Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this nearly two-hour session from a bodhisattva retreat, Ven Thubten Dondrub builds the foundation of the bodhisattva attitude through guided meditations and direct teaching. He begins by establishing that bodhicitta—the determination to free all sentient beings from suffering and lead them to enlightenment—rests on recognizing every being as one’s mother across countless lifetimes. Rather than treating this as mere intellectual belief, he leads two detailed meditations: the first on the logical continuity of consciousness across lives, and the second on cultivating heartfelt gratitude for the kindness of one’s mother in this life, extending it to all beings. He then pivots to a practical reframing: while practitioners cannot force realization, they can develop admiration for the bodhisattva path by recognizing their absolute interdependence with all sentient beings—from the billions of beings involved in growing food to those who developed every skill and technology we rely on. Finally, he confronts the central challenge: replacing self-cherishing (the habitual delusion of protecting a false self through attachment and aversion) with genuine cherishing of others, particularly enemies, as the only meaningful way to live. Intended for retreatants willing to examine their motivations honestly, with particular care given to those whose experience of motherhood was difficult or absent.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2015 01 25 Bodhisattva Retreat Part 2 25012015.mp3
UUID: fe9eba57-5de9-420b-95b5-3e0b720c0b2c
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Bodhisattva Retreat Day 25th Jan (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-01-25
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.8 minutes
Words: ~8,295
Are we using the air conditioner? Because that’s that’s open. Or shouldn’t it be closed if we use the air conditioner? No? Okay.
Oh, no. I I just thought you’re supposed to oh, I don’t care. Okay. Right. Right.
Are we all here? He is right. Okay. So our our theme of for today is the the Bodhisattva attitude. So I’m not sure if sorry.
I don’t know many of the people here very well. So some of the people I have don’t know. So I don’t know people’s background, but excuse me if I say all the obvious things. But a bodhisattva is someone who has generated bodhicitta, and bodhicitta is a very remarkable rare mind that arises from seeing the all the suffering of sentient beings, finding that suffering unbearable, and being determined to end that suffering, to be responsible to end the suffering of all sentient beings without without exception. And not only to stop their suffering, but help all sentient beings without exception to achieve what my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, calls peerless everlasting happiness, which is another word for enlightenment.
And so that’s one aspect of bodhicitta. The other aspect of bodhicitta is being determined to achieve enlightenment, recognizing that the only way to accomplish those first two goals of freeing sentient beings from suffering and leading them to happiness is for firstly oneself to become a Buddha. So that is bodhicitta, and someone who’s actually generated that is a bodhisattva. So to generate bodhicitta is an enormous project, not easy. But the best thing to do, firstly, to achieve bodhicitta to become a bodhisattva and generate bodhicitta, we have to renounce our attachment to this life.
And then having done that, we have to completely renounce attachment to cyclic existence, and then we can actually generate bodhicitta. So it’s a long process, quite difficult, but the best thing to do. So we can try try at the at the moment to be what what one of my main teachers, Lama Yeshe, used to say call a baby bodhisattva. We don’t have bodhicitta yet. We are not bodhisattvas, but we can try and be baby bodhisattvas.
So the basic bodhisattva attitude well, there’s many ways one could define that, but one way of looking at the the basic bodhisattva attitude is well, it is the determination to benefit sentient beings, to dedicate one’s life to benefiting not just this life, but all future lives to benefiting sentient beings. And so underlying that is the recognition that the only way to do that is to give up the self-cherishing thought and to cherish others more than self. And all of that is based on the the fundamental Buddhist Bodhisattva outlook, Mahāyāna outlook that recognizes all sentient beings as having been one’s mother. This is the very basis of bodhicitta and the Bodhisattva attitude that every sentient being has been immensely kind to us. And particularly, the the the greatest type of kindness that we ever receive in general is the kindness of a mother, a mother’s love towards us.
So this is what so firstly, we have we we have to in cultivating bodhicitta, bodhicitta, we have to try and cultivate this awareness, understanding, belief that every sentient being without exception has definitely been our mother. So this is what we’re gonna do now briefly. This one. Unfortunately, it is said that this is one of the most difficult realizations to gain, this one. The the two most difficult realizations to gain on the path to enlightenment are recognizing recognizing the guru as Buddha.
It’s very easy to say the guru is Buddha, but to actually gain the realization is extremely difficult. And that one of the others is recognizing sentient beings as one’s mother. So we’re gonna do a little meditation meditation on that now. Okay. So, again, we can begin by sitting comfortably in the in the right posture as much as possible.
Then we can, calm our mind just by briefly doing the the nine round breathing exercise if you know how. Otherwise, just simply do do any basic breathing exercise just to let the mind become calm and go into a neutral state. So then visualizing the Buddha on our crown as our source of refuge, inspiration, and guidance, thinking of all sentient beings surrounding us as as strongly as possible, we can try and generate the best motivation for being here today and particularly doing this session, trying to cultivate the bodhicitta thought. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings? So we can begin by reflecting that our body in this life is the result of or comes from the bodies of our parents of this life.
But our mind doesn’t come from our parents. Because physical matter cannot become the cause of a result that is completely different. So mind is not physical. It doesn’t have any of the physical any of the characteristics of physical matter. So physical matter cannot create mind, cannot cause become a cause of mind.
So the only thing that has the same characteristics as mind and therefore can create cause mind is mind itself. But our the minds of our parents didn’t create my mind. The mind being something something formless, insubstantial, like space. There is no way a part of my parents’ minds can then become my mind. Parents’ mind became my mind.
And if it was if part of my parents’ mind became my mind, I would have to have all the characteristics of my parents. Of my parents, but I don’t. I would have to have all the knowledge, memories of my parents, but I don’t. Why does my mind exist today? It exists because today’s mind exists because it is a continuum continuum from yesterday’s mind.
Yesterday’s mind existed as a continuum continuum from the day before, going back and back. The first moment of my mind in the womb, in the fetus, as a fetus, existed as the continuum of my mind in the intermediate state. And before that, it was in another body, in another life. This life’s mind exists as a continuum of last life’s mind. Life’s mind exist existed as a continuum of the life before that, going back and back without any beginning.
Because wherever you think, oh, my mind must have started at this time. One can understand that that at that point, which one thinks that was the beginning, actually, that moment of consciousness arose as the continuum of a moment of consciousness immediately before. It’s not that you can’t find a beginning to the mind. There is no beginning of the mind to find. The mind is beginningless.
So just as the mind, my mind is now connected with a particular body, in all that previous beginningless time, my mind has been connected with the body. In beginningless saṃsāra, beginningless time. I’ve had countless previous rebirths. And in those countless rebirths, I’ve had different bodies, countless different bodies, each produced by a mother. So countless bodies, countless mothers.
And the Buddha says that there has been time in beginningless saṃsāra for all sentient been a single sentient being in saṃsāra who has not been my mother. More than that, every sentient being has been my mother many, many times. Every sentient being has been my human mother. Every sentient being has been my animal mother. Every sentient being has been my mother.
And when I was born in the god realms, every sentient being gave birth to me in those realms. The mother of this life has been my mother many, many times. So although all sentient beings have been my mother, we grasp that the mother of this life is our real mother. This is our the mother of this life is our real mother. But the only difference between the mother of this life and all our past life mothers is time.
So even in this life, there are situations where people are separated from their mothers, are no longer able to recognize them, no longer able to contact them, but that person is still their mother. So although I no longer recognize sentient beings as my mother, I’ve lost that connection. It doesn’t mean that that they haven’t been my mother. So then consider that in order to generate bodhicitta, cultivate the attitude in life. It’s not enough just to have some intellectual understanding and belief that every sentient being has been my mother.
What we have to do on the basis of that understanding, on the basis of that belief, we have to cultivate that the attitude that recognizes that although this person has a different body and so on, this person has been my mother. The consciousness of this person now at a pre that consciousness at a previous time was in the previous body, and that body gave birth to me. So the body is different, but the being is the same. Same continuum. So we have to train to recognize that each sent in being has been my mother and, therefore, in a sense, is my mother.
Rather than thinking of a person as a friend, a stranger, or an enemy, rather than thinking of person, this being as a human or an animal, what we need to try to do is cultivate the thought that this being is my mother. Friend, enemy, stranger, human, nonhuman, these are just temporary categories. The deeper reality is that this sentient being has been my mother many, many, many, many times. So bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more mindful in daily life, to recognize, to train the mind, to recognize every sentient being, friend, enemy, stranger, man, woman, young or old, human, nonhuman, as one’s mother. Recognizing that doing this is the greatest protection for the mind to stop the arising arising of negative attitudes.
It’s the greatest way to open one’s heart and all one’s positive qualities. Doing this will definitely benefit me and will benefit others. So then recall the Buddha on one’s crown, imagining the Buddha very pleased with your meditation. And because of this, the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, which pours down into us, blessing our mind to be able to eventually gain a complete realization that is able to recognize all sentient beings as one’s mother. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state.
May the precious body mind oh, sorry. May the supreme jewel bodhicitta that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen not diminish, but increase more and more. So we’ll just take a five minute break. Just five minutes. So the key to under developing the realization that all sentient beings have been one’s mother is really understanding the the Buddhist view of the law of cause and effect that the nature of the cause determines the nature of the effect.
So something of one nature can’t create the cause of something of a completely different nature. So physical matter can’t create mind. Only mind can create mind. Only mind can create mind, but other people’s minds can’t create our mind. Yeah.
So the only other possibility is our mind. Previous moment of our mind created our mind, and there was no beginning to it. It’s very neat. So then the reason to emphasize how every sentient being has been our mother is because a mother’s love is the best kind. It’s well, can be, should say, can be, because a mother’s love is said to be unconditional.
Of course, the unfortunate thing is, and maybe this is more the case in recent times than in the past, although I’m not sure about that, is that some people feel and may not have received a love of a mother. So this kind of emphasis on a mother’s kindness can be quite difficult. But for those people who may have that experience, I think one thing to try to remember to overcome that mothers are sentient beings, are limited beings, and and so have failings. And so they may have tried to be good mothers, but weren’t able to do it because of many, many, many factors. Their conditioning and all sorts of circumstances may have prevented them being the mother that we wanted them to be.
So I think that’s really important to try and look at it from that perspective. And, also, some of the things that we may not have liked from in relation to our mother, things she did may, in fact, have been her expression of our her love that she try what she did was what she thought was right. We may not have thought it was. We may not have benefited from it. But from her side, she may have felt and honestly felt and believed that that was the beneficial thing to do, even though it may not have been maybe due to her conditioning, culture, time she was brought up in also many things, maybe she thought that that was the the right thing to do.
So it’s really important to try and look at it from another side rather than than just our own perspective. So, anyway, what we’re gonna do is is reflect on the kindness of our mother of this life. And the reason to do that is not only to develop more affection for our mother of this life, but particularly the the purpose of it is to realize that just of as the if we can recognize how much we have benefited from the mother of this life, how much love and kindness we’ve received, then we can start to understand that every sentient being when when they were my mother did the same thing. Yeah. And even if if my mother of this life wasn’t the greatest mother, she was my mother in previous lives, in many other lives, and in those other lives, she was a really great mom.
And all the good things that we see moms do when you see kid you know, moms with their kids in the street, you can think, you know, sentient beings did that for me. Even my maybe not so good mom of this life, in other lives, she did that for for sure. So, again, we can begin, by sitting comfortably as much as possible in the correct posture. Possible in the correct posture, particularly paying attention to our spine and positioning of our upper body. And then, again, just calming the mind with the breathing meditation just for a very short time.
So then as we visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge, we imagine all sentient beings surrounding us. We try and cultivate as strongly and sincerely as we can the bodhicitta motivation for doing this practice. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the supreme Assembly.
By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections, may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. So our mother of this life has shown us incredible kindnesses in so many ways. Her her love has been been expressed in so many ways.
And even if we feel that our mother of this life hasn’t been a good mother, hasn’t been very kind to us, there is one kindness she has been to And to to the and and and other opportunity to free ourselves from all suffering, to become free of saṃsāra, free of cyclic existence, and even more than that, this incredible chance to achieve enlightenment. It’s all due to having this human body, and therefore, our mind operating at a human level of consciousness. So that’s due to the kindness of the my mother of this life. So then reflect that the fact that I am alive today is due to the fact that due to the kindness of my mother, that from the moment I was born, she took care of me and protected me. As a baby, I was completely helpless, and she cared for me, always alert to what was happening with me.
I only survived because of my mother’s care. And from that time, she’s taking care of me in every way, feeding me, washing me, clothing me, thinking about me, worrying about me. Calming my fears, trying to protect me from every kind of harm and difficulty. So it’s really helpful to recall as much as one can all the different examples of how one’s mother tried to take care did take care of me, of oneself, and to recognize that all of those were expressions of her love for me. All the things that I took for granted that she did, washing me, feeding me, clothing me.
So many times, day after day, year after year. We may no longer remember being held in our mother’s arms, but she did that for so many hours, and we thrived on that. So also consider that due to our ignorance, we we grasp at a truly existing self. And we have this pride thinking, am this. I am that.
I can do this. I can do that. It’s all truly existing, but the reality is who I am, what I can do arises dependently. And much of it depends on the incredible kindness of my mother when I was small, who taught me the most basic things. And because of that, I’m able to do what I can do now.
It’s my mother who taught me to walk. Walk. It’s my mother who taught me how to speak, how to wash, how to look after myself. It’s my mother who tried to teach me how to be a good person, how to fit into society, how to succeed. To say, to be polite, to do my homework.
And my mother did these things over and over and over again. And if I ever got into trouble, my mother tried to protect me. Mothers can be willing to do anything to protect their child. Mothers are even willing to engage in negative actions because of their love for their child. Maybe the mother of this life did such things for me.
Then it’s important to reflect on the fact that in all those years of my mother taking care of me, much of the time, especially as a child, we just take all of this for granted, that we should reflect on all incredible energy involved and the suffering and difficulties involved that my mother had to undergo, in most cases, totally willingly ly because of her love for me. She may had to may had to have experienced all sorts of physical difficulties, emotional financial difficulties, so much fear and worry because of me. Maybe I didn’t want my mother to worry about me, but she did because of her love for me. So then consider that the mother of this life has done has been my mother many, many times and so has been as kind, even more kind in previous lives, has willingly sacrificed her happiness for my happiness many times. So then then especially consider that since every sentient being has been my mother, every sentient being has shown me the the same kinds of kindness as the mother of this life.
In some cases, in some situations, have been have been even more kind. Every sentient being when they were my mother willingly sacrificed their happiness for me to be happy. So also consider that because of beginningless saṃsāra, because I’ve had beginningless rebirths, it also means means that every sentient being has been incredibly kind as my father. They’ve all been kind as my brother, sister, best friend. Every sentient being has been my doctor and nurse.
Every sentient being has saved my life at some point. Every sentient being has been kind to me in every conceivable way over and over again in beginningless saṃsāra. So bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in daily life, trying to recognize every sentient being as a mother and thinking of the incredible kindness that each sentient being has given me when they were my mother and to at least think that each sentient being has been kind to me in so many ways, life after life. So then we can recall the Buddha on the crown of our head. Think that Buddha is very pleased with our meditation, and the Buddha shows this by now dissolving into blissful golden light so that that light can pour down into us, blessing our mind to eventually gain a complete realization that recognizes the immense kindness I’ve received from every sentient being.
Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the supreme jewel bodhicitta that has not arisen arise and grow, and may that which has arisen not diminish, but increase more and more. Okay. Thank you. So I’m scheduled to give a bit of a talk now.
Do you need a break? Bit of a break. No. You’re okay. You’ll survive until lunch?
Okay. Okay. What am I gonna say? Yeah. So to put us out for attitude.
So I I think everyone got a copy of this book. You you should have got a copy of this book. Yes. I think that was the plan, wasn’t it? Oh, they’re over here.
This wonderful book, teachings by Lama Zopa Rinpoche on the bodhisattva attitude. Yeah. So it’s all there. Lots of things to do to cultivate the bodhisattva attitude. So I won’t repeat those things.
But as I often say have said here in in the past, quoting from Lama Zopa Rinpoche, one thing that my teacher once said, which really struck me, which is after many, many years of being a monk, I heard Rinpoche say make this very simple point that as a Dharma practitioner, someone following the particularly, and, of course, Rinpoche is always talking in the context of practicing the Mahāyāna Dharma. So in that context, the purpose what what a Dharma practitioner is trying to do or should be trying to do is we are well, what he said first was we are not trying to be happy. As a Dharma practitioner, this is we are not trying to be happy. This is a bit shocking, but, of course, what Rinpoche meant by that was practicing Dharma is not for the purpose of achieving worldly happiness. Not that’s not its aim.
One can experience some worldly happiness as a result, but that’s not the purpose. We’re not trying to achieve ordinary success, worldly success, worldly temporary happiness. What we are what we are trying to do is what are we trying to do? Do you know? What we’re trying to do, my teacher said, is to have a meaningful life, to make our life meaningful.
That’s the real aim is to have meaningful life. So that’s pretty good to have a meaningful life. Yeah. And what what does it mean to have a meaningful life? How does one give life meaning to one’s life?
And, of course, one gives meaning to one’s life by practicing the Dharma properly, but especially by practicing the Mahāyāna Dharma of trying to generate to dedicate oneself to others, to dedicate this life and all our future lives to benefiting sentient beings by remembering that they’ve been very kind. So although it it is very difficult to honestly gain the conviction that every sentient being has been our mother and therefore very kind, I I I it’s it is relatively or much easier, shall we say, to gain the realization or some understanding that sentient beings you know, if if we do have believe some belief belief in the mind and that we’ve existed before and therefore start to see that we’ve had many previous lives, then on that basis, it’s it it is relatively easy to at least come to the conclusion conclusion that sentient beings have been very kind to me, yeah, that I am interconnected with every sentient being. I’m just gonna repeat something I say every teaching I give or to some extent, But if you just take today, just today, then just to exist today, we depend directly on so many human beings. And because each of those human beings depends on many other sentient beings who depend on others, etcetera, etcetera, just to just to exist today, we depend directly and indirectly on all sentient beings.
I always give the same boring example of just to eat a piece of toast. To be able to eat a piece of toast so we can exist, you know, you have to have the people who cut the bread, made the bread, and that depended on people making flour, and that depended on people growing wheat. And for the people to grow wheat, that depended on people growing wheat before that before that, going back into the whole history of the world. And for people to grow wheat, you need in the past, you need well, people used to dig the soil themselves, but then they got themselves, but then they got horses and oxes to plow the ground. So you have all of those animals that we’ve depended on, but then there are all the insects in the soil who make the soil possible.
Possible. That’s not very scientific, but you know what I mean. Yeah. That was shorthand kind of explanation. Yeah.
And then all the bees that pollinate stuff. Stuff for hundreds and thousands of years just to have a piece of bread now. Yeah. Want to have a or to have a watch. You know?
All the technology from way back. You know, watches weren’t invented yesterday. Yeah. So just to be able to tell the time, which is quite helpful. You know?
Some people, spiritual people, think it’s very uncool to tell be able to tell you know, you shouldn’t take notice of the time. Maybe one shouldn’t, but sometimes it’s useful to know what the time is. So to just to be able to tell the time one time, to be able to tell the time. So many sentient beings involved. So many.
Just incredible. Or to have a pair of glasses or or or this. You know? Very useful. Yeah.
Thousands, billions of human beings required and all the technology and all the suffering that went in for into it. Yeah. That’s just to exist, to be able to basically function. And then on top of that, you know, for all the good experiences we have just in this life, you know, ordinary experiences, some spiritual experiences, they only come about depending on others directly, indirectly. You know, we all listen to music, watch movies, TV, read books.
So all those nice experiences depend on others directly, indirectly, all sentient beings. If mister Gutenberg hadn’t invented the printing press, you know, we wouldn’t have books or as many books. That’d be very expensive, but now you can have free books. Without mister Gunter Gunterberg, no free books. Far too expensive to give away.
And then on top of that, all all the skills we develop or all our qualities we develop. The the teachings say we have Buddha nature. We have every good quality potential within us, but the extent that we develop them in this life depends on the kindness of others, their knowledge and skills, encouragement, support. Without that, it doesn’t happen. Whatever skills we’ve got, you know, even just being able to write and tell the time.
But what other skills we have, life skills we have, again, we only have them because of others directly, and and they pass them on because they receive them from others going back and and back. So in this way, we we depend on the the existence and kindness of all sentient beings in this life. And since that’s true in this life, it applies to all our previous lives, previous lives, all our future lives. So, you know, this means that we are inextricably I love saying that word, inextricably interconnected with all sentient beings through a web of kindness. And some some people, clever people, could argue one’s little negative mind, the self-cherishing mind, could argue, ah, but sentient beings have also been bad to me as well.
That is true. But if if you if you check even in this life, more sentient beings are kind than harmful. One receives much more kindness than harm at any time. Right right now, who’s harming you? Maybe me.
I hope not. I’m not trying to. Nobody. Yeah. So the amount of harm we get at any time from sentient beings is not much.
We always receive far more kindness than harm. And especially if you think that much of the kindness we receive, we don’t even recognize because we are so caught up in ourselves to some extent. Speaking about myself, not you, but me. So that we don’t even recognize it. We take it for granted.
We don’t think of it as a kindness. Yeah. But when we start to, you know, recognize, look, and see, and we think, oh, could again, the self-cherishing thought could say, oh, people are only kind because they’re being paid to do that for me. But even if they’re paid to look after you and serve you in shops and drive you in buses and taxis and airplanes. Still, they usually do it well or try to.
So that’s kind. And if they didn’t do it, we’d be in big trouble. So that’s what we have to recognize, the kindness of sentient beings, but also recognize that sentient all these kind sentient beings are in saṃsāra like myself. We’re all in saṃsāra, which mean is not a place, by the way. saṃsāra is our mind controlled by delusion and karma.
So each sentient being has a mind controlled by delusion and karma, which means we are suffering. But the vast majority of sentient beings are suffering much more than ourselves. Most human beings are suffering more than ourselves. Certainly, animals and the beings in the other realms are. The beings beings in the god realms may be having more fun, but it’s not going to last.
But unlike ourselves so so we have less suffering, and we have met the dharma. We have a precious human rebirth, so we have this amazing opportunity to ending our suffering, and and the we’ve got the freedom and the opportunities and the ability to let go of it. Whereas most people have more most beings have more suffering than ourselves, but far less freedom to let go of their suffering, far less freedom to let go of their suffering, far less freedom to know what is causing their suffering. So we’re in incredible incredible fortunate situation momentarily. So by thinking about these things, we can generate bodhicitta when we especially if we develop faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which leads us to develop faith in our own Buddha potential.
If we develop faith in the existence of Buddhas, we can develop faith that we ourselves are potential potential Buddhas because we have a mind. All minds are basically the same. So the best way to make our life meaningful is to adopt the bodhicitta attitude, the bodhisattva attitude before we’re bodhisattvas, you know, and and develop the thought that the most meaningful meaningful thing I can do for myself and others is to work, to use this life and therefore all my future lives to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. There’s nothing better. Nothing better.
Nothing more meaningful. Because in order to repay, as I’ve already mentioned, but I I put the little seed in, then I kind of try and cultivate it. In order to repay the kindness of sentient beings, the only way I can do that is to do it properly, completely, is I I have to work on myself. It forces me. If I develop that that wish, the more I develop that wish more sincerely, more strongly, completely, it forces me to recognize that to fulfill that wish of repaying the kindness of sentient beings, I have to change myself.
I have to give up my negative states of mind because they are preventing me repaying the kindness, and they’re leading me to actually cause more suffering to others, not more happy bring happiness to them. So if I want to repay the kindness, I have to give up my attachments, my pride, my jealousy, my anger, and so on. My self-cherishing, in other words, I have to give up my self-cherishing, or at least I have to start reducing it with the wish to give it up completely. And in order to repay the kindness of sentient beings, I have to cultivate all my positive potentials, especially the six perfections of generosity, morality, patient my potential for generosity, morality, morality, patient my potential for generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, and wisdom, love, compassion. Yeah.
So at the heart of the bodhisattva attitude is developing that mind, wanting to give up the self-cherishing thought and replace it with cherishing others, eventually being able to cherish others more than self. That’s that that is the bodhisattva attitude, really, recognizing that all my suffering comes from self-cherishing, and all happiness comes from cherishing others. In nineteen eighty three, I had the good fortune to become the personal attendant of Lama Zopa Rinpoche, and that involved going all over the place. We went was in Nepal at the time, India, Nepal, and then we came to Australia. I think we went to New Zealand.
It was a long time. I can’t remember. I think we went to New Zealand. And then we traveled around Europe where Rinpoche was teaching. And I was lagging behind carrying the bags and making cups of tea and various other various other things.
And at the end of that tour, we met up with or, anyway, we met up with Lama Yeshe earlier on in the tour. But at the very end of the tour, it finished in Switzerland. That was the last teaching or more or less the last full teaching that Lama Yeshe gave before he manifested getting very sick and passing away. Anyway, at the end of that teach at end of that tour, Lama Yeshe gave all the people involved in the tour a book, the the the Tibetan Dharmapada, and he he had a inscription written in it. And I just like to read part most of that inscription or or all up there.
And he says he said in that, thank you so much for your dedication to others. Well, I’m not dedicated to others, but other people are. But, And then he said, it is a very rare opportunity to work for others. So that’s a very amazing statement because we contend to think that working for others is work. It’s like like a burden, you know, something that we don’t really want to do but somehow have to do.
But Lama Yeshe is saying Lama Yeshe if anybody was a bodhisattva, Lama Yeshe was definitely a bodhisattva. If you know anything about him yeah. So he’s saying to work for others is an opportunity. Yeah. And it’s a very rare opportunity, something we we we hardly ever have the chance to work for others.
In other words, it’s something really, really good to do. Yeah. It is a very so I I was quite blown away when I read this, of course. It is a very rare opportunity to work for others. And he he Lama Yeshe went on to say, for countless lives, we have all worked for our own selfish purpose.
So due to our ignorance, self self grasping ignorance, we have self-cherishing. So self-cherishing sounds like something good, but it’s actually a term for a a really harmful state of mind that, unfortunately, we all have. Because self if you analyze the word self-cherishing, it’s it’s talking about the self. But self-cherishing is referring to the wrong view of self. So we try and cherish.
We have a wrong view of self, and and that wrong view is about a self that in reality doesn’t exist. We do exist, but the view of self that we have now is of a self of a person that simply doesn’t exist at all and could never exist. And we’re trying to cherish that that self that doesn’t exist. So that’s a disaster in itself. It’s like trying to feed a dead budgerigar or make a dead budgerigar sing.
It’s kind of really a really a waste of time and energy. Yeah. I don’t know why that example came into my mind. I don’t know if it makes any sense, but and but and but also then then the key thing is how do we try to cherish it in our confusion? How you know, there’s this false self that we believe is real, and and we try to cherish it.
And how do we cherish it? How we cherish it or what that cherishing is referring to is we try to make ourselves happy following attachment, by following afflicted desire, which is a delusion, a harmful state of mind. Yeah. Because the yeah. Because the nature of afflicted desire is very ordinary stuff, ordinary things.
And the nature of afflicted desire is to create the illusion that these these ordinary things are wonderful. Afflicted desire desire projects onto something that’s conventionally pleasant. It it, you know, it expands how wonderful it is, and we believe that illusion and crave for that thing and then get attached to it. And we think doing all of that is gonna make me happy. But, of course, at the very best, all we can get from ordinary stuff is momentary pleasure, the illusion of happiness.
What it basically does is distract us from our suffering, our dissatisfaction. The nature of self-cherishing is that we believe self-cherishing believe or forces us to believe that whatever distracts us from our suffering is happiness. It’s good. And if we can do it quickly and easily, that’s the best. That’s what that’s the the nature of self-cherishing.
And another aspect of our self-cherishing is that we try to protect our that that illusion of happiness and the things bring that illusion of happiness by getting angry with anything that threatens it. Or we get angry when we can’t get that happiness. And then we we get proud when we succeed and jealous when we fail, but because other people have succeeded better than me. Or we we get depressed when we fail. Proud when we succeed, jealous when others succeed, and I don’t.
So, actually, one could think of our self-cherishing as really the the inter network of all our delusions. So, really, self-cherishing is a disaster. It cheats us all the time. And as Lama says, we’ve been following it since beginningless time, believing that’s the way to be happy. But if it if it if it worked, we should be hysterically happy by now, but we’re not.
We you know, we’re still suffering and still creating the causes of suffering. Whereas the Buddhas, they gave it up and started cherishing others. And look where they are. Well, maybe we can’t see any Buddhas, but we can see people like his holiness, the Dalai Lama, Lama Sopa Rinpoche, or whoever your guru is. And they are what they are because they’ve given up self-cherishing and are cherishing others.
So that’s a pretty good argument for cherishing others. And there’s reasons to do so because they’ve been immensely kind. So Lama said, for countless lives, we’ve all worked for our own selfish purpose. So you people are the lucky lucky ones to dedicate to others. Isn’t that great?
So it’s not a burden. It’s not a problem to dedicate to others. It’s incredibly fortunate. It’s to be very lucky to be able to do that, very lucky to want to do it, incredibly lucky to try to do it. We’ve won the jackpot.
Much better than winning a billion dollars. Because what can you do with a billion dollars? What can you do with a billion dollars? Just more of what we’re already doing. Just a fancier version of what we’re already doing.
You can have a bigger car, a bigger house, more clothes, more expensive clothes. You can go to more places. You can need more expensive food, but it’s still food. Even in the most expensive restaurants, it’s still not just a tomato. You know?
You pay more in an expensive restaurant for a tomato cooked in a particular way, but it’s still a tomato or a bean or a potato or a mushroom or whatever. But with a billion billion dollars, you can’t buy perfect health. You can’t buy not dying. It can’t stop you from dying. A billion dollars can’t stop us from getting old.
A billion dollars can’t stop us falling into the lower realms. They can’t do any of the things that we really need to do, but cherishing others can. Cherishing others purifies the mind, accumulates enormous merit, and those things lead to liberation and enlightenment. So all the great Mahayanists, all the great Bodhisattvas make this point that every sentient being is precious, quite literally precious. In the the, you know, the teachings on the Eight Verses of Thought Transformation, the first verse makes the point that sentient beings are more precious than wish fulfilling jewels.
Wish fulfilling jewels are apparently able to fulfill any worldly wish. So it’s the, you know, the old equivalent of winning a lottery or having a gold credit card or something like that. But even these wish fulfilling jewels, jewels, they can only fulfill worldly wishes, not the wish for peerless everlasting happiness. But if we if we cherish any sent not all not even all sentient beings, but just by cherishing any sentient being. And that includes even, you know, little insects.
If we can cherish a sentient being, genuinely cherish them, genuinely cherish them. And that that’s quite a special word, cherish. Don’t know exactly how to define it, but I think it means even more than loving them to really, really cherish some someone, totally cherish. And when we cherish something, it’s like something well, it is something precious. So if we could hold each sentient being like that or any sentient being like that, that brings about the greatest purification in our mind.
And we have to have a mind has to go into a pure state to do that, and it awakens all our positive qualities. So that’s the Bodhisattva attitude of really cherishing others, seeing that by not harming them, loving them, having compassion for them, being generous to them, patient, persevering, being wise, generous, moral to each sentient being, that that not only benefits them, but is it is the greatest benefit to myself. You know, there are paintings if you can buy or in order to but maybe we can’t buy them. But in order to buy them, know, you have to fork out millions of dollars now. I’m not quite sure what the record for the most expensive painting is now.
I I think it’s well over a hundred million. Three oh, okay. Three sixty million. Right. So having bought such a painting and stuck it on your wall, you would want to cherish it.
But no matter how much you cherish that painting, it’s not going to free your mind from delusion and lead you to peerless everlasting happiness. But by by cherishing a cockroach, it will. That’s what the Buddha says. But, of course, if you cherish one cockroach, it would mean you’d have you would cherish all cockroaches. And if you cherished all cockroach even one cockroach, it would mean you would cherish ants and spiders, cats and dogs.
And if you could cherish a cockroach, it would mean you would cherish human beings. And if you could cherish one human being, it would mean you you’d be able to cherish every sentient being. And as my teacher Yes. It does. Yeah.
Slowly, slowly, step by step. Now now where am I? And, oh, yeah. As my teacher was over in, she once made the point that if we if we can cherish you know, it’s it’s relatively easy to well, it’s easy to cherish the our friends, relatively easy to cherish strangers, but the real challenge is the enemy. So if we can cherish the enemy, that’s the greatest benefit of all.
That will bring the greatest benefit. If we can practice the six perfections in relation to the enemy, practice generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration, wisdom on the enemy. That’s it. And that’s the bodhisattva attitude. Because remember, the bodhisattva attitude is that the enemy is our best friend.
Our our ordinary friends, in some ways, can be our spiritual enemies because our ordinary friends never point out our faults. They tend to encourage our faults, allow our delusions to continue, whereas the enemy forces us to practice patience, forces us to look at our faults. And so that’s really good from a Dharma point of view, and therefore, the enemy is the best friend. That’s the bodhisattva attitude. Because the bodhisattva attitude is actually very radical.
It’s very revolutionary. And the genuine Bodhisattva attitude is very difficult to develop. But as been trying to say, the best one. And in order to develop it, because as Kathy was indicating with an expression there, all these things are very difficult and more yeah. And so on and challenging.
And and our self-cherishing can take over and say, what? Because anything that is difficult must be be bad and wrong. You know? It’s if it’s difficult for me and takes a long time, well, then that’s very bad, and therefore, it must be wrong and no point doing. But at the very least, what we have to do well, I don’t we don’t have to do, but what is good to do is firstly, rather than thinking how hard and difficult and how long it is to do all of these things, is to develop admiration for them.
Because, you know, to love the enemy and think the enemy is the best friend, some people can dis dismiss as complete rubbish, impossible, no no no reason to do so. But, firstly, what we need to develop is admiration for that mindset. And this is not just my view. I’m just quoting from his holiness, by the way, because in the teaching I attended by his holiness, he once said that he said, well, I don’t have bodhicitta, which is which is a bit of a fib, kind of good fib. But his did say and this really I I found very, you know, really very profound statement, actually, and very helpful one.
But he said, I I I can claim I have great admiration for it. And it struck me that in order to develop anything, firstly, you have to admire it. If you don’t admire something, you won’t want it. So we have to well, if we want to develop bodhicitta, we have to admire it. We have to develop the understanding that this is a valid way of thinking and behaving and admire that.
Yeah. Would it be wonderful to cherish all sentient beings? Yeah. Would it be wonderful or not? Yeah.
Is it valid to cherish all sentient beings or not? Firstly, that is it valid? Is it possible? Is it wonderful? If we come to the conclusion that, yes, it is, then we have admiration.
And the more admiration, that will give us the energy to follow that path. And that so the more admiration, that that helps to overcome the thought that, oh, this is too long, too difficult. Because, actually, it doesn’t matter how long it is because what we’re doing is admirable. It’s valid, and it’s the most meaningful thing. I’ll stop.
It’s lunchtime. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. Please eat lunch with a bodhisattva attitude for the benefit of all sentient beings.