Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 118-minute opening session of a nine-week Discovering Buddhism course, Ven Thubten Dondrub sets the foundation for understanding and generating bodhicitta—the altruistic commitment to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. He begins by establishing the Buddhist understanding of mind as beginningless and continuous, then traces the logical progression from recognizing our dependence on others’ kindness through the motivation to escape suffering to the ultimate aspiration of enlightenment. Central to the teaching is Dondrub’s clear explanation that bodhicitta has two aspects: the compassionate wish for all beings to be free from suffering and the determination to achieve Buddhahood as the only means to accomplish this. He distinguishes between wishing bodhicitta (the genuine aspiration) and engaging bodhicitta (putting that aspiration into action), and between effortful bodhicitta (generated through deliberate practice) and spontaneous bodhicitta (the lasting realization that becomes one’s constant motivation). The session concludes with practical guidance on meditation posture, a nine-round breathing exercise, visualization of Chenrezig (the Buddha of Compassion), and daily homework that asks students to reflect on what must be abandoned—particularly self-cherishing and disturbing thoughts—and what must be cultivated, particularly love, compassion, and wisdom. Aimed at both newcomers to Buddhism and those with some background, the course emphasizes practice over passive listening.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 04 01 DB Bodhicitta Week 1 01042014.mp3
UUID: a6ae975d-cd1e-4339-a778-976d93274f45
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Bodhicitta (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-04-01
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 118.1 minutes
Words: ~13,332
Okay. Right. So I would like to welcome everyone to Buddha House, especially those people who haven’t been here before or especially those who haven’t done a Discovering Buddhism course before, so I particularly like to welcome all those people. It just be very helpful for me to know, are there some people here who more or less have not done any Buddhist studies of any kind? No Buddhism at all?
Nothing? Nada? Right. Welcome! That’s good, that’s great.
So this course does assume some background in Buddhism, but hopefully we will try and make sense of everything, but maybe not this week, slowly, slowly. One of the things that is requested, it wasn’t perhaps made clear in the advertising, but there is a fifteen minute introduction that I give that has been recorded and you can download it. Ideally everyone should listen to that before the very first talk. I don’t know if you have done that but if not it would be good to listen to that as soon as you can to download it and listen to it. I’ll try and avoid going through it now but I’m tempted to.
It basically encourages people to be open minded. One aspect of this course that distinguishes it from everything else we do here in the way of teachings is that this course is designed to encourage people to really participate and not just come and listen to me talk because I do have a terrible tendency, as most people here know, that once I sit, get up here, I don’t stop talking. But the idea is not just to come to listen to me or someone talk about the Dharma. The idea of people giving Dharma teachings is for people to practice. So this course, the Discovering Buddhism program, is particularly designed to introduce the fundamental concepts of Mahāyāna Buddhism as it is understood and practiced in the Tibetan tradition but also in a way to encourage people to practice.
So that is why there is a homework and there is a homework sheet which is put out here talk for people to collect. There is a little bit of reading, little bit of meditation and a little bit of mindfulness practice. But it’s really up to do up to you whether you do it or not I can’t make you do it I don’t want to make you do it I I hope you I do want you to do it, but I can’t make you and I’m not gonna try. I just gonna encourage people to do these things and and really the more you do it, the more you’ll get out of the course, right? For those of you who came to Khadro Rinpoche’s teachings, one of the main things she emphasized is that we have to practice.
It’s no good just listening to people and and lamas and blah blah blah and coming to talks and just sitting there passively. The whole idea is to practice. Only we can change our mind. No one else can do it. Nobody.
The Buddhas can’t do it. Only we can do that. I mean, the Buddhas can help, the Gurus can help. Various people can encourage us and inspire us and guide us, but only we can do it. So this course is set out that way.
So it’s really up to you. Just very quickly, for those who don’t know, the center Buddha House is a member of a worldwide organization called the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahāyāna Tradition established by Lama Thubten Yeshe who is a Tibetan monk and his main disciple Lama Zopa Rinpoche who is Nepalese. And Lama Yeshe passed away in nineteen eighty four. So Lama Zopa Rinpoche is now the spiritual head of the whole organization. Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche are my two main teachers, Lama Zopa Rinpoche being my main teacher.
I was requested to come here to be the resident teacher and Lama Zopa Rinpoche said that it was somehow beneficial. So that’s why I’m here. I have no qualities. Khadro Rinpoche said she has no qualities but that’s because she’s humble. I’m not humble, I’m just trying to say what’s true.
I have no qualities to teach other than qualifications, than that I have had the good fortune to have wonderful teachers the Gelugpa tradition, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Lama Yeshe, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other great masters. And I only teach because my guru has given me this job to teach. Never thought this is what I was going to do as a monk, but anyway that’s what’s happening. Anyway, so one thing that all my gurus, my teachers in the Gelugpa tradition emphasize is that when we listen to the when we come to teachings and listen to them, it’s really important to try to listen with a really open mind, a concentrated mind, virtuous mind and try to cultivate to get rid of any negative false or wrong motivation that we may have for being here and to cultivate the really best motivation we possibly can. And as the great bodhisattva Śāntideva says, all the Buddhas have discovered that the very best motivation possible there is no better motivation than bodhicitta.
So our course is about how to develop bodhicitta but we are being asked to already have it, to have that motivation for listening to this course. So the basic motivation for listening to the Buddha’s teachings is to, on the basis of understanding we have a mind and that our mind is something that doesn’t exist, come into existence in this life and finish with this life, but our mind is beginningless and it goes on forever. On having some understanding or faith in that. The basic motivation for listening to the Buddhist teachings is, well firstly wanting to somehow do something about reducing or eliminating our disturbing thoughts which are the source of our suffering and developing the positive qualities of our mind, our positive potentials which are the source of genuine happiness. And the basic motivation for doing that from a Buddhist perspective, the basic Dharma motivation, spiritual Buddhist motivation is in order to achieve a good rebirth.
A greater motivation is wishing to become free of all suffering, to get out of saṃsāra, to be free of all causes of suffering. But the greatest motivation we can possibly have is what this course is all about is having the bodhicitta motivation which is the motivation to eliminate all negative qualities from our mind forever in a way that they will never come back and to awaken all our positive potentials, Buddha potential, in order to achieve the enlightened state so that we are in a perfect position benefit all sentient beings, to repay their kindness. So this is the crucial point: why do we want to repay the kindness of others? And that firstly comes from recognising that sentient beings are immensely kind, that we totally depend on the kindness of sentient beings. As I say I think in every talk I’ve ever given for about ten years or probably even longer than that now, if you check up just to survive, just for us to exist today we depend directly and indirectly on all sentient beings.
Just to have something to eat, to drink, something to wear, protect us from heat and cold and so on. Just for these fundamental things we depend directly on so many sentient beings and not just human beings but insects and so on to fertilise the grasses and vegetation that we eat and whatever And so directly we depend on a certain number of people or sentient beings right now but since those beings depend on others that means we indirectly depend on those people going back and back and back and back into the history of this world. But this world just didn’t arise out of the scientific view of just a big bang and suddenly the world came into existence and people were wandering around. The Buddhist view is that sentient beings go back into beginningless time. So Anyway, just what is true for today and true for this life is true for all our past lives.
And not only just our ordinary existence, mere survival, but every good thing that happens to us, you know, ordinary good things, spiritual amazing things, all of that again depends on the kindness of others directly and indirectly. And all the skills and good qualities that we develop, again however much we develop skills and qualities, that also depends directly, indirectly on all sentient beings. Someone taught us the alphabet but someone taught that person who taught someone, going back and back and back into beginningless time. So sentient beings are immensely kind to us in every conceivable way. We depend on them.
And although of course some sentient beings are not kind to us and harmful, if you check, know, only a few people in any life harm us. The vast majority are kind to us directly and indirectly and this is true in every life. So it means that sentient beings, their kindness far, far outweighs any harm they’ve ever given us. And we totally depend on that kindness. But the sad thing is that all these beings who are immensely kind to us are suffering.
They are trapped in cyclic existence like ourselves, controlled. Our minds are controlled by delusion and karma, which is what saṃsāra is. Having a mind saṃsāra is not a place. It’s not Rundle Street or Adelaide or whatever. saṃsāra is our mind controlled by delusion and karma.
A sentient being is a being who has a mind controlled by delusion and karma. And that means they’re suffering. But the sad thing is the vast majority of sentient beings are experiencing far, far greater suffering than ourselves. Even the human beings of this world, the vast majority of them, have far more suffering than ourselves, the people in this room. We are very fortunate.
And we are especially fortunate that having met the Dharma and having some faith in it, even if we are suffering, if we have terrible suffering, we have met the methods to make sense of our suffering and to reduce it, modify it, transform it, eliminate it. So that makes us so much more fortunate, temporarily, not better than anyone else, just momentarily, temporarily so much more fortunate than others. So thinking like this, we can generate this thought that no matter what I must use this and all my future lives to eliminate all the negativities from my mind because I can do it, awaken all the positive potentials because I can do this, and achieve enlightenment so I can repay the kindness of all mother sentient beings. So that wish to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others is bodhicitta. And we can try and generate that motivation for being here tonight, studying this course for the next nine weeks, Because that motivation of bodhicitta is the best motivation, the most virtuous, most powerful, the most courageous, the most compassionate, the most virtuous, the most beneficial, not only for others but for ourselves.
It’s the best state of mind we can be in at any time. If we want happiness in this life, the best way to have it is to have a bodhicitta motivation. If we want happiness in future lives, the best way to achieve it is having bodhicitta. If we want to get out of saṃsāra, the best motivation for doing so is bodhicitta. And of course if we want to achieve enlightenment for the sake of others the only way is through bodhicitta.
So to really be able to generate bodhicitta we need to have refuge in the Buddhadharma and Sangha because bodhicitta is about achieving enlightenment. So if one doesn’t believe in Buddhas and the enlightened state how can one wish to achieve enlightenment? And the only way we can sensibly want to achieve enlightenment depends on believing that we have the potential for it. And only the Buddha teaches that, that we all, all sentient beings, have the potential for enlightenment. Every sentient being has Buddha nature, has Buddha potential.
Or as Khadro Rinpoche has mentioned, technically in Sanskrit it’s called Tathāgatagarbha. That is the Buddha nature. We all have that simply because we have mind. Because we have mind and mind has a particular nature, it means we have the potential to be a Buddha. Now I’ve lost my point.
Where am I going? Does anyone know? So to generate bodhicitta it depends on having refuge which means we have to believe that Buddhas exist and through believing in the Buddhas we have faith in the Buddha’s teachings which tell us we’ve got Buddha nature. And the Buddha’s teachings of course contain the methods whereby we can follow the path that purifies our mind of all the obscurations that obscure our Buddha potential so we can awaken that. Having said all that, if people oh, I don’t have it here with me.
Drat, have you got the prayer? Just I should know this by now, but when I’m in public because there are so many translations. Can we just swap oh, no. You don’t have it. Have you got just the prayer book?
Doesn’t no. But you won’t have it. Oh, you can share it with someone. So if people would like to turn to page page eleven. Sorry.
So as we say this prayer of refuge in bodhicitta, trying to generate the right motivation for being here, to make this prayer, which was composed by the great bodhisattva Atisha, as meaningful as possible. We try and visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration, guidance. Sorry for those people who are new to Buddhist teachings, this sounds like terrible propaganda. As a Buddhist monk teaching the Buddha, Dharma, I have to talk like this. I’m not saying you have to think like that, you check these things up, right?
But many people here are Buddhists, so I’m speaking particularly to those people to do this but those people who haven’t taken refuge yet they can experiment with these things and see what happens and check up. As a Buddhist what we try to do to make this prayer meaningful is we visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us seeing the Buddha as our source of refuge inspiration and guidance and at the same time what we try to do is think of all sentient beings surrounding us. Particularly we try and think of our mother on our left, the mother of this life on our left, our father on our right. It doesn’t matter whether they’re alive or dead, we visualise them alive on either side of us. Then the rest of our immediate family, all our friends and helpers, we visualise them, imagine them behind us.
We would like to put them in front of us, but the psychology to reduce our attachment to them we put them behind us and the people that we don’t like and who don’t like us who may even have harmed us which we would like to put way behind us in the far distance we’re encouraged to put them in front of us, not to generate negative thoughts towards them, but to try to realise that these people have been in the past kind to me, will be in the future. They are suffering in the same way as everyone else. They want happiness like everyone else, just like me. So they really deserve my compassion, not my aversion. So at least we should try and think of those people, friends, enemies and so on, the core group that we’re most strongly, karmically connected to in this life.
But as much as possible we then try to open our hearts and awareness to a concern, you know, to an awareness and concern for all other human beings of this planet but also if we believe in and know about all the other kinds of sentient beings that the Buddha taught that exist. The animals, pretas, the hungry ghosts, hell beings, the different kinds of god beings, demigod beings, different kinds of Bardo beings. We try and think of all those people surrounding us and trying to have that awareness that rather than being human, non human, friend, enemy and stranger, essential reality of all these beings is that they are only kind but they are only suffering. So with that kind of awareness we can do the motivation prayer of refuge in bodhicitta. I call for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly.
By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then if you find it helpful, imagine that Buddha in front of you is very pleased with your motivation for being here, studying this topic. And the Buddha shows this by now coming to the crown of your head. And when directly above your crown, imagine that the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, so that that light can then pour down through the crown of your head, filling your whole being, blessing your mind. So then we can reinforce that positive state of mind by just doing some simple breathing meditation for a short time.
If you know how, do the nine round breathing exercise. Just to help establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that mind to listen to and think about the Buddhist teachings tonight. Okay, thank you very much. So what I try to do in these two hours, I usually fail, is to talk, to have a little bit of meditation and to have group discussion, small group discussions. We won’t have the small group discussions tonight.
We may have a bit of meditation, I’ll try. But there is a lot to cover even though there’s nine weeks. I’ve tried to make it longer this time but even so there’s lots to cover. Anyway, incredibly quickly for the new people very, very quickly. Buddhism is all about the mind and the mind is not the brain, the mind is not a product of the brain, it is something completely different.
There are different levels of the mind, the gross level of our mind definitely right now depends on and works through the brain but it isn’t the brain and isn’t a byproduct of the brain. If it was, there wouldn’t be past and future lives. But the mind really depends on the gross mind of this life which has some dependency on the brain actually depends on more subtle energies within the body and that is a more subtle level of mind but even below that there is this most subtle level of mind which depends on the most subtle level of super subtle physical energy and that very subtle super subtle physical energy and this most subtle level of mind has never been created. It is literally without beginning. It is beginningless, always existing.
The mind has always existed and it will also always exist. It is no way the mind because it is formless, is not something physical, it is not produced by anything physical. It has no characteristics of physical phenomena. It is the mind is what knows and only consciousness or mind knows and experiences and feels. And what the Buddha discovered is that this beginningless, endless mind, although right now is obscured and limited and suffering, in its actual nature is perfect and pure and in its nature blissful.
And it has the potential because it knows to be completely omniscient. So our mind possesses every quality. But unfortunately those qualities are to some extent obscured by ignorance, by disturbing because we have ignorance which is the fundamental problem, the fundamental source of all our suffering, because of this ignorance we have all sorts of disturbing thoughts such as particularly attachment, afflicted desire, anger, pride, jealousy and so on. Fears, worries, doubts. We have all these things, we have all these disturbing thoughts.
These obscure the mind but also we follow these disturbing thoughts, act on them, engage in negative actions. While we do that, these generate negative imprints in our mind which further obscure the mind and when they ripen bring more suffering and more rebirths. This whole process of the obscured mind is called saṃsāra. And the whole purpose of the Buddha’s teachings and Buddha’s practice is firstly to be able to reduce these pacify, minimize these disturbing thoughts and negative actions so that we can eventually eliminate them and at the same time Buddha’s teachings and practice are about Sorry. And the reason for this is because the Buddha discovered that these disturbing thoughts, these obscurations are the actual cause of our suffering.
We tend to think that it’s something outside ourselves, other people, other things in the external world which are the cause of our suffering. What the Buddha discovered is that those things that we think of as the actual causes of our suffering are merely the conditions. The real causes are the inner causes, our own state of mind. And what the Buddha discovered is that the real cause, the actual source of genuine lasting happiness is not something out there which we think because we’re always chasing after stuff out there or relationships with people thinking that this will make us happy. The Buddha discovered these are just conditions for some kind of happiness.
The real source, the actual source of our happiness lies within our own mind and these are our positive potentials. So the path, Buddhist path is about reducing and eliminating these negative disturbing thoughts and obscurations so that they will never come back and cultivating our positive qualities. If we do this completely we will achieve enlightenment. No. Not yet.
Not yet. Because I I want to at some point, yeah, don’t forget it. Yeah. Otherwise, we’ll never get I will get so distracted. We’ll never get anywhere.
Okay, right. So all of our disturbing thoughts put together, that whole complex of disturbing thoughts based on ignorance and how they interact and everything is called self-cherishing. For those who have attended Kantar Rinpoche’s teachings she mentioned this term a lot self cherish self grasping and self-cherishing. These are our two main problems. Self grasping is another term for our ignorance and ignorance refers to the fact that because our ignorance is a certain level of is a mental factor obscuring our mind right now that causes our mind, forces our mind to experience ourself and everything in a false way.
But that false experience we believe is real, is true. We’re not even conscious. We never even think that there may be anything false about it because it’s very effective and convincing. So another term, technical term for that ignorance is self grasping because it creates the illusion that things are really the way they appear. That they have this solid concrete essence or self.
Ignorance creates that illusion and it also on top of that, which is worse, it grasps that that illusion is real. That’s why it’s called self grasping. Self grasping ignorance. So that’s the root problem but because of that we have self-cherishing. So self-cherishing is really how all our delusions work together.
Just like a few individual straws don’t work in cleaning the ground when you put them all together and you’ve got a broom it’s much more effective, it creates something much more powerful. So all our different delusions by themselves are one thing but when you’ve got them all operating together you have something even more creepy and disastrous which is self-cherishing. And the essential nature of self-cherishing is all about attachment because apart from ignorance our main delusion is afflicted desire and attachment. So bodhicitta is about getting rid of self-cherishing. The greatest obstacle to bodhicitta is self-cherishing.
I’ll try and talk about self-cherishing more as we go along. It is really important to understand what self-cherishing is because the term itself sounds like something good and something that we should do, that we should cherish ourselves. But that term doesn’t one has to get into the understanding that although the term sounds good it’s referring to an extremely negative state that we have to get rid of. But before that, because I’ve jumped the gun, anyway that was my quick introduction to Buddhism, mind and saṃsāra and it’s obscured. And because it’s obscured we create these negative imprints, these negative actions that we create in life have some effect in this life but the main effect is creating these negative imprints and most of these imprints don’t ripen in this life.
They ripen in future lives. And they force us to have future lives. They propel the mind into another rebirth and then another one and another one and another one and this is saṃsāra. So the Buddhist path is to understand bodhicitta we have to understand a little bit this whole process that we’re stuck in saṃsāra and the nature of saṃsāra, having a mind controlled by delusion and karma is that it’s suffering. It’s difficult to understand that because we basically, hopefully, have pretty good lives.
Right? And you can think about, you know, Buddhism goes on a lot about how life is suffering, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the life we’re having. It actually the term, the first teaching the Buddha gave is the Four Noble Truths. The first of which is that existence is suffering. But this word existence it just doesn’t mean ordinary, any existence.
This is an English translation of a specific Sanskrit term which is referring to, for those people who know it, one of the twelve links, the eleventh link I think it is, which is called existence. And this is referring to samsaric existence. Not, you know, like Buddhas don’t have suffering. Their existence isn’t suffering. Our heart’s existence isn’t suffering, but samsaric existence is in the nature of suffering.
And even our happiness is suffering because it doesn’t last. And we think it’s happiness because we’re so obscured we don’t have much to compare it with. We don’t have really good examples of what happened is really could be, what it really could mean. Anyway, that’s a very big story. But to really understand the first noble truth is essential to really appreciate what bodhicitta is about and what the Buddhist path is about.
Because the first major step in the Buddhist path is many people and it’s perfectly okay come are attracted to Buddhism and only want to use Buddhism to make this life okay. And of course if you practice the Buddhist teachings it will help to make this life okay. But the Buddha didn’t appear in this world to help make just this life okay. Because the whole problem is actually that we focus just on this life. And that’s why we botch things up.
But the real purpose of the Buddha’s coming to this world is to teach us that we have future lives to be concerned about, not this life. So the basis of real Buddhist practice is using this life to get a good rebirth. Because we’re definitely going to have a rebirth. That will definitely happen because we’re definitely going to die and so the mind will go on. It will definitely continue because nothing can stop the mind.
Nothing can destroy it because it isn’t physical. This is something to check up as Khadro Rinpoche kept saying during the teachings, if you were here and listened, she kept saying, Analyze and check up yourself. What is the mind? And if you start to get some understanding of what the mind is, one can start to understand it isn’t going to stop. This body for sure falls apart.
But the mind doesn’t. It goes wobbly, it goes crazy, it gets very disturbed, it goes completely neurotic and hysterical but it doesn’t stop, It doesn’t fall apart. It can’t. Anyway, I’m getting carried away. We’re going to be reborn and there’s only two kinds of rebirths we can have, a good one or a bad one.
So do we want a good one or a bad one? We want a good one. But just because we want one, a good one, doesn’t mean we’ll have a good one. We have to create the causes for a good one. This is something also Khadro Rinpoche emphasizes a lot about everything depends on causes and conditions.
If you create a certain set of causes and conditions you get this kind of result. If you create a other kind of set of causes and conditions you get a different kind of result. So firstly we have to work to get a good rebirth in order to continue the spiritual path of working with our mind. Then beyond that we can start to realize just getting a good rebirth isn’t such a big deal because having even a good rebirth as a human being, even a richer human being than we are, surrounded by luxury, even that is in the nature of suffering. You just have to read about the lives of very rich people to see that there’s no way, just being very rich, you escape suffering.
The very rich are subject to many of the sufferings of the very poor like sickness, old age and death. But they have their own. There are the unique sufferings of being very rich. There are the unique sufferings of being very poor, which the very rich don’t have, but the very rich have their own set of unique problems of being very rich. Then lots of people want your money, then you have to protect it and worry about it.
Poor people don’t have to worry about that, you know, having lots of money because they don’t have lots of money. But if you have lots of money, you have to worry about it. What are you gonna do with it? How are gonna protect it? And yourself because you could get kidnapped.
All sorts of things have been very you know? Yeah. Rich people. If you’re poor and someone likes you, you can be kind of sure they like you you. But if you’re very rich and someone likes you, can you be sure that they like you or your money?
Yeah? So that’s suffering. Anyway where am I? So one can start to understand that just remaining in saṃsāra, sooner or later, we will just experience all the sufferings of saṃsāra. So the main aim why the Buddha came to this earth is to tell us get out if you don’t want suffering and no one wants suffering, we have to get out of saṃsāra.
So we have to create the causes for that. So that’s the next level of motivation and practice. But then the highest motivation is to realise that just like everyone, just like I don’t want suffering and only want happiness, it’s true for everyone. So how can I just work for my own liberation, my own nirvana and leave everyone behind to suffer? Especially when I depend on all these people to practice and get out of saṃsāra.
The only way I can get out of saṃsāra, be free of suffering, is to depend on many, many people to help me in all sorts of ways. But how can I depend on use those people and then leave them behind to suffer? It’s like, you know, some people in various places in the world who are immensely rich, who, you know, have everything and which is provided by people who are immensely poor and even like slaves. I mean, that kind of life is just horrific to do that. How can you live like that?
I mean, some people can, but when you think of it, it’s really appalling. And those people are really obscuring their mind to be able to totally ignore the suffering of the people that they depend on for their luxury, for their pleasure. So how can we do that? Especially when we realize we have the potential to achieve enlightenment. So the first stage of Buddhist practice, major stage, is to renounce this life or renounce attachment to it.
It doesn’t mean give up, you know, be miserable and don’t do anything. It means to renounce our obsession with thinking there’s only this life and the the things, the worldly things of this life are it, that they are the most one can have, that being rich and famous and beautiful and having stuff is the ultimate in life. That to have a gold plated Maserati is it. It looks like someone really wants that. Yeah.
So the first stage is to renounce attachment to this life. The second stage is to renounce samsaric mind altogether in order to get out of it. And the final stage, and this can only happen sequentially, psychologically, firstly we have to be able to develop this mind that is renouncing this life. Only then can we develop this next major stage of the mind renouncing saṃsāra, seeing that its nature is suffering. And then eventually we can develop the mind renouncing nirvana of just sinking into the bliss of nirvana, of being liberated.
And the person who does that, the person who renounces the bliss of saṃsāra is a Bodhisattva. And a bodhisattva is someone who has generated bodhicitta. And that’s what we’re talking about. This is what this course is about. How to generate bodhicitta.
But we are only going to concentrate on this last part. To generate bodhicitta first you have to renounce this life, then we have to renounce saṃsāra. These are the two major conditions. And then we can really generate bodhicitta. But this course is talking specifically about that last stage even though we are not at that level yet but we can still work on it.
Am I making some sense or am I just gibbering away? No? It’s okay? Would you like to ask you a question? Yes, yes.
We’ll have this one sure. Definitely doesn’t need it. Actually not now don’t don’t kill yourself now because no. It’s a slow it’s a graduated process. But basically, yeah, we don’t need ordinary bodies like this.
Yeah. Sounds very weird, but this is yes. The pure mind, the clear light mind, the very subtle mind of clear light, that doesn’t need this gross body. It can produce whatever kind of body it wants for whatever purpose it needs it. So some some kind of angel maybe, something like that?
An angel? Yes. What? Is the mind like an angel? The mind could manifest as an angel, but the mind itself isn’t an angel.
But the mind itself has no physical features at all. Try and think about it. Okay, so I’m never going to cover tonight’s call. Anyway, so quickly, quickly. So what is bodhicitta?
So bodhicitta has two aspects. One aspect is that it is this mind that really perceives the suffering of others. It really understands and feels all the different kinds of sufferings that sentient beings are subject to and cannot bear it. Not in the sense like we ordinary people Sometimes when we see someone suffering we just don’t want to know about it. I can’t deal with that.
It’s too upsetting or I want to be happy so my way to be happy is to ignore the suffering of others. So it doesn’t mean that kind of bearing. One can’t bear it because one feels it intensely and one’s not afraid of feeling that suffering. So that it’s just unbearable to the point where one has to do something about it. It’s completely determined to stop that suffering and wanting that person to have perfect happiness.
So that’s one aspect of bodhicitta and it applies not just to some people but to all beings. bodhicitta is a mind that wants all beings, all sentient beings, not just human beings but all the different kinds of sentient beings that exist and not just the good ones or not just the neutral ones but even the most terrible sentient beings wants them to be free of all suffering and only to experience perfect lasting happiness. So that’s one aspect of bodhicitta. So it has the quality of great compassion and great love. And the other aspect of bodhicitta is that it is the mind determined to achieve enlightenment, to achieve Buddhahood, understanding that to stop the suffering of others, to bring them to perfect happiness, only way that can be accomplished is to become a Buddha.
Therefore I’m going to become a Buddha because I’m going to stop the suffering of all beings and and all and I am going to make every help make everyone perfectly happy. Right? Or in other words, I’m going to enlighten everyone. I’m going to stop their suffering of everyone and I’m going to enlighten or help enlighten everyone. So that’s one aspect of bodhicitta.
The other aspect is I’m going to become a Buddha because that’s the only way to achieve that. So that’s the bodhicitta we’re talking about. I have to go back because I skipped a few things as usual. There are different kinds of bodhicitta. The term bodhicitta is made of two Sanskrit words Bodhi and Chitta.
Bodhi means enlightenment, Chitta is the Sanskrit term for mind or consciousness. So it’s the mind of enlightenment, but it really means the mind seeking enlightenment or the mind determined to achieve enlightenment. So there are two kinds of bodhicitta actually. There is what is called ultimate bodhicitta and conventional bodhicitta. So ultimate bodhicitta is another term for the wisdom that is realizing the true nature of oneself and phenomena.
The empty nature of all things. Another term for that is Ultimate bodhicitta because in order to achieve enlightenment one has to develop this wisdom. The wisdom that realizes the true nature of oneself and phenomena. It’s absolutely vital that it is the key to achieving enlightenment because that wisdom destroys the ignorance which keeps us trapped in saṃsāra but that wisdom also eliminates the subtle obscurations that prevent us achieving enlightenment. So that wisdom is called Ultimate bodhicitta.
And then the other kind of bodhicitta am I losing you? No? Too complicated? No? So the other kind of bodhicitta is conventional bodhicitta and that’s the one I just defined.
And that’s the topic of we’re not going to talk about ultimate bodhicitta in this course. How to develop bodhicitta means how to develop conventional bodhicitta which is that mind determined to achieve enlightenment. And when the term bodhicitta is used it’s virtually always referring to conventional bodhicitta. So when do we stop? Half past?
Quickly, quickly. Then within conventional bodhicitta which is the bodhicitta we are dealing with in this course, that mind seeking enlightenment, there are two kinds. There is what is called wishing bodhicitta and there is what is called entering or engaging bodhicitta. Wishing bodhicitta is as it says the mind that really really wants to achieve enlightenment. If you think about it, are if you take your own life, your own example, there are things throughout one’s life that we would like to have or do or go to.
You know, I would like to go to Paris. I would like to go to India. I would like to go to Zanzibar or I would like to do this. I would like to bungee jump from the Eiffel Tower. No, I certainly wouldn’t.
But you know something, you know? I want, I want. But we never do anything about it. It’s just like a wish. It’s kind of a vague wish.
It’s a genuine wish but it’s kind of a wishy washy wish. It’s kind of half hearted because we never really do anything about it. Alright? And but then there are some wishes that really build up and we really, really want to do it. We’re really adamant, you know, determined about I’m going to do this.
So it’s a different mindset. I’m something happens in our mind where we really commit, I’m going to do this. We may still never do it but there’s a much stronger determination. Wishing bodhicitta is like that. One thing to understand is bodhicitta is a truly enormous inconceivable state of mind.
We are capable of it but it’s not just something that you can generate like that. Do a weekend workshop and generate bodhicitta. Like I said, one has to be able to renounce this life. The number of people who are able to renounce this life is very difficult. There’s very few because it’s difficult.
Sounds easy, but it’s not easy. For those who attended Khadro Rinpoche as a teacher, sorry for those people who weren’t there, but she said she has no qualities, she’s a completely simple ordinary person, which is not true. But she did say very strongly and honestly that she said, I can say I don’t have the eight worldly concerns. Which means she’s definitely renounced this life, but actually it means a lot more than that. But even that is pretty amazing, pretty great.
But I mean, she something much more than that, I think. Yes. So having to develop the wish to renounce this life is pretty fantastic. Then to develop the actual wish to renounce saṃsāra is even more mind boggling. So to generate the wish that I am going to achieve enlightenment, anyone can say that.
It’s very easy, oh I’m really going to achieve enlightenment. Even I can say that. That doesn’t mean anything. So there’s wishing bodhicitta, and then there’s something even more amazing, which is engaging bodhicitta. So someone who develops that is a bodhisattva, but then there is engaging bodhicitta where that person not only just has the wish but they really act on it.
They totally dedicate every aspect of their body, speech, mind all the time to working for enlightenment, to putting that wish into action. Having even wishing bodhicitta you’re a bodhisattva is the actual wish not our little wishes. It gets more complicated as things do in the Dharma to some extent. So there’s wishing bodhicitta and engaging bodhicitta. And then there is what called or what my teacher Lama Zopa Rinpoche calls Effortful bodhicitta and Spontaneous bodhicitta.
There’s effortful and spontaneous Effortful. Effort. Yeah. Effortful. Or in a contrived plastic bodhicitta.
It’s not the real thing but it’s it but it’s Isn’t that faking it to make? Yeah. Yeah. It it has a kind of bodhicitta. It’s it’s not totally fake.
It is a contrived. It’s what it’s really referring to is that if one really thinks about the suffering of sentient beings and how kind they are and one’s own Buddha potential etc. Momentarily that thought that I must become a Buddha to help them will arise. So that’s effort for bodhicitta, but it doesn’t last very long. It’s genuine but it doesn’t last.
Like if one sits down and meditates strongly on the suffering of sentient beings, how immensely kind they are, etc, etc, then some kind of bodhicitta can arise and that’s kind of effortful bodhicitta. But then there is spontaneous bodhicitta which real bodhicitta. Spontaneous bodhicitta is there all the time. One has to generate it. Once it’s generated, it’s there twenty four hours a day, even when you’re asleep.
Every moment when you are asleep one is creating skies of merit because one has bodhicitta pervading one’s mind all the time. The only reason you’re asleep is because your reason for sleeping is bodhicitta, for the sake of all sentient beings. The reason you’re awake is for the sake of all sentient beings. The reason you go to the toilet is for the sake of all sentient beings. The reason you speak is for the sake of all sentient beings.
The reason you don’t speak is for the sake of all sentient beings. So that’s the Super Duper, real one. Once one generates that, you actually enter the path to enlightenment. One is actually on the actual path to enlightenment. If you are like me, we are on a dirt track which is leading to a side road which was on the path.
Tea break, coffee break, thank you, ten minutes. Self-service. I’ll please collect your homework. Sheet. Okay.
We are all here. Can we start again? So I will just clarify or confuse something I said just before we finished. Spontaneous bodhicitta can be either wishing or engaging. The spontaneous bodhicitta can either be wishing bodhicitta or engaging.
Both can be spontaneous, the real lasting theme. Spontaneous bodhicitta is the main kind of bodhicitta that we are trying to generate eventually. First you can get the effortful one going a bit from time to time and eventually one will be able to generate spontaneous bodhicitta. So that spontaneous bodhicitta can either be of the wishing variety or the engaging. The analogy that is traditionally given that Śāntideva gives in differentiating wishing bodhicitta from engaging bodhicitta is he says it’s the same as wanting to go to a place and actually going there.
You can want to go to Paris and then you’re at this that’s one thing and then there’s actually going there. You’re actually going to Paris. Before we go on, questions so far people would like to ask? Even wishing bodhicitta is a realization. Definitely you’ve realized bodhicitta.
When you have got the spontaneous wishing bodhicitta that is the actual realization, the first level. And then with an engaging bodhicitta what one does is one practices someone who is involved in engaging in bodhicitta, a bodhisattva practices the six perfections. These are the actions of a bodhisattva which is practicing or not just practicing but perfecting the practices of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom. These are the six main practices of a Bodhisattva. So these are fundamental practices in Buddhism as a whole.
Practicing generosity, practicing morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom. So at our level now we can practice them, we may say we are doing it with a bodhicitta motivation but at the most maybe it is to help us to get a good rebirth. At a deeper level one can practice the six perfections in order to achieve liberation from saṃsāra. But a bodhisattva is doing it to achieve practices of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom in order and only to achieve enlightenment, only to benefit all sentient beings without exception. So one can practice morality in order to have a good rebirth.
I’m going to hurt you because that actually hurts me more, creates bad karma. I don’t want to create bad karma because I want to get a good rebirth. Or you can be a moral person and not harm people and do good things because this will help one achieve nirvana, to get out of saṃsāra and achieve nirvana. But a bodhisattva does it because they practice morality not just to avoid their own suffering and get some good result for themselves but they want to be of perfect benefit to all sentient beings. So they perfect the practice of generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom.
The great bodhisattvas, the ones who have realized emptiness, they are able to practice generosity to the extent that they can chop off bits of their body and give to other people if necessary. I will tell you a story later which some of you have already heard many times but it’s a great story. Are the six perfections the same as the six Paramitas? Yes. Paramita is the Sanskrit word, the ‘gone beyond’ practice.
So one should get familiar with those because these are essential practices within Buddhism but especially in trying to follow the bodhisattva way of life, these are the things to try and engage in. And they are set out in that way psychologically. First, the easiest thing to practice is generosity. This leads to being able to practice morality more purely, perfectly and that enables us to practice patience more perfectly, that enables us to practice perseverance more perfectly, that enables us to develop concentration and once we have developed concentration we are able to perfect our wisdom. So I will talk about the six perfections later on in the course.
Remember this course is just an introduction to this topic. We are just skimming over the top of the whole thing. So just very briefly, what are the benefits of practicing bodhicitta? What are the benefits? Firstly, if we understand what it is, that it really is.
bodhicitta is more than loving kindness and compassion. It has its very nature but it’s more than just love and compassion. There are different kinds of compassion. Right? Compassion is the response to suffering.
The basic meaning of compassion in in a Buddhist context it is it is the mind that wants beings, oneself and others who are suffering to be free of suffering and particularly the causes of that suffering. So that’s the basic nature of compassion. It is that mental factor that wants self and others to be free of suffering and especially its causes. And then there are deeper levels of compassion understanding, due to understanding what suffering really is, for most people, ordinary human beings, for them suffering means pain, obvious physical and mental pain. But in Buddhism suffering means much more than that.
That’s just the gross level of suffering. There is subtle suffering which is called technically the suffering of change which we think of as happiness. Everything we as ordinary human beings think of as happiness from a Buddhist perspective, from the perspective of Buddha, is the suffering of change. Easiest way to understand it is because all our kinds of everything that we label happiness comes to an end. So it’s not really satisfying.
Something that comes to an end is not going to satisfy us no matter how fantastic it is. Even blissing out for a million eons, if it comes to an end, isn’t satisfying. Because the word suffering, the word that is translated as suffering which is dukkha, has this connotation of being unsatisfactory. And actually the words unsatisfactory in English is a bit kind of tacky, you know, oh, that’s unsatisfactory. It doesn’t mean unsatisfactory, deeply unsatisfactory, deeply unsatisfying.
And then there’s the most subtle kind of suffering which is called compounded pervasive suffering, which we all have. Even people who are extremely happy, even beings in the God realms who have this unbelievable bliss for eons have compounded pervasive suffering, which is basically referring to having a body and mind which is produced by delusion and karma controlled by ignorance. If we have a body and mind that is produced by delusion and karma which we do have, which all beings in saṃsāra have, That’s the definition of being in saṃsāra. One has a mind controlled by delusion and karma. That means there is suffering.
Having an obscured mind is suffering. No matter how brilliant one may be, one is still suffering. Even Einstein had ignorance and delusion. Even saints have ignorance and delusion. Even bodhisattvas still have ignorance and delusion.
They’re getting rid of it but they still have it. Some Bodhisattvas don’t but your basic Bodhisattva, your beginning Bodhisattva, the first few levels of Bodhisattvas, they still have ignorance and delusion. So that’s suffering. Compassion, these deeper levels of compassion is wanting all of that to be, recognizing that that even very rich, famous, very powerful, very beautiful people are actually suffering. Every sentient being is suffering.
So that’s a much deeper kind of compassion than this ordinary stuff of thinking, oh, poor person. You know, this person is poor. They are hungry. Oh, that you know, oh, poor person. But this rich person don’t have to feel compassion for them because they’re rich and famous and powerful but they’re suffering.
Their suffering may be even greater than the poor person. Anyway, yeah. And then there is the great compassion which includes all beings without exception and what great compassion is about is basic compassion is just the thought I don’t want this being to suffer or I don’t want all beings to suffer. And it’s a genuine thought. Not just this.
Anyone can say that and sort of think they they mean it, but, you know, we don’t really mean it because they’re people we don’t like. If we’re honest, we’re the people we don’t like. And which means really deep down we don’t mind if they’re suffering. And actually we want some people to suffer. Well some people want certain people to suffer.
They think they should suffer. People who’ve done terrible things to other people, they should suffer. This is right and proper. But a bodhisattva never thinks like that. Never, never wants anyone to suffer for any reason.
That’s why the Buddha came to this world because he doesn’t want anyone to suffer. That’s why he’s so great. That’s why Buddha mind is so wonderful. Even if we’ve created the cause for suffering, the Buddha doesn’t want us to experience those results. That’s what real compassion and love is.
So great compassion applies to everyone no matter what, but great compassion is more than just not wanting them to suffer. It’s the mind that is determined to do something about it, to act. And that doesn’t necessarily mean rushing around, know, bandaging people. That act may be going off and meditating by oneself, never seeing people for years and years. But the purpose is to reach a point where one can be of amazing benefit to people.
Great compassion involves this actually doing stuff. And then there is bodhicitta, which is not just doing anything, it’s determined to achieve enlightenment to end the suffering of every sentient being. So if one gets that idea of what bodhicitta is, then of course I don’t even have to say what the benefits are. It’s just mind boggling what the benefits are if you get that mind. Because it’s the most positive mind, it’s the most virtuous mind, it’s the most compassionate mind, it’s the most loving mind, it’s the most optimistic mind, it’s the most courageous mind, the most courageous mind.
So if you have a really courageous mind, then you can do anything, you can achieve anything with a courageous mind. It doesn’t mean you don’t have fear, you don’t give into it, because you have courage, because one has compassion, one has this amazing goal. One has tremendous energy to do virtuous things. So I want to weigh briefly. There are ten benefits of bodhicitta.
There are infinite benefits summarized in ten, which are: it’s the only way to enter the path to enlightenment. Once one generates spontaneous bodhicitta one instantly is on the path to enlightenment. One is on the path which means, you know, not some physical thing but the mind is moving inevitably towards enlightenment. Actually moving there. Are hopeful all of us here are trying to go in a virtuous, meaningful direction.
Whether we actually are or not is is not a hundred percent sure. May think we’re doing the right thing even with practicing Dharma but are we practicing it properly? We’re not, who knows? As Khadro Rinpoche mentioned, she made some jokes about Western practitioners which can apply to Tibetans too about people who rattle drums and malas and all sorts of things and think they’re doing also but their mind isn’t changing at all. They may be blissing out and whatever but the mind isn’t radically changing.
It isn’t transforming. But when entering the path means there’s no mistake. The mind is transforming into the enlightened starting. It is actually the actual process of transforming into a Buddha has started. How about that?
When you generate bodhicitta that’s what happens. It starts Whether you want it or not, of course you would want it, but you can’t stop it. So the second benefit is one actually becomes a bodhisattva. One is an actual bodhisattva. And he actually used to say to his students, he used to call people baby bodhisattvas.
We try to be baby bodhisattvas. But someone who has actually generated bodhicitta is an actual bodhisattva. A being moving to enlightenment. Such a person becomes a supreme object of offering to all sentient beings because helping a bodhisattva. For those people who have studied karma there are four factors that determine the potency of the karmic imprints that we generate, positive or negative and one of the factors determining the potency of our positive and negative actions is the object that we direct our activities to.
So if we direct a negative behaviour towards an ordinary person it generates a certain negativity. If we direct a negative action towards a virtuous person then it’s much worse. So if we direct our negative actions to a bodhisattva then this is incredibly negative because a bodhisattva is trying to benefit all sentient beings. Not trying, is working, acting to benefit all sentient beings. So to harm such a person is like harming everyone.
You’re harming the chances of happiness for everyone when you harm a bodhisattva or interfere with the activities of a bodhisattva. So there’s nothing worse than that. Whereas if you help a bodhisattva, you’re helping all sentient beings achieve enlightenment. And there’s nothing better. Skies of merit.
So I’ll just put a little plug in for my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who, as Khadro Rinpoche says, is one of the truly great bodhisattvas on this planet now. There is no question of that. One of the other great lama of the Gelugpa tradition, his name escapes me now, he passed away recently. Anyway, he told some students who were working at the international office of the FPMT who were getting upset by all the problems that all the centers face. And they went to him and, you know, said, oh, we have all these problems.
It’s so so difficult. It’s it’s really depressing and hard work. And he said, basically, don’t worry. It’s okay. Even the tiniest thing you do to help Lama Zopa Rinpoche is just inconceivably meritorious because Lama Zopa Rinpoche is doing such amazing things for sentient beings.
He is the real deal, really. I’m a little bit biased, but I have known Lama Zopa Rinpoche for just a teeny bit, but I think my bias is based on some correct understanding or observation because I have known Rinpoche for thirty seven years. I was his personal attendant for three years where I was with him for hours and hours and hours every day. And one can see that this person is not an ordinary being, that he only does things for other people. Only, really.
Doesn’t do ordinary stuff. Just doesn’t do it. And like I’ve said many times, I think since he was about six years old, he has never really gone to bed, like gone to bed consciously. He does manifest falling asleep, but he doesn’t go to sleep like we do. He doesn’t go to bed.
He never goes to bed. He just falls asleep when he can’t keep awake anymore because he’s always doing something for sentient beings. Always. Happily. Happily.
This is the point. Happily. Having a terrific time in a way we can’t imagine. And now I’ve got carried away, where am I? One becomes a supreme object of offering and yeah because oneself is doing such amazing things, anyone helping one accumulate skies of merit.
So even that and which in turn becomes meritorious for oneself because one becomes a means whereby everyone else can create merit and transform their lives. Some people just are a source of negativity. Being around them just encourages people’s negative behaviour. But a bodhisattva is someone who just inspires people to bring out the best in them. So we can become that.
Like I said, know, His Holiness Dalai Lama, when he comes to visit any country, for that visit to occur, no matter how brief, it usually takes at least a full year of preparation of hundreds of people and volunteering, some people working full time to run the organisation to bring His Holiness and then organizing hundreds, thousands of volunteers, etcetera, etcetera, all because of this one person. So he will come and say hello, and everyone blisses out. Yeah. So that will happen to us one day. People will spend their whole year organizing for us to come and visit somewhere because we are so wonderful.
It’s not happening now, but at some point it will. Because people like to be around Bodhisattvas. They don’t even have to say anything, it’s just nice sitting with a Bodhisattva. It’s just even look looking at their shoes makes you happy when you know the shoes belong to a bodhisattva. That’s the bodhisattva shoes makes you happy.
Anyway. Some of those benefits are a little strange. It says one outshines the arhats. That sounds a bit kind of egotistical but the point is that arhat is a wonderful being who has freed themselves from saṃsāra, has no negativities whatsoever, has love and compassion, but they don’t have bodhicitta. They they they have never generate they have no wish to harm sentient beings.
They do want other sentient beings to be happy and free of suffering, but they have never generated the thought that I will dedicate my entire life or continuity of lives to make sentient beings happy and free of suffering. But a bodhisattva has. So even a person who has generated bodhicitta has not got out of saṃsāra yet, but an arhat has. But someone who has generated bodhicitta is far more wonderful than an arhat who is completely out of saṃsāra, who is experiencing this great bliss but that bodhisattva hasn’t dedicated themselves to benefiting all sentient beings. In a human body an arhat can teach the Dharma, bless people, be an inspiration.
If someone visits an arhat and asks for help, the arhat will help them, but but that’s it. They haven’t dedicated their life to totally cherishing all beings. And when arhat dies and their mind enters into the state of nirvana forever, in that state they have no awareness of sentient beings. So they can’t help at all. Whereas a Bodhisattva takes rebirth again and again to benefit sentient beings with the aim to achieve enlightenment because as an enlightened being you never lose awareness of sentient beings.
You have a greater bliss, greater nirvana than an Arahant but that great nirvana is not this little nirvana of an arhat where they have no awareness of others. The great nirvana of a Buddha has this total awareness at all times of all things, which of course includes all sentient beings and their suffering. And that great nirvana is combined with that great compassion that radiates out to benefit all sentient beings all the time. So there’s a huge difference between a Buddha and an Arahant and that is why even someone who’s just once generated bodhicitta, that being far outshines an arhat. Even though that being who’s just generated bodhicitta isn’t even out of saṃsāra yet.
Cheryl’s got a big question here. So an arhat can never become a Bodhisattva? No they can, they can, but it takes much longer. This point I’ve never heard explained in any detail but they say that someone who has only followed the path to nirvana hasn’t generated bodhicitta. When they achieve that state, that state lasts a very very long time, an enormously long time.
And only after an enormously long time are the Buddhas able to penetrate to that being and somehow show them that although they’ve achieved a wonderful state there’s still a lot more to do. And so they come out of that state and then enter the Bodhisattva path. It’s much slower that way. That’s why we are encouraged in the Mahāyāna teachings encourage us to go for enlightenment from the first. Anyway I don’t think I’ll go.
You actually have a handout, I’m just cheating, there’s a handout with all of this on it for you. It gives the ten benefits. Maybe I’ll try and explain them a bit more in detail next week. Where do we finish? There’s not time.
Quarter past. Yeah. No. Separate. I did it tonight.
No. There’s a few handouts because I’m not gonna cover everything I wanted to tonight, but I’ll just try a couple of other things. We were going to do a bit of meditation. As you see, there’s not going to be time, I think, to explain it and do it. A little bit of meditation on Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion.
I’ll just give you a little diagram and the mantra. You can try and do the meditation at home yourself. You can make it up. Some people would be familiar with visualizing Chenrezig reciting the mantra. Some people have no right.
Anyway, don’t worry. Just try. Well, I’ll explain it next week. Yeah. This is my technique or my lack of technique that I yeah actually it’s a very profound technique I introduce put a small imprint at the beginning and then go into detail the next time.
That’s my excuse anyway. Just very quickly, what does bodhicitta involve? What does it really involve? I think I’ve tried to say this already, but it basically involves is getting rid of all the negativity in our mind which all of it together, as I said, can be labeled as self-cherishing. To generate bodhicitta we have to get rid of our self-cherishing.
Because our self-cherishing, we’ve been following our self-cherishing in this life. Basically have this because of our Buddha nature we have this natural wish to be happy. But because our mind is obscured that natural wish for perfect pure lasting happiness gets distorted into just chasing after what looks like happiness and what can be achieved quickly and easily. And this is really what our self-cherishing is. Our self-cherishing tells us it lies to us and tells us this is happiness when in fact it isn’t.
And it tells us this is so important because I can get you can get this quickly and you can get this easily. So this is really good. Why is it really good? Because it’s quick and easy. Anything that’s quick and easy is good.
It’s really good. It’s happiness. It’ll make you happy simply because it’s quick and easy. And this is bad. Why is it bad?
Because it takes a long time, and it’s hard. Anything that’s hard and takes time is bad and miserable. Don’t do it. Don’t meditate because it’s hard and takes a long time to get anywhere. But go out there and get drunk and, you know, shoot up and all these things because that’s quick and it’s easy and it’ll make you instantly happy.
And that’s very good. Very, very good. So self-cherishing is this really creepy little soft voice, and it’s very convincing. Yeah. You hardly hear it, but it’s there, and it dominates the mind.
You know? And it’s got all these arguments. They’re all lies, and they’re all rubbish, but at the time, they sound so convincing. Just do that. It’s so easy.
It’s quick. You’ll be happy straight away. Oh, sorry. Yeah. And we fear that mind all the time, or much of the time.
Not always because we are also intelligent and wise and our compassion gets in sometimes and our courage gets in and whatever. But a lot of the time, this self-cherishing thought takes over, and it’s controlled all our past lives. And if it if it was if it was if it was right, we should be unbelievably hysterically happy by now. But in fact, we are just limited suffering beings still in saṃsāra. Whereas if you look at the Buddhas, who is a Buddha?
Buddhas were all like us. They were in saṃsāra just like us. Buddhas were people who were at some point in the hell realms, but they became Buddhas. How? Because they gave up self-cherishing.
They realized what a you know, how terrible it was, how false it was, how it was creates these lies, these illusions that we fall for. Generating bodhicitta is about giving up our self-cherishing by seeing all its harm, giving up our disturbing thoughts, our negative behavior, and cultivating all our positive qualities, particularly our potentials for love and compassion and wisdom, so that we are able to actually cherish others more and even cherish others more than ourselves. And I don’t know how to explain this because I don’t think I really understand it but I think there’s some truth to it that this word cherish, cherishing others is somehow it implies just you can love someone, have love for them. I’m not talking about ordinary samsaric, you know, what passes for love which is usually attachment. But there is genuine love for beings and genuine compassion for beings.
But then there is something which has somehow I think just something a little bit more which is really cherishing them. I don’t know how to explain what that is but I think that it’s something more because I got that feeling from something one monk, one Lama teacher once said. And it felt, yeah, because arhats love sentient beings, they have compassion for them, but they don’t really cherish them. Cherish is about seeing someone as like completely precious. That sentient beings are utterly, utterly precious.
Not just worthy of love, but they’re utterly precious. Really. That’s how a bodhisattva feels, thinks, that every sentient being, not just the nice people, not just the strangers, but even what we ordinary people think of as horrible, terrible people are actually precious. They are precious. So we have the potential to generate that mind.
And wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could? Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we genuinely heartfeltly felt heartfeltly felt that anyone and everyone we saw, thought about, heard was utterly precious. Utterly precious. Absolutely vital to our existence. That’s how a bodhisattva thinks and feels and lives.
We can do that. We have that potential because we have Buddha nature. So we have to get rid of all the rubbish and cultivate all the good stuff. And then we will generate bodhicitta. Basically in a nutshell that is what it involves.
I think I am going to stop here if there is one final small question. Okay. So before we stop, a couple of people. Here’s a handout which is one handout about bodhicitta. Here’s another one which is another one.
I just need to talk very briefly about the homework. Someone Sheridan, could you give me a copy? And could people who haven’t got their homework, could you oh, it’s like everyone’s got the No. A few of us haven’t. Or I’ll give you a copy.
Who hasn’t? Two. Yeah. No, but I mean, I don’t need one after this. Just need it to read to explain people.
So, yeah, you could just very quickly, I’ll just try to explain So when you fill out the homework, can you always put your first and last name? Because some people may have the same first name, so I can’t tell because I try and keep some records. When I ask people about whether they’re Buddhist or not, some or or you’re not a Buddhist, I’m not asking if you’ve had some previous background in another religion because we all have. I’m asking really whether you feel you are a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Christian or this or that just so I don’t offend people’s religious beliefs basically and just know where people are coming from. Every week I ask people to say what they found easy or useful or interesting that they could relate to, but also what they found difficult to accept or understand.
I’m not asking you what you find difficult to practice because it’s all difficult to practice to some extent at the beginning. But what you find, oh, I find that difficult to understand or I don’t believe that. That sounds like a load of rubbish. So I’m interested in that kind of thing, really. In your reading, in your student material at the beginning of the book there’s the eight-point Vairocana posture, meditation posture.
So most people here are familiar with that, some of you won’t be. So please read that and get a little bit of familiarity with it, especially the nine point breathing exercise because we will do that at the beginning of every session. I’ll try and explain it briefly for the newer people anyway next week. So then also there’s a little bit of the two articles in the student material to read. I would encourage people not to read the other stuff before it’s set as homework Just so it’s good just to focus on the homework, right, and whatever other handouts are given.
What you do, you do whatever you like but that’s my advice is just to focus on the reading you have and to read it as many times as you can and think about it as much as you can. In the meditation teachings, what I am asking people to do is each day, ideally first thing in the morning, is to sit down, check your posture, try and sit to some extent according to the Vairocana posture, do the nine round breathing exercise to calm the mind, then generate the good motivation and ideally you can say the refuge bodhicitta prayer if you feel comfortable with that and either visualize the Buddha or because Chenrezig is the Buddha of compassion and compassion is an essential part of bodhicitta One could use Chenrezig and recite Chenrezig’s mantra OM MANI PADME HUM for a short time and then after that do a little bit of analytic meditation where one thinks about different topics. So the first one tomorrow is to think just for a short time meditate about the meaning of bodhicitta as I’ve explained it. Just to try and think about that, analyze it. Does that make sense?
Does it seem realistic? Possible in some way? To be able to generate that mind. Then first you have to think about the benefits. So you have got the list of the benefits so to look at those.
Try and make sense of them, analyze them, investigate. Is what to be abandoned. So I’ve just talked briefly, you know, to see how one has to get rid of one’s self-cherishing and anger and pride and jealousy, to see how those things are big obstacles to being able to love and have compassion and work for all sentient beings. Yeah? Not just to think, oh, yeah, of course I have to get rid of anger, but really, why is anger an obstacle to bodhicitta?
To really see, understand how these are because bodhicitta is this is our true nature to to think like that. It’s an amazing mind, but it’s it’s our it’s our true nature. To be a Buddha is what we should be. That’s what we should be. We’re just a bit slow in becoming a Buddha.
Lots of people have already become Buddhas. We haven’t yet. We’re a bit slow because we’ve been listening to our self-cherishing. So we need to think about what we need to give up and let go of to use this life to get rid of this stuff or at least start reducing it because it’s not only a hindrance to us but to all sentient beings. And then the next day to reflect on the things we need to cultivate our love, our compassion, our kindness, patience, perseverance, cultivate morality and generosity, etcetera etcetera etcetera etcetera.
Same way to the four immeasurable thoughts. I was going to talk about them tonight but no time. But at least you’ve got a list of them, a way to reflect on them briefly. Some of you have some familiarity with this. And then finally, I have to do a little bit of Chenrezig meditation, visualizing Chenrezig in front of you, recite the mantra.
Imagine this white light coming from Chenrezig, the Buddha of compassion, filling you with compassion, awakening one’s own potential for compassion. There are so many things to explain. And then the daily mindfulness practice is just to try to be mindful how oneself, you know, all the time we have this wish to be happy and not to be suffering, and that really everything in our life we do consciously, unconsciously, is motivated by the wish to be happy or to avoid suffering. But particularly try to apply that mindfulness to others and realize whatever this person is doing, you know, which might be annoying to me, they’re doing it because they’re trying to be happy or they’re trying to avoid suffering. This is an incredibly helpful thing.
If if we had that mindfulness, yeah, we would you know, it would be so much easier to like people, to have affection for them, to have even a little bit of love and compassion for them if we realized that they’re just trying to be happy, just like me, and they’re just trying to avoid suffering, just like me. They may be doing different things. They may be doing things I disapprove of. They may be doing wrong things, but they’re just trying to do things like me. Their motivation is the same as me.
No different. Thank you very much. Do you just have you got a copy of all handouts? Me, personally. You said a copy of all handouts?
No, because we have given them all out. Twenty five. How many people are here? I was I counted twenty seven people. Oh, okay.
Sorry. Sorry, is getting late. But it would be so helpful if people registered for these courses before they started. Because we never know how many people are coming on the night. We don’t know how many of these to make and how many handouts to make because people come that very night and register.
So it makes it really difficult. This student material, who doesn’t have this, who is registered for the course. You are doing the whole course? Yes, right. Judy, you have a complete set of all the handouts.
So there is a handout on the four immeasurable thoughts. Who doesn’t have that? One, two, three. So we need three copies. Make five copies of the four immeasurable thoughts.
There was a handout on a double page one on bodhicitta. Who doesn’t have that? One, two, three. Three people. And there was a handout on Chenrezig.
Just a one page thing on Chenrezig. So we have who doesn’t have that? Three, four, four, four people. Would you mind waiting for these to be printed now? Is that okay?
Who doesn’t have the homework? Through the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and let all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore. Okay, thank you very much.
So the tradition is at the end of teachings for that.