Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 105-minute talk, Ven Thubten Dondrub teaches the foundations of the Buddhist path to enlightenment, focusing on bodhicitta—the heartfelt determination to achieve buddhahood in order to free all sentient beings from suffering. He begins by establishing proper motivation for listening and explains the three principal qualities one must develop: renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom. He then outlines the three levels of spiritual capacity, progressively showing how a practitioner moves from renouncing attachment to this life, to renouncing cyclic existence itself, to finally renouncing the selfish goal of one’s own nirvana and embracing the universal responsibility to liberate all beings. He presents two major methods for cultivating bodhicitta: Asaṇga’s six-cause method (recognizing all beings as one’s mother, remembering their kindness, generating love and compassion, developing the wish to help them, and embracing universal responsibility) and Śāntideva’s equalizing-self-with-others method (developing equanimity, recognizing oneself as no different from others in wanting happiness and fearing suffering, rejecting self-cherishing, and recognizing the benefits of cherishing others instead). Throughout, he emphasizes that this training begins with equanimity—dissolving fixed notions of friend, enemy, and stranger—and culminates in a wholehearted commitment to the bodhisattva path. The teaching concludes with a brief overview of the six perfections and guidance for daily practice. Aimed at sincere practitioners beginning the graduated path.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Presenting the path week 5.mp3
UUID: 7d505406-a47e-42eb-bd83-e3ea5043799b
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Presenting the Path (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2018 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 105.0 minutes
Words: ~12,947
So welcome heartily, reminders of presenting the path. It’s got too cold for people or something to come tonight. So again, there’s a whole lot of material to cover. And just to remind you, this is a very simple overview of the whole path. This is just to give some sense of what the path is, what it involves.
So there are many, many more details than what I’m able to cover in this short period of time. So since the whole Mahāyāna teachings are about encouraging us to realise our Buddha potential so that not only can we achieve what we’ve always what we always want to achieve, which is freedom from suffering and to experience peerless, everlasting happiness, but also it’s encouraging us to achieve enlightenment so that we can be of lasting benefit, perfect lasting benefit to all sentient beings, and in this way repaying the kindness that we’ve received from all sentient beings life after life. So since this is the whole purpose of the teachings when we listen to them, it’s really good if our motivation for listening matches the purpose of the teaching. So from our side as much as possible we can try and generate this wish to free our mind of all negative qualities that harm ourself and others. and to awaken all those qualities and develop them more and more to benefit ourselves and especially benefit others.
So as much as possible trying to generate that bodhicitta motivation, wanting to realise the full potential of one’s mind to be able to help all sentient beings realise their full potential, and in this way becoming free of suffering and achieving peerless, everlasting happiness. So as we try and generate that thought to help us do that, there’s the traditional prayer that we can say, is on page nine, the Roman nine. I think that’s right, isn’t it? I’ll get it right one day. Yes, eleven, page eleven, close.
And as we say the prayer, then it can be more effective to think of the Buddha in front of us as our possible source of refuge and guidance and inspiration, and to think of all sentient beings surrounding us as motivating us to realise our Buddha potential. So thinking that in order to achieve enlightenment, I have to follow the path, to follow the path successfully, I have to understand the path, so for the sake of all sentient beings, I will study the path to enlightenment. I go for refuge until I am 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 thinking the Buddha is pleased with our motivation, we imagine the Buddha now comes to the crown of our head, dissolves into blissful golden light, and then that light pours down into us, blessing our mind to be able to understand the teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment, blessing our mind to be able to put them into practice, blessing our mind to be able to eventually gain the unmistaken, undeclining realisations.
So then we can enhance that positive state of mind by just briefly doing the nine round breathing exercise, to help our mind become a little bit calmer, clearer, more concentrated in order to use that level of mind, that state of mind to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so the path to enlightenment can be presented from the point of view of the three qualities that we need to develop, which is the quality of renunciation, bodhicitta and wisdom. These are the three principal paths or three principal qualities that one needs to develop step by step in achieving enlightenment. And firstly, we have to be able to develop renunciation, then we can develop either bodhicitta or then wisdom or wisdom and then bodhicitta.
But the way the path has been presented, especially in the Gelugpa tradition, one is encouraged to generate bodhicitta first and then wisdom, because if we generate wisdom first, there’s the danger that we may give up seeking enlightenment and just go for the easy goal of or the relatively easy goal of just becoming free of cyclic existence ourselves and aiming for the bliss of nirvana. So that there’s a presentation, the way the Lamrim is set out in the Gelugpa tradition is we develop renunciation, bodhicitta and then wisdom. Actually, bodhicitta is much more difficult to generate than wisdom, but that’s how it’s set out. And then another way the lam rim, graduated path is set out is according to leading the mind through the three levels of spiritual ability or capacity. So there’s the practices of the being of initial spiritual capacity, where which are about renouncing our attachment or obsession with this life.
So this is about recognising we have a precious human rebirth, that we’re going to die, everything of this life is impermanent, then after death we could fall into the lower realms, so we think about the suffering we could experience in the lower realms. This leads us to think about refuge, and that leads us to commit ourselves to basing our life, living our life according to the law of cause and effect. So if we do those things, this is what helps us renounce our obsession with this life. And then the next level of spiritual capacity or ability is developing the mind completely renouncing any attachment or wish to remain in cyclic existence by realising cyclic existence. Our mind, controlled by delusions and karma, is only suffering.
So we have to think about the different kinds of suffering of cyclic existence, that even our what we call happiness is a very subtle kind of suffering or a state of dissatisfaction, and that encourages us to follow the three higher trainings of morality, concentration and wisdom to get out of a cyclic existence. But then there is the third level of spiritual capacity, the highest level of spiritual capacity, which is the practice of the person who is renouncing. So there’s the small renunciation of this life, then there’s a renunciation of saṃsāra, and then the being of higher spiritual capacity, which is what we’re going to look at tonight, is the person who renounces attachment to seeking the bliss of nirvana and instead generates the bodhicitta mind determined to seek enlightenment, realising that just as I want to be free of cyclic existence and I want to so I want to be free of suffering and I want to experience genuine happiness, it’s true for everyone. Every sentient being wants the same things. And all of these sentient beings have been immensely kind to me, they’ve been my mother, so how can I possibly just seek my own liberation and the bliss of nirvana, depending on sentient beings, suffering sentient beings to do that, and then leave them to suffer?
So yes. So that’s what we’re now thinking about. So So in order to renounce so so yeah. So the first two levels of spiritual capacity are really about working for our own happiness. And then But the more we do those meditations, like, for example, as I tried to point out last week, the more we meditate on the sufferings of cyclic existence, which is our sufferings, I will while I remain in cyclic existence, I will experience the suffering of being born again and again, dying again and again, getting old again and again, sick, being separated from what I don’t want to separate, all of these things.
But the more one meditates on that and develops compassion for oneself, one can begin to realise that these are not unique to me, that every sentient being is subject to those sufferings. Right? And all of those sentient beings have been my mother. So one as well as developing it’s aimed at developing real compassion for oneself in order to renounce the causes of that suffering, but it’s also an incredible basis for being able to develop greater and greater compassion for all sentient beings, even one’s enemies, because one can start to realise even one’s enemies and all the terrible people in the world are suffering as well, and their terrible behaviour is actually creating the cause. You know, they’re engaging in that terrible behaviour thinking they’re going to, you know, be happy and etcetera, etcetera, but actually they’re creating the cause for horrendous suffering for themselves in the future.
Right. So yeah, so the third level of spiritual capacity, the highest level, is about generating bodhicitta, realising that one has Buddha nature and I have the ability not only to escape cyclic existence myself, but I have the ability to help every sentient being to escape from cyclic existence. And more than that, not only just become free of suffering, but to help them realise their Buddha nature so that they can achieve peerless, everlasting happiness. How wonderful that would be, and that would be the best way, and not only the best way, but really the only way to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings, because nothing else would, really. What else can one do that would really pay repay all the kindness that sentient beings have given us and all the sufferings they’ve had to endure for because of us, including like the suffering our mother undergoes just to give birth to us, or to keep her keep us in her womb for nine months, and then to give birth to us, and then look after us, little grubby things, for many years.
So what would really repay that kindness? You know, one friend mentioned, you know, she used to think about if she only had a million dollars, you know, how she would spend that on her family. But when she asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche about that, he said, well, a million dollars would never repay the kindness, would it? Because it wouldn’t stop our mother dying, getting sick, all those things. It’d be nice to give our mom a million dollars, but still, it wouldn’t it wouldn’t do the trick.
It wouldn’t relieve her from one suffering, in fact. It wouldn’t protect our mother from one suffering. I mean, it might pay the hospital bills, but still, even in the most expensive hospital ward with the most expensive doctors, you’re still suffering. Anyway, so Okay, so the topic is now bodhicitta. bodhicitta literally means something like bodhi, of course, is mind No, sorry, cheetah is mind, and bodhi is enlightenment.
So it literally means something like the mind seeking enlightenment or the So there are two kinds of bodhicitta. There is what is called conventional bodhicitta, and then there is ultimate bodhicitta. So ultimate bodhicitta is referring to the wisdom that directly perceives the empty nature or the true nature of all phenomena. And when we talk about bodhicitta generally, when we just use the word bodhicitta, we’re talking about conventional bodhicitta, which is the mind wishing to achieve enlightenment, the mind determined to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit, repay the kindness of all sentient beings without exception. Alright.
So conventional bodhicitta is based on great love and great compassion, and because of that But it’s more than that, it’s more than just great love and great compassion. But arising from that comes the wish to achieve enlightenment in order to because of recognising it only as an enlightened being, in other words, only when my mind is completely free of all faults, and only when my mind when all the positive qualities of my mind are always functioning, and only when my mind is omniscient and completely unmistaken, that only when the mind is like that can real benefit come to others. One will be able to completely understand the needs of others unmistakenly and know exactly how to guide them away from suffering and so on. So then there becomes the wish that I have to achieve enlightenment, because that’s the only way to really effectively repay the kindness of Mother Sentient beings. So then within conventional bodhicitta, you can talk about there is wishing bodhicitta, and then there is entering or engaging bodhicitta.
So wishing bodhicitta analogy is given that wishing bodhicitta is like, for example, we may have a wish to go to Paris, but then when you actually get on the plane and go, that’s like engaging or entering bodhicitta. So yeah. And wishing bodhicitta is more than just like we can have many, many wishes, right, we all have, know, I wish I was rich, I wish I was better looking, I wish I could do this, I wish but we don’t do anything about it because the wish isn’t actually very strong. Or maybe it gets strong, but then we realise, oh, it’s very difficult to accomplish, so, you know, it doesn’t go very far. Whereas when we’re talking about the wish to achieve enlightenment, this is like something really authentic.
It’s a complete wholehearted determination to do so. It’s not some kind of wishy washy thing that goes up and down and disappears and comes back. It’s there. Right? And it’s genuine, it’s completely whole it’s a wholehearted commitment enlightenment, to achieve enlightenment.
And so within that, within also wishing and engaging bodhicitta, you can talk about there is effortful bodhicitta and then there is spontaneous bodhicitta. So effortful bodhicitta, I think I mentioned briefly last week, when that bodhicitta mind arises temporarily because one’s thought about it strongly, you know, at the time, so because of strongly thinking about it, that mind arises. So that’s what we have to cultivate again and again and again, until eventually what arises is spontaneous bodhicitta, which is there all the time. It just takes over the mind and is there, it’s just spontaneously there all the time. But it arises from cultivating effortful bodhicitta over and over and over and over again.
And, of course, purifying the mind, cultivating merit, all those other things as well. I won’t go into the benefits of bodhicitta they’re set out in your handout. I should have given the handout a title so we can distinguish them, but it’s this one that looks like that. The one that doesn’t start with saying equalising self with others, that’s handout two. This is handout one, which starts off with a quotation from Lama Yeshe and then gives a definition of bodhicitta.
So there are infinite benefits of bodhicitta, but the basic one is that it is the it’s only by generating bodhicitta, conventional bodhicitta, that we will achieve enlightenment we have to generate it. But it’s the most virtuous mind we can positively create, and so then anything we do with the bodhicitta motivation brings about the greatest purification and at the same time creates the greatest merit. And because of that, you know, it becomes easier and easier to achieve enlightenment. And it’s also the greatest protection for one’s own mind, for one’s self, because one, yeah, one has generated the most power, the most courageous mind possible. So there are basically two major methods of cultivating bodhicitta that I want to talk about tonight, and then there is another method which I won’t go into, but set out here on the second page.
But it’s a combination of the two methods. So the two methods of generating bodhicitta, one comes from the great Indian master called Asaṇga, who lived in, I think, around the fourth century of the modern era. So his name is Asaṇga. So his method is called the Six Causes and One Effect technique of generating bodhicitta. And then another method of generating bodhicitta comes from the great Indian master who lived in the eighth century, Śāntideva, and his method is called the ‘exchanging self with others’ equalising and exchanging self with others.
And His Holiness the Dalai Lama says that Śāntideva’s method is more powerful and in some ways is more suitable for the modern mind, partly because it requires less faith, perhaps. But Asaṇga’s method we’ll go through that briefly first is really good to study because I think it gives a very strong sense of what an amazing mind bodhicitta really is. Okay. So in order to develop generate bodhicitta, both methods also rely on firstly developing the mind of equanimity. So for us right now, because our mind is controlled by delusion and karma, and all our delusions together can be labelled as our self-cherishing.
So self-cherishing I’ll go into what it is in more detail, but self-cherishing sounds like a good thing, it’s actually a total disaster because the self that we’re talking about in self-cherishing is a wrong view of self, it’s the false sense of self that is actually the source of all our suffering, and the way we cherish, we try to cherish this sense of self that we have is not through having real love and compassion for ourself, etcetera, but by following attachment, afflicted desire, attachment, and by following, you know, in order to, thinking, this will make me happy, we get angry to protect our happiness, which actually makes it destroys our happiness. We get jealous when we see other people more successful than ourselves and proud when we think we’re being more successful than others. So in a sense, our self-cherishing, it just activates all our delusions. So it’s a total disaster and it’s the greatest obstacle to developing bodhicitta. So because of our self-cherishing, we, in our daily life and life after life, we when we interact with other people, we almost immediately and instinctively put people into three boxes.
Oh, they put them into just one of three boxes. We either see them as friend, enemy or stranger. Yeah. So any person that goes along with our self-cherishing, that’s our friend. That makes us feel comfortable, or, you know, they exaggerate, you know, they make us feel comfortable, and we’re not challenged or not frightened by them.
They make us feel good or better and special, so we like them. They’re our friends. And anyone who goes against our self-cherishing, who makes us feel uncomfortable, you know, who makes us feel small and insecure and frightened and inferior, etcetera, etcetera, that is the enemy. I know that’s a very strong word don’t take too much you know, get caught up with that. You think, oh, I don’t have enemies’.
But there are people we don’t like and we feel uncomfortable with and we tend to avoid. You know, we don’t spend much time with it. That’s the enemy. And then the person who doesn’t really seem to bother, you know, harm us or help us, we remain indifferent to. So that’s the stranger.
I mean, stranger literally means someone we don’t know at all, But I mean, here, a stranger can include all the people we don’t know, but people we just don’t really take much notice of. You know, we remain indifferent to them. We don’t particularly want to know them and get involved with them. So that’s what we do. Because we do that, that activates our attachment, our aversion and our indifference.
And those are great obstacles to being able to cultivate our love and compassion. Right? We think we love the friend, but actually it’s just really attachment. But it’s an obstacle developing real love. And of course, our anger is a great obstacle to developing love and compassion.
But also, if you think about it, even indifference is an obstacle. If one is indifferent to someone, how can you develop love or compassion for them? Because one just doesn’t care about them, one doesn’t take any notice of them. You know, there’s certainly people we work with or you see on the bus every day or down the street, and we just don’t really interact with them. So we have no idea whether they’re suffering well, they are suffering, actually.
Everyone’s suffering. But whether they have obvious suffering problems, we don’t know. We’re indifferent. Of course, we tend to remain indifferent to whole countries. You know, people get blown up in other countries.
We, you know, we read about it and don’t think anything of it. If it happened in Australia, we’d go bananas. Right? But, you know, in other countries, it doesn’t really touch us very much. That’s because, you know, I’m not trying this is all of us, but it’s partly our self-cherishing.
You know, we identify with such a small group of people, me and mine, and when me and mine are harmed or influenced, well, we take that very seriously. But if it’s not in my group, because of our self-cherishing, we find it very difficult. But we have that potential in us to feel connected with everyone. So anyway, while we continue to see people as friend, enemy and stranger, this is a great obstacle to developing love and compassion, and therefore we’ll never develop great love, great compassion or bodhicitta, only achieve enlightenment. So firstly, we have to develop equanimity.
This is not just something in develop this is something basic to all of Buddhist Dharma practice of developing equanimity, but especially if one wants to develop bodhicitta, it’s absolutely vital to do so. And there’s many details. One could talk for a long time about how to do this, but the essential things to meditate on, which I’d ask one to do in the homework, two essential things to reflect on in developing equanimity is firstly to reflect that, you know, know, what when we label someone a friend, enemy and stranger, what we also do is they tend to become permanent friend, or we believe, This is my permanent friend, this is permanent enemy and permanent stranger. But actually, this is an illusion. I mean, of course, some people do remain our friends for life and so on, but that’s not guaranteed at all, the way we grasp that it is.
And in fact, the reality is that friends become enemies, enemies become strangers, strangers become friends. It changes incredibly over time within our lifetimes. Of course, you know, people get married, you know, they fall in love and then they fall in hate and get divorced and don’t talk to each other and so on. That happens all the time. But when people fall in love, it’s permanent, yeah?
I will love this, it’s going to be wonderful forever, but sometimes it’s not like that. So this is what we have to reflect. What we’re trying to do is reduce our It’s not to stop liking people, but to reduce our attachment to them, and it’s definitely to reduce our aversion to people and also to reduce our indifference to people by realising that the friend could become a stranger, could become an enemy, the enemy could become a friend or a stranger, the stranger could become a friend. It’s not permanent. It can change.
Their minds can change towards me, my mind can change to them. Situations can change so that our relationships change. That’s something we have to reflect on, think about. Firstly, by realising it’s not so great doing this friend, enemy, stranger, concrete, permanent. And especially to so this is true in this life, how these relationships can change, but also to make that more effective, what we need to realise logically is that our best friends in this life have been complete strangers in past lives and have been our enemies.
It logically follows there’s been time for our best friends to have been our worst enemies in past lives, and this will happen again in the future. So why be so attached now? Why have so much aversion now, so much indifference now? And also, just because someone dislikes me, especially in relation when we think about the enemy, so called enemy, just because the enemy dislikes me, there’s no obligation for me to dislike them. Because my disliking them actually, their dislike for me is harming them more than me, and my disliking them is harming me more than them.
So why should I dislike them? Better to feel compassion. Right? I mean, this is easy to say, but it’s also an incredibly wonderful way to think. It’s the best way to think, to train our mind.
It’s not easy to do this, but we can change our mind by, you know, guiding our mind in this direction over and over again, imprinting this way of thinking into our mind. And again, the indifferent person, just because they’re indifferent to me, I don’t have to be indifferent to them. Which doesn’t mean I have to go making personal friends with them and knocking on their door and giving them presents, but mentally having that open mind and heart to them and wanting them to be happy, etcetera, etcetera. So that’s one thing actually, that’s one of the major ways to develop equanimity. And another one particular point to think about is that in reality, all these beings, I label them friend, enemy and stranger now, but they’ve all been my mother.
They’ve all been equally kind. Even if it’s difficult to think they’ve been my mother, if one has some belief in past lives, the continuity of mind and so on, it follows that all of these beings have been kind to me. So why think of them as some as friend now and others enemy and some stranger? They’ve all been kind. And also they’re all suffering, they’re all suffering.
So why just want the friend to be happy and not the enemy? And why not the stranger? They’re all suffering. So these are the things to to think about in meditation, but also to try and and by meditating on it, you know, the per the thing is then to be mindful that when we sit you know, relate with people to for those kind of thoughts to come up, to see through with that that that what do, to relate to people via those ways of thinking. Because they those ways of thinking, which are the ways of bodhisattvas and buddhas, they will benefit them and me, whereas the other way of thinking harms them and harms me.
So it’s really important to develop that mind of equanimity because then that’s opening our heart to be able to feel love and compassion for all beings. Alright. So then on the basis of having equanimity, the first cause of generating bodhicitta, according to the great bodhisattva Asaṇga, is to develop that deep understanding, realisation that every sentient being has been one’s mother. Of course, every sentient being has also been our father, best friend, etcetera, etcetera, in past lives. But the reason for emphasising that every sentient being has been our mother is because, in general, mothers are very kind to us and especially they give us unconditional love.
They love us just because we’re their child. And unfortunately, of course, there are people who’ve had very bad experiences with their mothers, so in many cases this meditation doesn’t work so well. But also one can for people who’ve had that kind of bad experience with parents, especially their mother, they can try to reflect that maybe they’re one’s mother, didn’t give you the love that one wanted and needed, but maybe one’s mother wasn’t capable of doing that because of her conditioning, that maybe she tried the very best she could, but it wasn’t really it wasn’t very good. It’s not trying to pretend it was, but to realize maybe because of her conditioning, that’s the best she could do. But also, Lama Sopa Rinpoche points out that one way one can understand that even very bad mothers have been kind is that at least they gave birth to me.
And especially in our times when it’s so easy for abortions to occur, then and etcetera, that the fact that our mother did give birth to us, kept us in a womb and gave birth to us, just that is incredibly kind because now we have a precious human rebirth where we have the chance to become free of suffering. So that is incredibly kind, just that is incredibly kind. And so one can reflect that because of the continuity of mind, if one starts to believe in the continuity of mind, because mind is formless, it’s indestructible, it goes, it’s always existed, and the mind, just like our mind is in a body now, then the continuity of our, the past continuity of our mind has always been associated with some kind of body, and those bodies have been created by a mother. So we’ve had infinite mothers, and so it can follow them. Every sentient being has been our mother, and not just one time, but many times.
But even if one can hold the thought that every sentient being in the universe or in all the universes throughout existence have been my mother even one time. Yeah. And so so once someone’s your mother, that’s it. She’s your mother. If someone loses contact with their mother in this life for many, many, many, many, many years, that person is still your mother or that person’s mother, and you may not recognise them as your mother because you haven’t seen them for years and years, but they’re still your mother.
So we’ve lost contact with our previous mothers, but that doesn’t mean that they were not our mother. And we can’t recognise them when we see another human being or an animal, we don’t think, oh, that’s my mother, oh, I recognise her. We can’t, we don’t. But it doesn’t mean they’re not have not been my mother. And we can’t say that the mother of this life is more my mother than the mother of a past life they’re just my mother.
And all the good things if one’s had a good mum in this life, all the amazing wonderful things the mother of this life has done for me, mothers have done in previous lives. Especially if one thinks that every sentient being’s been one’s mother many times, then even when the bad mum, bad mum has also been my good mum many, many times. So that’s the first thing, that’s the first cause. It’s the most wonderful thing to think about actually, that every sentient it’s not just a cute idea, but it’s true. But it’s one of the most amazing things to try to acquaint the mind with, to really put in one’s mind that every sentient being has been one’s mother.
And I mean, could say that intellectually, you especially if one has some belief in the Buddhist view of mind, then it’s relatively easy to accept, understand that every sentient being has been one’s mother. But that is not the first cause of generating bodhicitta. The first cause is on the basis of developing that understanding, one practices recognising that when we see another person you don’t think, oh, this is a friend, enemy, stranger, this is a human, this is an insect, you think, this is my mother. And believe it. Not anyone can say the words.
Yeah? But to really somehow have that feeling that this person, this being, you know, this cockroach, this rat, snake, alligator, this nasty person is my mother. When one is able to do that, one is beginning to generate bodhicitta. And think how amazing it would be if one felt like that, especially if you’re like your mother of this life, and you think everyone was like felt that, started to feel that for everyone. Because also people have the experience that when their mothers grow very, very old, mothers can go become a little bit strange and have dementia and things, and get angry, don’t recognise you, become irritable.
But if one loves one’s mother, then one accepts that because it’s my mother. If it’s someone else, we don’t, we get upset, or more upset. But this is my mum, we know this person has been unbelievably kind to me and loves me. But now, you know, they’re losing control of their mind. So instead of hating them, one has more compassion and patience, etcetera.
So it’s an incredible protection for the mind and for others if we could have, we could train to have that kind of thought, that sincere thought. And it’s true, it’s true. But also what can strengthen that first point is to also reflect that every sentient being has been one’s father and been incredibly kind as my father, as my brother, as my sister, my best friend, that, you know, I depend on every sentient being directly and indirectly. Right? But the main thing is to try and generate that awareness that every sentient being has been my mother and to recognise them as one’s mother.
Of course you don’t go up and say, Hello, Mum, and all that kind of ridiculous thing, but mentally, you know, that could be very dangerous for some truck drivers and people like that. And bikies and whatever, but Although you never know, a biker might like a good hug. Maybe they I think they will actually desperately need one. So then the second cause of generating bodhicitta, according to Asaṇga’s method, is on the basis of recognising sentient beings as mother, is to remember their kindness, to recall the kindness. Of course, we do that on the basis of trying to recall all the ways our mother of this life has been kind, starting with giving birth to us, then taking care of us when we were completely helpless, because someone in this life did that because we wouldn’t be alive, because a little human baby is completely helpless.
You know, many animals, as soon as they’re born, they jump up and run around practically run around and almost looking after themselves, but we human beings are completely helpless and fragile. So someone took care of us, and that was most likely our mother. But from then on, our mum looked after us in every way, taught us. You know, we think we’re so clever and we’ve got so many skills and blah, blah, blah. But it all started because our mother taught us how to wash ourselves, go to the toilet, clean our teeth, be polite, do our homework, you know, etcetera, etcetera.
You know, our mother taught us how to speak, how to walk, how to how to feed ourselves. And because of all basic things, now we can do all sorts of stuff. And she protected us in many ways, often created negative karma to help us, suffered because of us in the womb, giving birth to us throughout our lives, denied herself many things so that we could have stuff. So even if our mother of this life didn’t do those things, mothers in past, you know, our other mothers did in past lives. So we try and think of all those things, tiny little things, you know, and big things.
Just like how many hours our mother carried us when we were a kid, and carrying babies is quite heavy. They get quite big and heavy. I’ve done it for five minutes and that’s about enough. But our mothers carry us for hours and hours and hours, and put up with all sorts of rubbish. And then, you know, teenagers who, you know, say they hate their parents and, I never asked for you to be my mother, but actually we created a karma for that person to be our mother.
We maybe didn’t literally ask to be born to that person, but in a sense we did. We created the cause for that person to be our mother. Yeah. So that must be unbelievably painful for a mother to hear things like that. But then mothers love that child anyway.
But we did things like that. But our mother still accepted us. So the reason for cultivating that mind of reflecting over and over again, not just one time, two times, but trying to think about this many, many times, and to extend this not just to the mother of this life, but then realise that all the wonderful things my mother did for me in this life, every sentient being has done exactly that same thing and other more amazing. Any nice thing you see a mother doing, know, mother sentient beings have done for me in past lives. And so the reason for doing that is to develop the mind wanting to repay that kindness, because generally, unless our mind is really obscured and horrible, if someone is kind to us, we instinctively want to be kind back.
If someone smiles at us, we almost uncontrollably smile back at them. So the more we understand that sentient beings, you know, these strangers, enemies, strangers, everyone, animals, beings that we don’t can’t see, they have been incredibly kind, then the more we understand that, we will want to repay that kindness. And the more we want to repay that kindness, that leads into the next cause, which is generating love for sentient beings. Firstly, there’s that affectionate love that just has that, which Lamas or BRinpoche explains as, affectionate love is where you he uses the expression, seeing others in beauty, which is like with our mother, even if our mother may grow very old and conventionally not attractive, we see her as beautiful. Right?
Because she’s my mother. We see her beauty, or we see the beauty in anyone that we like and is kind and has good qualities. We see their beauty beyond any kind of physical thing there’s that, we see the beauty of that person. And the more we have that, we’re able to have that affectionate love for others that is the basis for developing the love which is wanting them to be happy. And the very simple fact is that love the love wanting others to be happy arises when we realise that they’re not.
You know, love, you know, we talk about love all the time, this very mushy thing, but really it’s the what is meant by love in the Buddhist context is wanting beings to be happy, and it’s not just to have worldly happiness, but to have real happiness. And that mind arises when one realizes that what what you know, people may have wealth and good good good good health and friends and this and that, but that isn’t real lasting happiness. And they’re not they’re bereft of it, real happiness. And they’re not what is even sadder, most people are not creating the causes of real happiness. You know?
I can say my family are not creating the causes of real happiness. They’re not interested in it. They don’t know how to. And you can’t make them, unfortunately. So the more one realizes that one can generate how wonderful it would be if they could, if only they could have real happiness, if and if especially if they could create the causes for it.
So the more one sees beings as kind and wanting to repay that kindness, one will want them to be happy, to have real happiness, not just these superficial things. And happiness just doesn’t happen, it happens because one creates the cause. So real love is wanting people to create the actual causes of happiness. And then a deeper level is that, well, I have to help them do that. It’s not enough just, oh, I wouldn’t it be nice for them to be happy?
Wouldn’t it be nice for them to create the causes of happiness? I have got to help them. And the more one wants to do that, one also starts to realise, well, as I am, I can’t, because you can’t just make people, or, you know, I’ll take you to a dharma center and learn. You just can’t do that. You know?
It it one has to be incredibly skillful and unbelievably patient because it’s gonna take a very, very long time to encourage people to to do the right things. So one has to be really kind and patient and courageous and skillful and wise, and I’m not that. So within that wish, you know, that thought I’m I have to help them, already one’s starting to realize, to do that, if I’m really going to do that, I have to change. I have to work on myself a lot in order to help others. But also with that, wanting them to be happy, also comes the realisation that they are actually suffering.
So one develops you know, other cause is developing great compassion, realising all the types of suffering, not just obvious suffering, but the suffering of you know, my mother, family, friends, everyone is experiencing, you know, not only from time to time the suffering of suffering, but the suffering of change, but always experiencing compounded pervasive suffering, meaning having a mind, a body controlled by delusion and karma. So again, one wants them to be free of all that suffering and to stop creating the cause of suffering. So I will help them do that, but I’ve got to change in order to help do that. And, of course, great compassion means, you know, not just wanting for the nice people, you know, but everyone. There’s gotta be everyone.
And also love, real love is not just for a you know, you love one person or two people or three people or ten people. Real love is what it is something that goes out to everyone. So we have to generate great love, great compassion. And then that leads to this most amazing mind, which is called in Tibetan it’s called which is the final cause of generating bodhicitta, which is called in Tibetan ‘lhaksam’, which is translated as the superior wish.
But his Holiness Dalai Lama calls it universal responsibility. And what it is, it sounds kind of weird in a sense, exaggerated and egotistical, But on the basis of developing great love and compassion, it’s the thought that because with great love and great compassion, there’s the thought that I will help all sentient beings to be free of suffering and achieve happiness. I will, you know, commit to doing that. But within that there’s the thought that other people will be doing the same thing, I. E, other Bodhisattvas, other Buddhas and whatever.
But with a great wish, the lhaksam, the sense of universal responsibility, it is this amazing thought that I alone will enlighten all sentient beings. I will do it by myself alone. So that’s the unique final cause of generating bodhicitta. And the reason for that and of course how to say, it’s a state of mind, because obviously many bodhisattvas and buddhas are already working for the enlightenment of sentient beings, but it’s the thought that I will, even so, I will enlighten everyone. And the reason for this is because every sentient being has been kind to me, so only I can repay the kindness I have received.
All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who are working to benefit sentient beings, what are they doing? They are trying or not just trying, they are repaying the kindness they received. They cannot repay the kindness I’ve received, only I can do that. So I have to enlighten, I have to so the thought arises, I have to, I am responsible to enlighten all sentient beings. So once one’s generated that, then that thought, then one thinks, well, how can I do that?
As I am, I can’t enlighten all sentient beings. And then one comes to the realization that the only way that I can enlighten all sentient beings is I have to become a Buddha. So then the thought arises, I will become a Buddha, and that is bodhicitta. And what and what that thought arises on the basis of understanding, in order to become a Buddha, I have to get rid of all my self-cherishing, I have to cherish others more than self, I have to I I will be willing to experience all the difficulties for no matter how long to get rid of all my negativities, all my self-cherishing, all my negative karma, all my delusions, everything, and I will I am willing to experience all the suffering and difficulties no matter how long in order to cultivate all the positive qualities. Right?
But I’ll do it because that’s what’s necessary to be able to repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. That’s bodhicitta. That’s the Asaṇga method. Any questions? It’s a good thing in a way.
Yes. And that person is but but but listening to you tonight, what it made me think about was if you have a close friend or family member, and if you’re behaving badly, if you’re behaving one one’s own, it’s often that person who’s going to tell you that. Right? It’s not gonna be the person if you’re expressing anger to your family family member, it’s often that person who will tell you. If you’re expressing anger to Yeah, that may be the case, but I think you’re missing the point of in order to practice patience, you have to have an enemy.
You have to have something or someone going against your self-cherishing. You may then have someone, a friend, who points out that what you’re doing is very harmful to yourself, but that’s another thing. That’s why in the Mahāyāna teachings and the Lojong teachings, which are associated with developing bodhicitta, it is said that the enemy is your best friend. Because also friends often don’t point out your faults because that’s why they remain your friends. They put up with all those things, or they just leave you, but if they remain friends, they don’t point out your faults.
But that’s not my experience. My experience is that Well, I mean, yes, well there are very good friends who can do that and you can accept that. But then there are sort of superficial friends which go along with things. Anyway, okay. All the delusions arise when well, are I I didn’t have the time to go into this, but all delusions arise when you meet the condition, when you meet the object of the delusion.
So anger arises when one meets the object, and that is the enemy or the thing you don’t like. So then, in that sense, the enemy is a very good friend because they’re showing you that you have anger, and many people don’t even think they’ve got it. They will say, Oh, I’m not an angry person at all. Yeah? And of course, most people aren’t when the object isn’t there.
But when the object is there, then, wham, it arises. And actually sometimes even the way no, we won’t say that, but sometimes the way Lojong teaching is expressed is a bit misleading because it says, you know, the enemy is very good, is the friend, because it gives you the opportunity to practise patience. But that’s a bit misleading because if one hasn’t trained in developing patience, just meeting an enemy who makes you angry doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to patience in fact, you’re not. The enemy is just going to make you angry. But if you’re a dharma practitioner, it’s very good to have enemies, because hopefully as a dharma practitioner you’re trying to learn how to be patient.
And then, of course, you can’t tell whether you’re being patient when you’re with friends because your friends don’t make you angry, it’s the enemy. So when you’re with the enemy, you discover whether you’re able to be patient or not. So they’re pointing out, so that is extremely helpful. Like when you’re in retreat, you think, oh, I’m retreating for the sake of all sentient beings, I love all sentient beings, oh, I want everyone, I didn’t realise how much I loved all sentient beings, you know, Oh, they’ve all been my mother, and then that sentient being comes along and you can’t stand them, you know. So it’s all fantasy in your mind, so it’s very nice to have the reality there, yeah.
Oh, you know, in retreat, I’ll always be kind and patient of people from now on, you know, and then someone comes along and sings while you’re meditating and you get really angry or something. So it’s all fantasy. So you need reality to as a you know, a reality check of, you know, how yeah. So that’s why the enemy is a very good friend. But, yeah, or can be, can be, yeah.
Okay, so very quickly, I’m running out of time, sorry. Then there is Śāntideva’s method of generating bodhicitta, is called equalising self with others. So Śāntideva’s method actually includes the first three steps of Asaṇga’s method, although often in commentaries about Śāntideva’s method that’s not mentioned, but actually that is part of his method. But then the unique oh, the equanimity is spelt incorrectly, sorry, I typed this out very quickly tonight. So again, Śāntideva’s Method depends on firstly developing equanimity.
Then the first unique feature of Śāntideva Method is developing the mind that equalises oneself with others, because even if one has managed to develop genuine equanimity where you see everyone, you don’t really label friend, enemy and stranger, but you have like this equal openness to others. Because of our self-cherishing, we still hold ourselves as tend to hold ourselves more important than others. So there’s still that barrier that there’s the big I, and my need for happiness is more important than everyone else, my suffering is worse than everyone else, I am the centre of the universe really. It’s just what the self-cherishing thought thinks. So what we need to do in order to open our heart, to develop our love and compassion, is to be able to equalise ourself with others so that we feel that there’s no difference between myself and any other sentient being.
So not just any other human being, but any other sentient being. That myself and another animal, insect, fish, bird, whatever, we’re just the same. And the basic way again, there’s many arguments that one can give, reasons for believing that in the meditation, but just the essential thing to reflect on and this is one of the best, most simple, but most wonderful meditations you can do, and if every sentient being in the world did this, it’d be so much better. But it’s just basically the why we can say, I and any, you know, I am no different from any of you, I’m no different from anyone in this city, country, including any of the animals, is basically that I want to be happy, and every sentient being wants to be happy. Everyone wants to be happy.
There is no difference. One cannot say that my wish to be happy is in some way inherently different and better than the wish of a cockroach wanting to be happy. There’s no difference. It’s just that, there’s just that very fundamental, basic wanting to be happy, which as wholeness says, is in a sense a reflection of our own Buddha nature, our Buddha potential. That deep down, we all want happiness, we don’t want suffering.
Oh, got carried away. So that’s one thing. So what was I talking about? Yeah, I want to be happy. And another reason why what we can say that I am no different than anyone else is because I don’t want to suffer, and that’s exactly the same for every sentient being.
There is not one sentient being who wants to suffer in any way. There’s no difference. When you try and squash a cockroach, it runs away because it does not want to be squashed, it does not want to suffer, just like I don’t want to suffer. I don’t want to be squashed. Right.
There’s no difference. There’s absolutely I mean, if you can find a difference, that would be pretty amazing, But there’s no difference. There’s lots of external differences in appearance of what we do, and like in trying to be happy, you know, there’s so many differences how we as human beings amongst human beings, how we try to be happy and how between us and animals, but it all comes down to the same thing, you know. Some people hardly eat anything to be happy, some people eat huge amounts of food to be happy, some people eat incredibly so called healthy food to be happy, some people eat ridiculous, disgusting things to be happy. But they just, you know, and some, you know, so people spend one thousand dollars in a restaurant and think they’re very superior because they’re eating all this special food and someone’s in, what do you call it, McDonald’s.
But it’s just food, you know, and a pig is, you know, snuffling in the mud. It’s just the same thing. We’re just trying to eat because we like eating and because we want to be happy. It’s all the same. Ultimately, the actual thing.
Many differences, you know, wearing fancy clothes and diamonds and things, but just eating or just trying to be happy, trying to avoid suffering. People do good things to be to avoid suffering. People do bad things, virtuous things, non virtuous things, unbelievably stupid things, very careful, wise things. But but deep down, there’s the same reason. They just don’t want to suffer.
So we’re all the same. There’s no real difference. You know, we look different, we behave differently externally, but we’ve got different kinds of bodies, especially between humans and non humans, but even human beings we have different kinds of bodies, different colored bodies and this shapes and this is and that’s. But basically we’re just the same in wanting to be happy, not wanting to suffer. And of course we’re all the same because we all have a mind, our minds are the same.
We all have the same Buddha nature, we all have the same delusions. And yet we focus on all the differences, and by focusing on the differences we create so much suffering for ourselves and others. So what we need to do is focus on the fact that there are absolutely essential, vital similarities. I once attended a teaching by Jeffrey Hopkins, who’s an amazing, wonderful Buddhist scholar and practitioner, and he made this wonderful point, very simple, wonderful point, that he said something along the lines that you can be something like, you you can be walking down the street and see a total stranger who looks completely different from oneself and maybe very frightening, scary or something or whatever, but but a total stranger, but there is something extremely personal, private that you know about that person, and that is they just want to be happy just like me, and they don’t want to suffer just like me. If we could only remember that, it’d be amazing.
Yeah. Because when we see the similarity, then we can empathize with people. If we if we think people are inherently different from ourselves, there’s there’s you can’t how can one empathise? One can’t have compassion. One can’t empathise because there’s something different, like they’re Martians.
But as soon as one sees there’s this, they’re just like me, they want to be happy just like me, you know. Another thing, very simple thing to reflect on, to meditate on, especially if you’re sitting in a group of people like we are now, is right now, of us has within us this sense of just in and it’s good to reflect on this, just that we have this fundamental sense of I is existing within us all the time, just this very simple, very basic primitive sense of I, you know, just I. And then on top of that, we have our self-cherishing, you know, trying to cherish this I, but there’s just this simple thought or grasping of I, just I. And if you reflect, that exists in every one of us here in this room right now, and there’s no difference in that fundamental eye. Yeah.
It’s just the same. And it’s the same for every human being on this planet and for every animal. They all have this this like, this very primitive I don’t mean in a bad way, primitive, simple, fundamental sense of I. Just I, you know, as an you know? And yeah.
And you can’t distinguish that ‘I’, that sense of ‘I’. On top of that, we have all our, you know, personality features and whatever, but there’s this that fundamental sense of ‘I’. So we’re all the same, we’re all the same. So by focusing on that, we can have, we feel a connection with others and then we can empathise, and then we can have love and compassion, etc. But when we focus on the differences, then there’s aversion and prejudice and hatred and this and that and fear, etc.
Etc. I haven’t got to the best bit, the most important bit. So very quickly, okay, there’s no time really. So then the next stage in developing bodhicitta with Śāntideva’s method is to reflect on the faults of self-cherishing. So that comes from realising that self-cherishing is a total disaster because it’s the wrong view of self and we cherish ourself with love instead of love and compassion, with attachment, aversion, etcetera.
We use our desire, you know, thinking that’s gonna make us happy, use aversion and hatred to protect ourselves, but then we get caught up in all our other delusions. So selfishness and self-cherishing well, selfishness is a form of self-cherishing, but self-cherishing can be more than selfishness. Because selfishness is so of course, that is a disaster, but selfishness is always in relation to others. You know, you place ourself above others, so of course, that’s a huge obstacle, developing love, compassion and bodhicitta. But self-cherishing can also be just in relation to oneself, that because the way there are two kinds of self-cherishing, there’s what I call gross self-cherishing, which is leads us to engage in negative actions and it’s not even beneficial in this life.
And then there’s a very subtle form of self-cherishing, which is a virtuous mind, but it’s the mind just wanting to achieve, practise the dharma to free oneself from suffering. So from a Mahāyāna point of view, that is an ob and it is an obstacle to generating bodhicitta. But it’s not a negative mind, it’s a virtuous mind, because it’s a mind wanting to practise the dharma to become to be free of cyclic existence, but only thinking of oneself. So it’s and it’s developing the eventually develops the right view of self and cherishes self in the right way, but in a very limited way, and it excludes the thought of really benefiting others. It involves developing love and compassion for others, but not great love, great compassion, and the thought to repay their kindness.
So it’s a subtle kind of self-cherishing. But right now most of us have we all have this gross self-cherishing. And for example, it manifests as what I call the easy happy now mentality. Our self-cherishing wants to do only what is quick, easy to do, is able to easy to do, we can do it quickly, and it gives us the illusion of happiness. And so the more we follow that mindset, the more we create the opposite mindset that anything that is not quick, easy and brings the illusion of happiness is very bad.
And the more we develop that mindset, the more we crave something that is quick, easy and entertaining. And that leads us of course to follow desire and attachment and aversion and so on. So even if something is good for us, but if it’s difficult to do, and it takes a long time, we won’t do it if we listen to our self-cherishing. You know, we get sick, but the medicine doesn’t taste nice, so we don’t take it, so we die, just because the medicine didn’t taste nice. That’s how we are, that’s the self-cherishing thought.
But I mean the worst kind of self-cherishing, and also we don’t practice the Dharma because, oh, it’s too hard, takes too long. Oh, yes, yes, it’s true. I’ll be very beneficial to, oh, but it’s too hard, won’t do it. Do something else because it’s easy. So that’s how the self-cherishing is really harmful for ourself, let alone But ourself, the other form of self-cherishing, is our selfishness, of course, is really harmful for others as well.
So self-cherishing, the gross self-cherishing doesn’t even allow us to practice Dharma, or it doesn’t allow us to practice Dharma very well or very much, only while it’s easy and comfortable and entertaining. But as soon as it gets difficult, oh no, chuck it in. So we have to realise that our self-cherishing is our greatest well, our ignorance is our greatest enemy, second greatest, but the one that is very palpable, is our self-cherishing. And both forms are great obstacles to developing bodhicitta. The gross self-cherishing doesn’t even allow us to practise dharma properly, the subtle self-cherishing enables us to practise, but it only thinks about freeing me suffering.
And in order to free myself from suffering, then I have to be nice to other people, kind and virtuous, but only to a limited extent. So the more we see the faults of our self-cherishing, the more we will want to give it up, right? And so that’s why we then have to also meditate on seeing the benefits of cherishing others, because the more we see the benefits, the more we will take it up. So cherishing others more than selves sounds counterintuitive to bring us happiness, but in order to cherish others because people think, oh, if I was kind to other people all the time and cherish them all the time, I’d end up totally miserable, so that’s ridiculous, I won’t do that. But in all how does one cherish others?
To really cherish others, it means although the focus is other people, the only way we can genuinely cherish other beings is by developing love and compassion for them, patient with them, persevering, generous, etcetera, etcetera. In other words, in order to cherish others, we have to it’s awakening our positive potentials, and the basic one of the many basic messages of the Buddha is that it is our virtuous minds which are the source of our happiness. Right? It’s our negative minds which are the source of all our suffering. So although the object is, we’re not thinking about me, we’re thinking of others, the way to think about others is with all our virtuous minds, so if they are active, I am happy, and creating the causes of happiness.
The more we follow the self-cherishing thought, thinking about me, me, me, actually what it does is activate all our negative minds and so we suffer. The more we think about others, genuinely, we activate our virtuous minds and we benefit. Case closed. Anyway briefly, anyway, check up, check up. Of course, the final argument for that is that this is what all the Buddhas did, and you just compare us with the Buddha.
The Buddhas gave up their self-cherishing and cherished others more than self, the people who became Buddhas and now they’re Buddhas. We haven’t done that. We’ve followed we’ve been following the self-cherishing thought blindly since beginningless time, and look at us. What you know, you compare the difference, then one can understand what to what to practice and what to give up. There’s Tonglen to explain, but that’s too difficult to explain.
And then there’s all the six perfections. Sorry? No, you should have a discussion, Brooke. Maybe I’ll go into this it just wrecks the homework a bit, but you should have a bit of a discussion on these things. There’s some good discussion questions, a lot this time.
Yes, so please. And there’s only four maybe just have one discussion group together? Do you reckon? Somewhere? I don’t know which is best where.
But if you want to grab some tea, coffee, something, and and meat and drink together, discuss. So I’ll talk in more detail next week about exchanging self with others, and particularly the practice of Tonglen because it really deserves to spend some time on it. But basically after going through these previous steps of developing equanimity, equalising self with others, seeing the faults of one’s own self-cherishing, wanting to be free of it, and then seeing the benefits of cherishing others, spelled completely wrongly, and then wanting to be able to cherish others more, then the way to train in doing that is practising exchanging oneself with others, where one puts oneself in the place of others, and there’s this practice of Tonglen, where one imagines taking on the suffering of others and then giving one’s happiness and experiencing it oneself so that one doesn’t it’s just done at the mental level, at the level of imagination, but it’s very powerful, can be very beneficial. And then one imagines giving one’s happiness away to others. And so the more one trains the mind doing that at the level of imagination on the basis of having cultivated all these other qualities, then one will want to be able to actually do that, you know, and realising that the only way I can actually free others from suffering and bring them to happiness is to achieve enlightenment.
So as a result of doing that, then again the thought of bodhicitta, of the determination to achieve enlightenment, arises. So on the basis of generating bodhicitta, then the tradition is also to take the bodhisattva vows, so in order to protect ones, cause even though the mind of bodhicitta has arisen, in order to maintain it and strengthen it and develop it, one takes the bodhisattva vows. Of course the way things happen in the present time is long before we actually generate bodhicitta, one is encouraged to take the bodhisattva vows as the basis of being able to generate bodhicitta. In reality, when someone actually generates bodhicitta, then they take the bodhisattva vows to keep it. But these days what happens is in order to be able to eventually generate bodhicitta, we take the bodhisattva vows and try and keep those vows, that helps us to follow the bodhisattva way of life.
So then having generated bodhicitta, or trying to generate it, wanting to generate it, wanting to observe the bodhisattva vows, then what the bodhisattva practices is what are called the six perfections, the six paramita, or one perfects these six practices. So these six practices are something that are, you know, are common practices throughout all of Buddhism. Even at a most basic level, these are things that we should be trying to practice. But a bodhisattva perfects them in a complete way, because what distinguishes these practices, especially in the Mahāyāna tradition and at the level of bodhisattvas from just the ordinary practice of these things, is doing them with the bodhicitta motivation, with an understanding of emptiness and dedicating the merit to achieving enlightenment. So these six perfections are: generosity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom.
And they follow, in a sense, a psychological sequence because the more we practise generosity, in all sorts of ways, both actually giving away things but also developing the main part of generosity is developing the mind that wants to give and enjoys giving even if one doesn’t have anything to give, then and one sees the benefits of giving in how it benefits others, brings some happiness to others, then this becomes the basis, a really valid strong basis for being able to live a life of pure morality more and more, where we avoid creating suffering to others, and by engaging in virtuous actions we create the causes of happiness for others and ourselves, of course. And the more we practise morality and see the benefits of that for ourselves and others, the more that is a valid basis for being able to practise patience more and more. Because patience is the antidote to anger and anger is the most destructive of the disturbing thoughts. It causes the greatest harm in not only in an obvious way, but in a much more subtle way, but in a worse way, in that when we get angry That anger is destroying our positive karmic imprints, which are the basis of happiness in saṃsāra, but it’s how much merit we have that enables us to gain the understanding and realisations of the stages of the path to enlightenment.
So anger is really, really destructive, both in every possible way to the spiritual life and so harmful to sentient beings. So it’s completely contrary to the bodhisattva way of life. So the more we practice generosity and morality, the more we will not want to harm sentient beings or create obstacles to following the path to enlightenment. So it enables us to be more and more patient. And the more patient we are, the more we’re able to deal with difficulties with human beings and ourself and the environment and everything, the more we’re able to practise perseverance of really finding joy in doing virtuous things, in practising the Dharma, not being put off by difficulties and suffering.
And so the more we practise patience, the more we will be able to develop, we will be able to persevere with practising meditation, developing our meditational skills, especially developing the ability to single pointedly concentrate. And the more we develop that ability, the more we will be able to transform a conceptual, intellectual understanding of the teachings on emptiness into a direct experience of it. Because to be able to really to realise emptiness, which I’ll talk about next week very briefly, quickly, for five minutes, One has to not only understand the wrong view that we have right now, to actually understand what the wrong view of things is, we have to understand the right view, but just having that understanding is not going to bring about the realisation of emptiness. What the key element in realising emptiness is being able to recognise the object to be refuted. And the object to be refuted is well, are two objects to be refuted, the first one, the key one, is the wrong view that we have of ourself.
We have to be able to we have it right now, this wrong view is existing within us right now, and we grasp onto it as being real. But what we have to be able to do is recognise what that wrong view actually is in order to get rid of it. You know, as I give you an example, if there’s a thief in the room stealing everything or a murderer in the room, like in an Agatha Christie thriller, in order to stop all the murders happening, you have to identify the murderer correctly, not, you know, who you, you know, say, oh, it’s this person when it’s that person. You have to be able to identify exactly who the murderer is to stop the killings. So in order to stop our suffering, we have to be able to identify exactly the wrong view of self that we have.
And once we’ve done that, then we can apply our understanding, the right understanding of how things actually exist to that wrong view and, you know, use the arguments to say that, well, I think, you know, I have this view that I exist this way, but using the Buddhist teachings on the nature of reality, one can say, I could not exist this way. Even though I appear this way, it’s not it’s absolutely impossible to exist this way because of this, this, this, this, and this reasons. So eventually, that grasping that that I exist like that will collapse, and then you experience the emptiness of oneself, the space like emptiness of oneself, and then one is really on the way to liberation and enlightenment. And it all begins by practicing generosity, my friends. Now, this is a very, very important practice of training the mind to be generous in every possible way, because it’s all connected, because this practice of developing love and compassion, but also ultimately being the wisdom that is going to liberate us and enlighten us.
So I’ll stop here tonight, but just very briefly for the homework. So you’ve got some reading material, but also handout two is a like it gives some more information about equalising self with others, so because that’s part of your homework, do meditation on that. So that handout two gives you some meditation material to meditate on. So the homework, if you go to the homework page, there’s the reading from Virtue and Reality and also the also then a little bit from the student material. And then, so the meditations are on Wednesday to meditate on equanimity.
So I’ve given the basic things to think about how friend, enemy and stranger aren’t permanent, they change not only in this life but, you know, especially when we look at past and future lives. You know, friend, enemy and stranger are constantly changing, so why be so fixed on those things? And also to think, actually, friend and a stranger, they’re all equally kind, actually equally suffering, so why distinguish? That’s the essential thing to, you know, a simple meditation on equanimity, but can be very helpful. Then Thursday is to meditate on the first three steps of Asaṇga’s method, which is recognising sentient beings as mother, the kindness and wanting to repay the kindness.
Then Friday is the final, the fourth, fifth and sixth, which is meditating on loving kindness, compassion and the great resolve, the universal responsibility. Saturday is to meditate on Śāntideva’s first cause, which is equalising self with others, so in the handout you’ve got some material there to meditate on. Then And then on Sunday is to meditate on or actually what you can do then On Sunday you could just meditate on instead of two and three, just on the faults of self-cherishing, and then on Monday on the benefits of cherishing others, because I haven’t talked about Tonglen although those people who know how to do it, they could do that. And then on Tuesday, just a little bit about one can look at the six perfections in the handouts, handout one, and just think about how they’re connected as I try to explain very briefly how one leads into the other. And in the first handout it gives you, just very briefly, the subdivisions of each of the six perfections, like there’s material generosity, the generosity of giving love, fearlessness, the generosity of giving the Dharma and so on.
Just one can briefly think about those however one can and how I could try and practice these things. Is that okay? Does that make some sense? Yep. And then the daily mindfulness is really just to try to be aware of one’s own self-cherishing.
Not to give oneself a hard time about that, because we all have self-cherishing, but what we have to realise that we are not that. Is there something obscuring our mind. Yeah? We are not self-cherishing, we are fundamentally Buddhas, right? But unfortunately, our Buddha nature is obscured by our self-cherishing, but it’s there, and it takes all sorts of sneaky forms, because it’s not obvious, you know, because self-cherishing, like self-cherishing basically comes down to being attachment, really.
That’s the fundamental aspect of self-cherishing. But all our delusions, when they operate, they are very convincing. Know, when it takes over our mind, we’re convinced this is who we are, this is how we should think. But we have to try and catch that and realise this is this is how my self-cherishing, you know, especially like on cold mornings, as I always give the same boring example, you’re lying in your cozy bed in the morning and you have to get up to go to work, but the self-cherishing thought says, stay in bed. It’s warm, it’s cosy.
If you get out, you’ll be cold, you’ll be unhappy. Stay in bed. So it sounds so convincing and friendly and such the right thing to do, but it isn’t. But we often give into it, we believe it. Yeah.
It seems like our best friend, but it’s our worst enemy. Okay, thank you very much, we can dedicate the merit. On page eleven. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhi mind, not yet born, arise and grow.
May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. May the precious right view not yet born arise and grow, may that born have no decline, but increase forevermore.