the clouds hiding it. But at first the clouds, the confusion, which hide the sun are more prominent. When we try to disentangle ourselves, the first thing we experience is entanglement.
Confronting these garbage mind of ours as a hope, as a means to begin to glimpse the sun behind the clouds, that garbage, to get the glimpse of our basic sanity.