Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 84-minute talk, Ven Thubten Dondrub guides the fifth session of a bodhicitta generation course, completing Asaṇga’s six-cause method and introducing Śāntideva’s approach. He opens with detailed motivation-setting and the nine-round breathing exercise, then clarifies a widespread misunderstanding from the previous week: that self-care and personal dharma practice are not self-cherishing. The core teaching walks through Asaṇga’s final two causes—the “great wish” or universal responsibility (the commitment to enlighten all beings alone) and the realization that only Buddhahood enables genuine help—showing how these lead to the arising of bodhicitta as spontaneous determination rather than effortful aspiration. He then introduces Śāntideva’s equalizing-and-exchanging method, spending the bulk of the session on the first cause: developing the mind that sees essential sameness between self and others by recognizing that all beings, regardless of external difference, share identical wishes—to be happy and avoid suffering—and identical obstacles of delusion. Using examples from ordinary life, animal behaviour, and historical atrocity, he argues that focusing on inner motivation rather than outer differences dissolves barriers to compassion. The session concludes with a guided meditation on this equality and specific homework assignments for daily practice. Suitable for practitioners with some prior exposure to Mahāyāna Buddhism.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2014 04 29 01 – DB Bodhicitta Week 5 29042014.mp3
UUID: 90c3a860-b8ce-453c-ac9d-de2b0d5e8722
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Bodhicitta (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-04-29
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 84.1 minutes
Words: ~8,073
Welcome everyone to our fifth class on how to generate bodhicitta. So for this time to be as beneficial as possible, it really depends on ourselves generating the right motivation. So the prayer for that is on, I think, if people want to join in, page eleven, I think. So we can spend a little time right now trying to generate the best motivation we can for being here, listening to Buddhist teachings, trying to generate the effortful bodhicitta motivation that can arise by thinking about how we have Buddha nature. We have the precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to realize our Buddha nature.
And what can motivate us to dedicate ourselves to realizing our Buddha potential is seeing the vast need to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. How we are connected to all of these beings intimately, inextricably. We always have been, always will be. We especially depend on the kindness of sentient beings and particularly the kindness of a mother and that kindness we have received many many times from each sentient being in beginning with saṃsāra. And in addition, we’ve received their kindness as a father, as as a friend, helper, doctor, nurse, teacher, and in every possible way.
And so and these beings are suffering in saṃsāra helplessly. So we need to help them as the way to repay their kindness. And the way to help them to perfectly repay their kindness is to help them to become free of all causes of saṃsāra and help them to achieve peerless everlasting happiness because we all want happiness, we all want to be free of suffering. So we try and visualize Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us to give us some inspiration, guidance, sense of refuge, and at the same time of thinking the Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of all perfect qualities, we try and think of all sentient beings surrounding us right now, starting with those that we’re most connected to in this life. So our mother on our left, father on our right, then the rest of our family, all our friends and helpers behind us, enemies in front, and then as much as we can, opening our hearts and minds to an awareness and concern for all other human beings, all the beings trapped in the animal realm, in the preta realm, the hell realms, the different demigod and god realms, and the Bardo state.
Trying to sense have a sense of how all these beings are are only kind but only suffering. So I think no matter what, I must use this in all future lives to give up the self-cherishing thought and achieve enlightenment for their sake. So to achieve enlightenment I have to understand that the very basis of this is generating bodhicitta. So for the sake of all sentient beings I’ll study this topic for the purpose of putting it into practice as much as possible to make this and all future lives as meaningful as possible for myself and others. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, the supreme assembly.
By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma. May I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings? Imagining the Buddha pleased with our motivation, We imagine that the Buddha shows this by approaching us and when directly above our crown, we imagine that the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light. And then that light pours down into us through the crown of our head, blessing our mind. And then just briefly, we can do the nine round breathing exercise to help establish a calmer, clearer, more concentrated mind so that we can use that mind to listen to, think about the Buddhist teachings tonight.
And we can make that practice as strongly as possible by imagining with each in breath in the cycle, breathing in this very peaceful, soothing white light that, enables all our positive potentials, especially to cherish others more than self to awaken. And with each out breath, we imagine breathing out all our disturbing thoughts, negative imprints, delusions, especially breathing out the the self the the self-cherishing thought in the form of black smoke. Okay. Thank you. So I have to apologize by starting I have to start by apologizing for last week’s the homework you just got back.
You possibly didn’t realize, but it was a big mistake. Because I don’t know what happened but when I because like I’ve taught these courses many times before and have written homework for them many times before and then but it never quite each time I do it it does anyway. I I somehow you got a a mixture of a year before his homework and this the one I tried to do So the the actual homework of meditations, I haven’t covered those yet, but you all ticked that you’d meditated on them. So that’s great. So I I don’t know how it happened, but anyway, it was a big botch up and the reading was wrong and everything.
So, but hopefully tonight’s has been printed correctly. Yes. Okay. Alright. Anyway, and and it’s from looking at that that that homework it’s clear that still people really have a wrong idea of what self of what self-cherishing is referring to.
Unfortunately, I haven’t got up to that topic yet. It will be next week when I really want to talk about self-cherishing in detail. But basically, when we ourselves want to do something that is, from a dharma point of view, good for ourselves, that is not self-cherishing. That is not self-cherishing at all. Alright?
Somehow people got the impression that if you think about doing something for yourself, anything about yourself is self-cherishing. This is rubbish. Therefore, practicing Dharma would be self-cherishing. But practicing Dharma isn’t self-cherishing. It’s the opposite.
If you actually practice Dharma you can do things that look like practicing Dharma which might be self-cherishing, but practicing Dharma isn’t self-cherishing. That’s taking care of yourself properly. There’s things that look like taking care of oneself but which aren’t, and that’s self-cherishing, which is actually harming oneself. self-cherishing doesn’t actually cherish ourselves at all. It’s quite the opposite.
Anyway, so just quickly as a review, we’ll finish Asaṇga’s method of generating bodhicitta tonight and then start Śāntideva’s method. So both methods of Śāntideva and Asaṇga depend on first having renounced this life, renounced saṃsāra and having developed basic equanimity where we no longer have this sort of strong grasping at friend, enemy, stranger based on our self-cherishing attitude. So then on that basis, the first direct cause of generating bodhicitta according to Asaṇga’s method is training to recognize that all sentient beings have been one’s mother on the basis of understanding that this is actually the case. That because of beginningless mind we’ve had infinite rebirths and therefore infinite mothers. Therefore, all sentient beings have been our mother at least one time, but it could be argued that in in the infinite time, beginningless time, sentient beings have been our mother countless times.
So this leads to the second cause of remembering the kindness of mother sentient beings, taking as a basis the mother of this life because that’s the only mother we actually remember unless we are clairvoyant and remember the kindness of our previous mothers. But by logic we can understand how every sentient being when they were our mother was extremely kind. If we look at other mothers in the world being kind to their children, we can understand that sentient beings did this for me in other lives. Every kind of possible human kindness a mother can give, I have received this from every sentient being. So this leads to the third cause, is developing that mind, wanting to repay that kindness and not just in some sort of superficial way but really wanting to dedicate one’s life or lives to repaying the kindness of of mother sentient beings.
And this leads to the next two causes of generating bodhicitta, is generating great love, that wish for all sentient beings without exception to have perfect happiness and especially wishing them to create the causes of it and being determined to help them create those causes in whatever way one can. And that leads to the next cause of great compassion, feeling, understanding more and more all the whole range of suffering that sentient beings are suffering, subject to. So that great compassion is not just for the suffering any sentient being may be experiencing right now, but for realizing they have the potential to experience every kind of suffering and how every sentient being is continuing to create its causes. So wanting all beings to be free of all causes of all kinds of suffering and being prepared to help them to do whatever is necessary to help sentient beings stop creating the causes of suffering. Okay, so we got that far so far.
So this leads to the next, the last cause of generating bodhicitta and that leads into the effect which is actually generating bodhicitta. So the last cause, the sixth cause in Asaṇga’s method which originates from Maitreya Buddha is generating what is called in Tibetan laksam, which can be translated as the great wish or the superior, the exalted wish. Lak means, you know, like supreme, the supreme wish, and sam, laksam is thought, the supreme thought. But it’s often also referred to in his holiness, the Dalai Lama, particularly calls it the sense of universal responsibility. So the specific particular so the defining feature of or one of the defining features of great compassion is it’s not only wanting all sentient beings to be free of all suffering and all its causes, but it’s a mind that is committed to doing something about that, to active actively engaging in helping all sentient beings to become free of suffering and its causes.
It’s a that great compassion is the mind that is determined to work on oneself, to make oneself able to help all sentient beings become free of suffering. Right? So that great compassion is something really exceptional. But the universal wish, this universal responsibility, this great wish, or laksam, is something even a step beyond that. And it it it is the thought that not only will I help all sentient beings to be free of suffering and its causes, but I I will do it alone.
That I alone, by myself, without the help of anyone at all, I will enlighten every sentient being. So in one sense that it’s kind of crazy thought. Also it’s can I say it’s a it’s a it’s an unrealistic thought in the sense that many beings, many Buddhas, countless Buddhas and countless Bodhisattvas are already helping to enlighten sentient beings? You can’t stop them and say you’ve got to stop. I’m going to enlighten everyone.
I will do it better and faster and faster. So in that sense it’s kind of unrealistic but it is still a valid thought because it’s a thought that is far stronger than the thought of great compassion because it’s the thought that I will do it alone, that I have it is my unique responsibility to repay the kindness of all sentient beings. Only I can do that. Not because I’m better than all the other Buddhas, more special, will have greater powers than all the Buddhas and whatever. But the fact is that if someone is kind to ourself, then only we can repay that kindness.
If another person is, you know, kind to that person, it doesn’t reduce the obligation I have to help someone. Or to put it simply, if someone lends me a dollar and then someone else gives that person who lent me a dollar a dollar, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have to give back the dollar that was lent to me just because someone else gave them the dollar. I am still responsible to give that dollar back that was lent to me. In the same way, if someone is kind to me, there is some obligation from my side as a decent human being to repay that kindness even if someone else is kind to that being. So just because many Buddhas are enlightening sentient beings, it doesn’t mean, oh, I don’t have to do anything to repay the kindness because it’s taken care of.
There are all these Buddhas already doing it, so I can let them just carry on and just whatever. One has this sense that this laksum, this sense of universal responsibility is this valid mind that arises that is more than great compassion, that has this sense, you know, that that I have to repay this kindness. I can’t live without repaying it. I’ve got to repay the kindness that every single sentient being paid to me. Right?
So it’s something really inconceivable. So it’s it’s a it’s a of mind, an attitude of mind. Because of course the person who generates that knows that many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are benefitting sentient beings, but still there is that valid thought that I, no matter what, I have to, you know, as much as I can, be responsible for repaying the kindness that I’ve received. Is that making some sense? Yeah?
Right. So then, with that great wish, that sense of universal responsibility, that leads into thinking, well, how am I going to be responsible? How can I take on that responsibility? I feel that responsibility incredibly powerfully. Is not just some kind of wishy washy thought.
It’s something, you know, incredibly intense. So how can I fulfill that responsibility to repay the kindness of all sentient beings? So as I am, as an ordinary being, there’s no way I can do it. It’s just absurd to say, I I, as I am now, I will repay the kindness of all sentient beings. I can’t even make anyone happy for five minutes, let alone keep them happy forever.
So what does it mean to take on the responsibility of enlightening all sentient beings? Just imagine, you know, what whatever street you live in in Adelaide, just hope it’s a short street and all the houses there and how many people living in that street. And you think how long it would take you to enlighten just the people in your street, Probably none of whom are Buddhist. So if you were to knock on the door and say, Hi, I’m here to enlighten you, they would probably call up the police and get you committed or something or punch you in the face or whatever. Even with people who like us, family and friends and whatever, it’s very difficult to point out people’s faults to them, try to get them to change.
Even if we know what the faults are, even what would really help other people, sometimes it’s much easier to see what would help people than the people themselves can never see what they need to do to make their life better. And people try and say, oh, you know, don’t do that. Try and do that. But people don’t listen. People don’t want to be told what’s wrong with them.
They don’t want to be told what to do. The more you do that, the more upset people will get and stick to their behavior. So to try and change even one sentient being is, you know, even even a little bit, even in this life to make this life better for them is incredibly difficult. Unbelievable difficult. One requires immense patience and wisdom and and and and skill and an incredible understanding of the human mind and that particular person and what motivates them.
Right? So imagine with all sentient beings, many of which aren’t even human beings, so think it. We have some idea of how human beings think but how do crocodiles think? If they do. Anyway, yes, so it’s a huge job.
So you one would have to have immense patience because it’s gonna take billions of lifetimes. Incredible love, compassion, tolerance, perseverance, joy, courage, incredible insights, skills, and one would have to have perfect clairvoyance to know what’s going on in the mind of another person so you’re able to say exactly the right thing at the right time that will help them and the patience to help them achieve enlightenment over lifetimes, lifetimes, and not get upset with them when they do all the wrong things or don’t do the things you suggest. Like our teachers who are teaching us, you know, the the the realized beings who come to this world and teach the Dharma to us, they do it for years and years and years and years. And not only that, they’ve been doing it for lifetimes. They have been doing it for lifetimes, telling us the same things for lifetimes, waiting for us to get it With incredible love and compassion and perseverance and patience, waiting for us to get the message.
And we scream and yell at them. Sometimes we say, thank you. You’re so wonderful. And then we hit them and and we say, you. You’re wonderful.
But don’t do what they say. Do the complete opposite, get another Guru who will tell us what we want to hear. And yet they teach us life after life after life. And they find us, you know, wherever we are in another realm, in another place. They find us and hook us.
Well, the the super realized ones do. Yeah. Yeah. When this whole organization, this center, the whole FPMT exists because of the kindness of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa. And because they met also because they met this Russian American princess called Zina Rachevsky.
And so she helped the llamas start to get things going. Well, she thought she was helping them, but they were helping her. And then she died up in retreat, up in the mountains in in Solu Khumbu in Nepal. And and then she was reborn as a little boy in France. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche found her again.
Yeah. I I find that really quite inspiring that, you know, the Lamas find you again and try again or guide you a bit more. I mean yeah. So, yeah, the point is one needs incredible qualities to achieve and to enlighten others, to guide them, to help them. In other words, when you investigate, the only way to really help sentient beings to be able to free them from suffering, to take on that universal responsibility of leading all beings away from suffering, all beings to achieve peerless, everlasting happiness, you have to become enlightened.
Even to do that for one sentient being, the only way to do it for one’s mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, child, best friend, whatever, is to become a Buddha. So on the basis of having developed this intense sense of universal responsibility and thinking, what? You know, I’ve just committed myself. I have to. One has this intense, you know, determination to benefit all sentient beings, then one realizes the only way I can do that is to become a Buddha.
So then you generate the thought, I will. And that’s bodhicitta. That’s the effect. The effect comes, oh, I have to become a Buddha? Then I will.
With the understanding, what does that mean? I have to give up all my self-cherishing completely, all my delusions completely, I have to purify my mind completely, I have to do all this very difficult practice and I have to realize I have to awaken all my positive qualities completely. I have to totally develop wisdom, destroy ignorance, so I will do it. Yeah? I will achieve enlightenment, and I will do everything necessary no matter how difficult it is and how long it takes because I have to enlighten all sentient beings.
So that’s how this mind, the thought seeking enlightenment, bodhicitta, arises as the effect of recognizing all sentient beings as mother, remembering the kindness of each sentient being as having been one’s mother, wanting to repay that kindness, generating great love for them, great compassion and the sense of universal responsibility. By training the mind in those stages, it will at some point, it will definitely, because of dependent arising, arising depending on those six causes, at some point the thought, not this little fizzy thought that we have, this incredible intense commitment to achieve enlightenment will arise and that is bodhicitta. And that will be spontaneous bodhicitta we’re talking about. Not the not the effortful one that just arises for a very, very short time. So any questions on that?
Yes. Yeah. The six causes and one effect technique. You have those six causes and then that leads to this result, the thought, this determination, I I the commitment to achieve enlightenment. So that mind committed to, determined to achieve enlightenment, that mind, you know, want which is based on wanting to free all sentient beings from suffering and bring them to perfect happiness, That mind is bodhicitta.
Alright. So bodhicitta isn’t love. It isn’t compassion. It isn’t the great wish. It’s something that arises based on them on them, and it’s something more than them.
Alright? bodhicitta isn’t like you know, many times amongst Buddhists when someone is nice and kind, everyone says, oh, he, she must be a bodhisattva. This is a nice thing to say at one level. At another level, it’s just rubbish and ridiculous because being nice a bodhisattva, you know, anyone can be nice. Yeah.
A bodhisattva is someone who is far, far, far, far, far, far, far, far more than a nice person who does nice things. Alright. Even someone sacrificing their life for others, that that doesn’t mean they’re a bodhisattva. I mean, it could be an act of bodhicitta, but not necessarily. That’s just could be someone being compassionate for that person that they sacrificed their lives for.
It actually even could be due to attachment. So bodhicitta is a really inconceivable state of mind. But the amazing thing is, folks, guess what? We all have the potential for it. Otherwise, there’d be no point talking about this tonight.
It is the very nature of our mind. Okay. No questions? Crystal clear? Alright.
Okay. Rapidly moving along, there is Śāntideva’s method of generating bodhicitta. So Śāntideva was an Indian master who lived at Nālānda monastery in the eighth century of this era. Last time no. It wasn’t the last.
Was it the last time? Last or second to last time I visited Nālānda Monastery which is in Bihar State. Normally, when I led a little pilgrimage group and we were for that was the first time I’d ever bothered to get a tourist guide. So, he he showed us around and he showed us Śāntideva’s room which of course is nonsense. No one knows where Śāntideva lived but he was, you know, this is Śāntideva’s room.
Anyway, yeah. So, not much is known about the life of Śāntideva. He only composed or there are only a few texts surviving that he composed. One of which is this wonderful text called the guide to the bodhisattva way of life, which has been translated and in in English in about there’s about six versions of it now, I think, something like that. So in that in that text, it it explains his method of generating bodhicitta.
His method of generating bodhicitta is called the equalizing and exchanging self with others method. Okay? And again, it’s based on firstly having developed equanimity towards friends, enemies, strangers. And so it has four unique features aspects. So the the first unique feature of Śāntideva’s method of equalizing and exchanging self with others is the equalizing developing that mind that sees the equality between self, oneself, and all other sentient beings without exception.
That’s the first unique feature of Śāntideva’s method of generating bodhicitta. Then the second cause, which I unfortunately won’t talk about this week, but talk about next week, is understanding, recognizing all the faults of one’s own self-cherishing thought. The third cause is seeing the vast benefits of cherishing others more than self. This leads to the fourth unique cause of Śāntideva’s method, which is on the basis of wanting to give up one’s self-cherishing, wanting to cherish developing that mind, cherishing others more than self, there is training the mind to, you know, exchange oneself with others, to sort of see others as oneself. And within that there is a particular meditation technique to do that which in Tibetan is called tonglen, which means giving and taking.
Which in one level is a very, you know, simple meditation, but it’s very profound, but like other many simple meditations, difficult to do, probably. But very powerful, very special technique. And by training in exchanging self with others more and more, that leads again to the effect of realizing that the only way to be able to perfectly exchange myself with others, to be able to completely free them from suffering, bring them perfect happiness is to become a Buddha. Therefore, I will do everything necessary to achieve enlightenment. So the meditation on equal well, the the logic for equalizing self with others is is is fairly simple.
That that that’s one of the beauties of it. It’s just a matter of meditating on these points over and over again to really drive the point home because even if we’ve developed a mind of equanimity where we’re able to see all other sentient beings as basically the same, as basically all deserving happiness, deserving not to suffer. Even if we’ve achieved that, which is not a particularly Mahāyāna achievement, this is something that one needs to achieve following the path to liberation as well to achieve equanimity. But even if we’ve achieved that that that mindset, which is a pretty amazing thing to be able to do is no matter whether people are friendly to you, you know, hateful towards you or indifferent, that from one’s own side, one has this, you know, equanimous friendliness, openness to others. Even if we’ve got that, still there will tend to be, if we haven’t done anything about it, because of our self-cherishing, we will still see this gap between self and others, and our self-cherishing will tell us that I am more important than others.
That one’s own self-cherishing will say that my suffering is somehow in a different category from other people’s suffering. Yeah? That my need for happiness is far greater and more important than others’ need for happiness. That’s what our self-cherishing tells us all the time. Fortunately, we have other voices of kindness and compassion, etcetera, that say different things, but our self-cherishing, that that’s its nature, will tell us my suffering is greater than others.
My suffering has to be dealt with first. My need for happiness comes first. Alright? It’s, you know, I am special. I, the self-cherishing thought, basically tells us, you know, the self-cherishing thought is, although it’s very sneaky and clever, it’s also very dumb and stupid because it’s a product of ignorance.
It’s a reflection of ignorance. So it you know, full blown self-cherishing tells us that I am the center of the universe. The whole universe, it basically exists for me. No one else, for me, or it should. self-cherishing things, the universe should exist for me to make me happy.
It all should go according to my plans. Right? Not anyone else’s plans, but my plans. What I want now is how everything should be. Right?
That’s the full blown self-cherishing thought. Right? So, we have to get rid of that because it’s a disaster. And right. So so one way of doing that, the first step in doing that, undermining our self-cherishing, which says which puts me first as different, is to train to see the truth, the truth that in fact I am no different in essence from any other sentient being.
That if with whatever sentient being I choose from out the from the entire universe, whether it’s a human being, animal, what a preta, hell being, god being, Bardo being, in essence, I’m no different. Same. So one can develop the the the realization of that equality, that essential sameness. So one this this realization is not denying that, of course, there are many, many, many differences between sentient beings. So if we just take because we can’t see beings in the other realms other than animals, And of course, we see a huge difference between our self and animals.
Some people don’t. Some people identify with their dogs and cats and so on. But generally, people see a huge difference between themselves and animals. And but but also, we we see so many differences between amongst human beings. And for sure, there are many, many, many differences.
Right? That’s obvious. Yeah. There’s differences between young people and old people, between men and women, between between people of different ethnic groups, different racial groups. What else?
Different level, you know, different types of, you know, intelligence and so on. So there’s many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many kinds of differences one can find between between others and between oneself and others. And the point one point to consider is the mind that focuses on those differences, that mindset and and, yeah, really focuses on those, that creates the barrier, this self and others. And therefore, it creates the it becomes the condition to generate attachment for some, aversion for others, and indifference for others, some others. And and and yeah.
So all all ones it becomes the basis for all ones negative qualities to activate. Alright? Whereas if we can focus on the similarities, if we can find any similarities between ourself and another being, When we do that, we immediately feel some connection with that person, with that being, if we see there is some similarity. And once there is some sense of connection and then the barriers between self and others are not so strong and there is a possibility we create the condition where our mind, our heart can open to feel love and compassion, concern, and so on for for other because they don’t seem so other. If we see some some being as inherently other than ourself, yeah, then there’s no connection.
So one can do also know, with the Nazis when they see you know, that that mindset saw the Jewish people as inherently other than themselves. And so you can you can torture such people. You can kill them, and it really doesn’t matter because they’re inherently other. They may look like a human being, but they aren’t really. They are different.
They’re inherently different. Alright? And the mind focuses on that. So even if they scream out when you stab them, it doesn’t matter because it’s not the same, because they’re inherently different. Alright?
But as soon as you start to feel that this person isn’t really all that different from myself, then it becomes very difficult to hurt them. Yeah. And there you have because there’s some connection, you can identify the feelings of this person with oneself. Alright. So there’s that empathy can develop.
So this is what we’re training to do to, you know, to get rid of that, to let go of that mind that focuses on the differences and to focus on the similarities. So, you know, if we look at other human beings, if we start with human beings, if we look at the the behavior of other human beings, other human beings do so many different things in their lives. You know, different between human beings, different and different from myself. You know, people do really stupid things, very intelligent things, really virtuous things, extremely horrible, negative, non virtuous things, brave things, cowardly things, small minded things, big minded things. So many, many, many, many, many, many differences which we can focus on and think, oh, you know, I would never do that.
I’m so superior. I’d never do those kinds of things. The things I do are so wonderful. I would never do stupid negative blah blah blah blah. Things like that.
But the point is not in the meditation, not to focus, not just in meditation, but in our daily life. But we first, we need we need to meditate on this and then relate it to our daily life is that rather than looking at the external behavior, because that’s that’s all we can actually see is the external behavior of other people, we can reflect why are people doing all of those things, The things they do. Why are they doing it? And one can then check, is it true or not that all these things, good, bad, stupid, intelligent, this or that, that other people are doing, isn’t it simply because they’re trying to avoid suffering? Just like me.
All the things I do sometimes I do intelligent things to avoid suffering. Sometimes I do really stupid things. Sometimes I do virtuous things to avoid suffering. Sometimes I do really non virtuous things to avoid suffering. Sometimes I’m very courageous in trying to avoid suffering.
Sometimes I’m very cowardly just like other people. Just they do the same things just like me. Maybe the action is different, but the motivation is just the same. Just the same. Check up to try and get really convinced about it.
Because once you sort of see that once we can see that that act this person who I’m judging and may be judging and putting down, thinking, oh, you know, that that you know, how bad that is, how terrible, how stupid, how blah blah blah, how self how selfish that is. But why are they doing it? They think that is the way to avoid suffering. And when I do things, it’s because that’s what I think at the time will avoid suffering. That’s all.
It’s the same. The mindset is just the same. It’s not denying that maybe this is a negative, stupid action. This one is a positive action. But the mind the motivation the mind motivation is just the same.
It’s just like me. That person is just like me in trying to avoid suffering. True or not, check up. You the person who steals from you, lies to you, bashes you up, insults you, gives you a bad reputation. They’re all doing it just to be of to a from some from somehow, they’re trying to avoid some suffering in their life.
And another way to look at it is why do people do all the things they do, all different things, is because they’re just trying to be happy. Just like me. Everything I do from the moment I get up in the morning to the time I go to bed, why I get up, why I go to bed, why I stay out of bed for whatever length of time I’m there is just trying to be happy. Everything I do, Whether it’s whether I’m conscious of it or not, I’m trying to be happy. I don’t do things to make try you know, to try to be miserable.
I do things to try to be happy. Yeah. And if if you check other people, the things they do, good, bad, stupid, intelligent, virtuous, non virtuous, brave, cowardly, big, small, they’re just trying to be happy, just like me. Some people overeat to be happy. Some people diet to be happy.
Some people eat tons of meat to be happy. Some people become vegans to be happy. Some people don’t eat to be happy. Yeah. People do completely different things for exactly the same reason.
Some people murder others to be happy. Some people save lives to be happy. So but if we can identify we we’re not we’re not agreeing with a bad behavior. We’re just trying to identify with what is similar so we can feel compassion for that being, affection for that being, you know, love for that being. And, of course, of course, this the interesting thing, more wonderful, is this this this way of thinking not only applies.
See, this person did that trying to be happy. They want a break. I’m going to continue because anyway, for the same reason, I want to be happy by explaining this a bit more. You know, I got confused. Where am I?
Oh, yes. So the wonderful thing is that this that argument applies not just to human beings, but to animals. You know? We we feel as though we’re completely different from animals because they’ve got different bodies. Some are so much bigger than ours.
Some are so tiny. Some are look look so hideous and weird and creepy. You know, and we think, you know, nothing to do with me. This isn’t, you know, it’s not even, you know, it’s not even sentient. But that being has a mind and that mind has the same wish.
It just, it it everything it’s doing is to avoid suffering just like me. Everything it does is to be try to be happy just like me. That’s all. No different. No big deal.
We’re no more special than, you know, a cockroach in that sense. They’re just trying to be happy just like me. You know, a pig wallowing in the in the mud trying to be happy just like me. Really? Yeah.
Crocodile chomping off someone’s leg, trying to be happy just like me. Really? Everything yeah. Everything every cent in being, same. We’re just the same, basically.
There’s that fundamental sameness driving us. That that drive to avoid suffering and to have happiness is is impossible to stop. Every sentient being has it. There’s no difference. It’s the essential thing.
Yeah? It’s what his holiness always talks about. His big message is we’re just the same. All human beings basically the same. It’s finding these differences and clinging to them that make all the problems.
I mean, we yeah. And and also one can think another way is that we all have delusions. You know? Every sentient being by definition has delusions. We we all have anger, attachment, desire, pride, jealousy.
You know? We we don’t have the same delusions at the same time or with the same intensity, but we all have the same delusions. We all have the potential for them. You know, any particular person can be extremely kind in this life. Another human being can be extremely, you know, vicious person in this life because of karma.
But, everyone has you know, anger in one person is the same as anger in another person. There’s no there’s no difference. We can’t say my anger is somehow high class anger. You know? I I have a really very special, beautiful kind of anger whereas other people’s anger is horrible and nasty, but mine is really charming.
You know? It was rubbish anger. Anger is anger. It’s horrible whether it’s in in, you know, myself or another person, another being, you know, or or in an animal or whatever. Whether it’s in a rich person or a poor person, whether it’s in a beautiful person or an ugly person, intelligent person, not intelligent person.
It’s just anger. Yeah. And we all suffer from it. We all suffer from these delusions. So we’re all the same.
Yeah. So if we focus on that, then we can open our hearts to others. But if we if we focus on the differences, then we shut down. We block this potential for love, compassion, etcetera, etcetera. And just very quickly, we all have minds.
All sentient beings have minds. The mind of every human being is the same. We all have different minds, but all our minds have the same nature. It is clear and knowing. You can’t have one mind that is more clear and knowing than another.
You can have minds more obscured, but the nature of the mind, of every human mind, is the same. And but also the the nature of every animal’s mind is clear and knowing just like human mind. It’s diff it’s not different. It’s in a different body. But the nature of an animal’s mind and the nature of a human mind, same, exactly the same.
an animal mind, of course, is much more obscured, but the mind that is obscured is the same as human mind, And same for all sentient beings in all the realms. The nature of mind is the same. And all minds have Buddha nature. Every human being from the the most wonderful to the apparently most horrible people in the world, they all have Buddha nature. There’s no one has more Buddha nature than another or a better kind of Buddha nature.
It’s exactly the same. And every being in the animal realm, in the pretas realms, in the hell realms, in the god realms, in the Bardo state, because they have mind, they have Buddha nature. It’s all the same. So there are many other things, but there there’s some few points to meditate on to try and see to develop this mind, seeing the equality between self and others. And just in conclusion, just to wrap that up, to quote something that Jeffrey Hopkins once said, which I found really inspiring, is that I can’t remember exactly how he put it, but something like if you’re walking along the street, you know, like in town, then then there are all these hundreds, thousands of people who appear as strangers to us, and we can, you know, feel indifference or aversion to them and whatever.
But he made this point that actually whoever we meet, no matter how, you know, strange and and other they appear to us, there is something something unknown to us. There is something intimate we know about every sentient being. Something very intimate about that person. And that intimate thing, of course, is that person wants to be happy and doesn’t want suffering just like me. Completely the same.
So they can be a completely different shape than ourselves, completely different color, dressed completely differently, speaking a completely different language, completely different ideas so they can look they seem like a completely different thing, but they just want to be happy just like me. They don’t want to suffer just like me. Hopkins, professor Jeffrey Hopkins, who’s translated many, many great dharma texts. Professor Jeffrey Hopkins. Okay.
That’s it. We all want a cup of tea or a coffee. Some want coffee, some want tea, some want water, some don’t want anything. But it’s all because we all want to be happy. So we’re just doing a little meditation together on Śāntideva’s equalizing self with others.
We can begin by firstly sitting comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible. Then just focusing the mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise just briefly. So then begin just by reflecting on whether it’s true or not that the more I I I focus on the different differences between myself and others, the more I’m creating barriers between myself and others, the more I’m blocking the ability to feel a connection with others, to feel affection, kindness, concern, love, and compassion. And in fact by focusing on those differences then there can be a tendency for all sorts of negative mind states to rise towards others. Senses of superiority, jealousy, fear, aversion.
And then check whether it’s true or not that when one feels some similarity between oneself and another being, some point of identification, there’s a sense of connection. There is less barriers. One is able to open one’s heart, at least to some extent, to that other being. Consider how in that state Certainly it doesn’t cause harm to others by being open to others, but it really benefits me as well. When I open my heart to others, Not sure how much at first it benefits others, but it definitely benefits me.
Under the control of the self-cherishing thought, we only identify a small group of people as friends feeling similar to them. But just reflect how rather than focusing on all those external differences between self and others, If I look beyond those superficial differences into the inner motivation of beings, then everything people do, all the things they do, is either motivated to be happy, or to be free of suffering just like me. So just check up how true that is when you think of different people in different countries, different situations, that really behind all those apparent differences, there is that fundamental similarity. People just want happiness, don’t want suffering, just like me. And it’s not only true for all human beings, but for all sentient beings.
They’re all just like me. Try and see how all sentient beings human, nonhuman, in all the different realms, they all have delusions, they all have disturbing thoughts, all subject to experiencing afflicted desire, anger, pride and jealousy, fears and worries. And they all suffer from their own delusions just like me. So bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in daily life, to focus not so much on the outer external differences, but to focus on the inner sameness that whoever I see, whoever I think of, hear about, They just want to be happy and avoid suffering just like me. So then we can dedicate the the merit of tonight’s I think this is also page eleven.
Through 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 bodhimind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore. Just very quickly, I don’t know if everyone has taken the homework, but just quickly to explain the the daily meditation for tomorrow, you do it, is just to meditate briefly on what I talked about tonight, the last two causes or the last part of Asaṇga’s method of thinking about generating that sense of universal responsibility which leads to generating the thought I must achieve enlightenment. Then on Thursday going back to the topic of meditating on no no no, continuing with Śāntideva’s first cause of equalizing self with others.
So I gave a few points in the talk about how we’re all the same. On Friday going back to the basic meditation on equanimity. Then the first two causes of Saturday, the first two causes of bodhicitta through Asaṇga’s method. Then the next two, which is generating that wish to repay their kindness, generating love. Then Monday, the the next two causes, which is great compassion and the great wish, and that leads to generating the thought, I’ve got to achieve enlightenment.
Right? And then again on Tuesday, doing the meditation we just did, equalizing self with others, with as many arguments as you can think of. All have minds the same, delusions the same, we all want happiness the same, we all don’t want suffering the same, we all have Buddha nature the same. That. So actually I think that meditation is one of the nicest, most beautiful, best best meditations in the whole Buddhadharma.
It’s extremely simple, but it’s it’s very, very effective. If we could just in our life remember that peep you know, this person who’s really annoying me and doing these dumb things just wants to be happy and not suffer like me. It would protect us. You know, if we really, really felt that, not just said the words, but really recognized that, it would protect us from our negative so much from our negative thoughts and enable us to feel some compassion, concern for that being. The more obnoxious they got, the more compassion we would feel.
Okay. Thank you very much. We can finish for those who feel comfortable to do so, especially those who’ve