Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 43-minute meditation guide, Venerable Thubten Dondrub leads practitioners through Asaṇga’s classical method of generating bodhicitta—the altruistic wish to achieve enlightenment for all beings. He begins by establishing the premise that all sentient beings have been our mother across countless past lives, a reflection grounded in the beginningless continuum of consciousness. He then walks practitioners through remembering the specific kindness of their mother in this life—from gestation and birth through childhood nurturing and moral education—before extending that recognition to all beings. The meditation systematically cultivates loving-kindness toward all sentient beings, great compassion at their suffering, and finally the courageous determination to become a Buddha oneself in order to free all beings from suffering and its causes. The talk concludes with a commitment to use this human rebirth to train moment by moment in renouncing self-cherishing and cherishing others instead. Suited for practitioners familiar with Mahāyāna Buddhist concepts.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 14b. Day 4 Meditation Bodhicitta.mp3
UUID: 1c37d145-86ed-4ee5-9c53-c0ade7640f4e
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Meditations DTL (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2006 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 42.6 minutes
Words: ~2,417
Be very mindful so that as soon as any of these hindrances arise, one can immediately let go of them and go back to the analysis. Or if the hindrance gets stronger, to apply the antidote, such as thinking of impermanence and death, and at least applying the antidote of recalling the guru, Buddha at crown, sending powerful white light to instantly dispel the hindrance. So the key to entering the Mahāyāna path is generating bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment, which also involves the wish to totally give up, renounce the self-cherishing thought, the wish to fully cultivate to the full extent the mind cherishing others more than self. So although the bodhicitta is directed at totally benefiting others, the more we have this mind, the more it benefits us. It’s the most virtuous mind that gives every moment of our existence the greatest meaning, the greatest joy, the greatest protection from every kind of suffering.
So the whole purpose of cultivating renunciation is so that we are free of the obstacles that prevent us generating bodhicitta. So we can briefly reflect this morning on Asaṇga’s method of generating bodhicitta. So the first stage in generating bodhicitta in this method is by recognizing that all sentient beings have been our mother. So how can we do this? By reflecting on the nature of our mind, because being formless and knowing, it has no beginning.
It was not created by any external thing or by another mind. It has its own continuum going back and back. Today’s mind exists because of yesterday’s mind, going back and back. This life’s mind exists because immediately before this life, the mind already existed, going back and back without any beginning, without any other cause.
However far back you can go and think, this must be when my mind started, there’s always a previous moment when that consciousness existed. And just as our consciousness has always existed, just as our consciousness now exists in the body, our consciousness has always existed in some kind of body, in cyclic existence, except when we’re in the formless realm. Being in the form realms, the desire realm, our consciousness always has some kind of body, and that body is provided by our mother. So if consciousness existed in the life prior to this, there was a mother who provided the body in which that mind arose. So as well as the mother of this life, we have the mother of our immediate previous life, and the mother of the life before that, and the mother of the life before that, going back beginninglessly.
We have had infinite mothers. The Buddha said, every sentient being has been our mother. Every sentient being has been our mother many times. If our mother of this life dies before we do and her consciousness goes into another realm, it doesn’t alter the fact, the reality that that being has been our mother, whether she has been dead a year, ten years, twenty years, thirty, forty years, that being is our mother, has been our mother. The fact that our mother of our past life has been gone for quite some time, and the mother before that, even longer, doesn’t change the reality that she has been our mother.
We remember the experience of our mother of this life. We don’t remember the experience of other beings being our mother. But just because we don’t remember it doesn’t mean it hasn’t existed, didn’t exist, isn’t valid. When it was occurring, it was no different than the experience of being with the mother of this life. If you see a young kangaroo stand right next to its mother, that’s what when we were little kids, that’s what we did.
We stood right next to our mum. Same experience. So in the past life, we’ve been in animal bodies with an animal mother, the experience was the same. So this first stage of generating bodhicitta means not just intellectually seeing that other people, other human beings, animals have been our mother. What we have to do is when we see them, remember that and see that this person is my mother, is no different than the mother of this life.
We have to recognize, we have to re-know that this person has been my kind mother. Rather than seeing the person as friend, enemy, or stranger, this or that, man or woman, human or nonhuman, good or bad. No. The main thing is to recognize that this being has been my mother. I have stood close to this being many times. This being has held me and protected me many, many times.
Of course, every sentient being has been our father, brother, sister, best friend, teacher, and so on, also many times. Why we particularly train to recognize each sentient being as our mother is because generally, our mother in any life is the kindest. She gives us unconditional love. So it’s really important that we reflect to remember the kindness that we’ve received from the mother of this life. And the reason for that is to realize that we have received the same kindness from every other being when they were our mother.
And one very fundamental kindness that we’ve received from our mother is that she simply kept us in her womb and gave birth, that she nourished us in her womb and gave birth to us. So now we have this precious human rebirth due to the kindness of the mother of this life. Even if we never experienced any other kindness from the mother of this life, we have that to remember and thank her for. And we were born into this world completely naked, completely helpless. We could have died at any moment. And the fact that we are still alive is because of the kindness of our mother who took care of our every constant need.
Twenty-four hours a day for many, many years. We should really try to remember every possible instance of every kind of kindness our mother of this life has given us. From when we were a tiny child, a baby growing up, a small child going to school, holding our hand, taking us to school for the first time. We don’t remember things, but it’s due to the kindness of our mother that we can speak the language. The fact that we can fit in with society in many ways is due to the kindness of our mother teaching us the most basic things.
It’s also very important to reflect that as we were growing up and asserting ourselves as an individual, that we may have had some conflicts with our mother and saw what our mother was doing, not benefiting me, causing me problems. But we see that from our own self-cherishing and limited perspective. If we look from the side of our mother, and also understanding that our mother is just an ordinary, suffering, limited being, she tried from her side to help us, to love us, to care for us, to instill in us the values that she thought, that she believed were right, and that if we had them and behaved this way, she thought we would be happy. It’s also important and helpful to remember that as our mother was trying to take care of us as best she could, especially when we were a kid, often we’re not even aware of all the difficulties our mother is facing in her life. We just assume she can perfectly take care of us all the time, and that’s what she tried to do, facing the difficulties of her life.
How incredibly kind that is. So then we try to really feel and understand that actually everybody, everyone in this room, in this country, in this whole world, every human being, every animal, every sentient being has been kind to us as a mother, sacrificed in many ways. And of course, when sentient beings haven’t been our mother, they’ve been our father and helped us, protected us, taken care of us. They’ve been our brother, sister, kind aunt, granny, grandfather, best friend. And even apart from that, we depend on sentient beings for our food, clothing, entertainment, protection, education, health, everything.
This has been given to us again and again and again, and our self-cherishing just doesn’t see it. To try to feel how much kindness we have received in so many ways that we generate the third stage of trying to cultivate bodhicitta, which is developing a very powerful wish to repay that kindness, a strong sense that I’ve got to repay that kindness. I have that responsibility. So how can I repay that kindness? What can I say, do, give to repay that kindness to the mother of this life, to all mother sentient beings?
So, basically, the way to repay that kindness is to give happiness to our mother, all mothers. That’s what they want. So kind words and presence and physically helping our mother in various ways is good to do, can make our mother a little bit happy, but it doesn’t bring pure lasting happiness. But how wonderful it would be if I could repay the kindness of my mother of this life by helping her experience pure, lasting happiness and all its causes. Think how wonderful that would be, how wonderful if I could help every sentient being experience that happiness.
I can’t give them that happiness, but somehow I can help in so many ways to encourage all mother sentient beings to create the causes of pure lasting happiness. So generate the mind of great loving-kindness towards all beings, wishing all sentient beings, friends, enemies, strangers, to have pure lasting happiness. And then reflect while sentient beings, my mother of this life, and all other sentient beings, have the causes of suffering, they will continue to suffer. There can’t be pure, lasting happiness while there are the causes of suffering. So how wonderful it would be if my mother, all mother sentient beings, could be completely free of every kind of suffering, not just the suffering of suffering, obvious pain, not only free of the suffering of change which appears as happiness to us, but completely free of the most subtle compounded pervasive suffering and all its causes.
Think how one’s mother of this life, or mother sentient beings, as it says in the text, are swept along by the currents of the four raging rivers of birth, sickness, aging, and death. My kind mothers are bound by the almost unbreakable chains of compulsive actions, compulsive negative actions. My mother of this life, all mother sentient beings are held in the iron grip of self-grasping, enveloped in the thick darkness of ignorance, are forced by karma to be reborn again and again and bear the three kinds of suffering over and over again. Really try to feel how unbearable that is, that these beings who have been so kind have to undergo all that. So try and give rise to the mind of great compassion that is determined not simply to want others to be free of every kind of suffering, but determined that I am going to do something about it.
I have to. So the sixth cause of generating bodhicitta is generating what is called the great wish, or what His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls universal responsibility, which arises out of great compassion for all beings, and is not just the thought that I am going to engage in everything to help stop the suffering of others, but I’m going to do it alone. Even though countless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are working to end the suffering of sentient beings, I will take responsibility by myself to do it. No matter what, no matter how difficult, no matter how long it takes, this is what I will do. Because I am responsible for repaying the kindness that each sentient being has given me, no one else can repay that obligation that I have.
So I alone will help every sentient being become free of suffering and all its causes, lead them to the highest happiness and all its causes. I will do this alone. It’s a little bit like if someone was drowning, one’s mother was drowning, and you jump in the water to save her. And you see that many other people are swimming out to help, but that doesn’t matter. I will save her. That’s my responsibility.
But we reflect that, how can I possibly do that? I can’t do this as I am now. I’m completely controlled by delusion, karma, self-cherishing. I can’t even benefit myself, let alone perfectly benefit every living being. Just think of the qualities you would need to stop the suffering of even one other being completely. The incredible wisdom and compassion and the patience and the perseverance, an incredible skill that would be required. I don’t have any of those qualities. Who has those qualities? Only Buddha has those qualities.
So that means to help all mother sentient beings, I have to become a Buddha. I have to give up self-cherishing completely, cherish others more than self, engage in every single practice, and become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. Therefore, I will become a Buddha for the sake of all sentient beings. So we conclude the meditation by making very strong determination to use this precious human rebirth for its highest purpose, which is to cultivate bodhicitta. I have the chance every moment of my life to train in bodhicitta, recognizing all sentient beings as my mother, remembering their kindness, cultivating the wish to repay it, training in loving-kindness, compassion, and the courageous mind of universal responsibility, training to give up self-cherishing every time it manifests, cherishing others more than self.
Moment by moment, training to do that, that’s what I will do. That will give this precious human rebirth its real meaning, make my life most meaningful. So recalling the Buddha at the crown of one’s head, we can imagine the Buddha very pleased with our meditation. Because of that, the Buddha dissolves into blissful light, which comes down through our crown pervading our whole being, blessing our mind to gain a stable, authentic realization of the inconceivable mind of bodhicitta.