Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 111-minute teaching, Venerable Thubten Dondrub conducts a detailed study of Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun, a commentary on the Seven Point Mind Training by a direct disciple of Lama Tsongkhapa. After opening prayers and mandala offerings to establish proper motivation, he begins teaching the actual techniques for cultivating bodhicitta, focusing on Asaṇga’s method of the six causes and one result. He systematically walks through the first stage: developing equanimity toward all beings, recognizing that every sentient being has been one’s mother in past lives, remembering their profound kindness (especially the unconditional love of mothers), and wishing to repay that kindness. He explains how this recognition leads naturally to affectionate love—seeing all beings as beautiful because of their kindness rather than physical appearance—and from there to great love and compassion. He addresses common objections, clarifies the distinction between self-grasping and self-cherishing thought, and illustrates why friend-enemy-stranger categorization blocks genuine compassion. The teaching is pitched at practitioners with some Buddhist background, though newcomers are welcome to listen.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 05 30 Mind Training.mp3
UUID: 9d1a34cf-6a3d-47de-8800-47b9c7e075a0
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Mind Training (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-05-30
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 111.5 minutes
Words: ~13,323
Know those people who are new, what your background is, and I just have to apologize. I can’t really explain things anymore, put any background or anything because it just takes too long. I just hope something what what I say tonight makes some sense. Anyway, so we’ll start with the traditional prayers if you’d like to join in with those. So firstly we start with traditionally we if there’s time one does the Heart Sūtra but it takes a little bit of time so we do just the concluding part which is not actually part of the sūtra, but it’s a prayer from the tantric tradition, but it’s it’s a for the same purpose of dispelling hindrances.
So this is the prayer of the lion faced dakini. I prostrate to the gathering of Dakinis and the three Chakras who abide in the holy yoga of uniting space. By your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation. Look after practitioners like a mother her child. By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may inner and outer hindrances be transformed.
May they be dispelled, may they be pacified, may they be completely pacified. May all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified. May the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified. May we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to dharma. May all enjoyments be in accord with the dharma and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now.
Obeisance to my Guru and protector Mañjuśrī, who holds to his heart a scriptural text symbolic of his seeing all things as they are, whose understanding shines forth as the sun, unclouded by defilements or traces of ignorance, who teaches in ways with a patient love of her father for his only child, all creatures caught in the prison of Samsāra, confused in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering. You whose vajra thunder proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stupor of our delusions and frees us from the iron chains of our karma, whose powerful sword of wisdom hews down suffering wherever its sprouts appear, clearing away the darkness of all ignorance. I entreat you, O Mañjuśrī, whose princely body is adorned with the one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha, who has completed the ten stages achieving the highest perfection of a bodhisattva, who has been pure from the beginning. O Mañjuśrī, O Loving One, with the brilliance of your wisdom, illuminate the darkness enclosing my mind. Lighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insights into Buddha’s words and the texts that explain them.
So now, to make the teachings as effective for our mind as possible, we offer the mandal and it’s really important to do these because when you receive teachings from His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, then they will just naturally have an effect on your mind. When you receive teachings from me, there’s no effect. So you have to work really hard for them to have some positive effect on your mind. So this is why we do the mandala offering of offering this ritual where we imagine offering the entire universe to the Buddha as a way of requesting the teachings, a way of reducing our attachment to all the things of the of Samsāra and particularly as a way to by imagining offering everything universe to the Buddha as a way to request the teachings, then this also accumulates great merit if we do it well, sincerely, and that merit is the basis for being able to understand the teachings correctly, to be able to practice them properly and gain the transformative realizations. So we try and visualize the Buddha in front of us seated on the Lion Throne, Lotus, Sun and Moon, thinking of the Buddha as the very embodiment of the triple gem and all their perfect qualities, thinking of the Buddha as the embodiment of all our teachers that we’ve had in the past, because we’ve had Buddhist teachers in past lives, Think of the Buddha as the embodiment, the manifestation of all our teachers of this life are manifestations of the Buddha and all our perfect teachers in future lives will be manifestations of Śākyamūni Buddha.
So we try and have a sense that the Buddha appears in front of us right now to remind us about Buddha potential and to inspire us to realize that potential. So then it’s particularly important that we now try and generate the very best motivation for listening to the teachings which is as much as possible trying to generate the bodhicitta thought that has the two aspects of feeling the suffering of others, of all sentient beings, completely unbearable to such an extent that one becomes determined to use this in all future lives to help all beings be free of all causes of suffering and to help them to achieve, replace that suffering instead with peerless, everlasting happiness. And so that’s one aspect of bodhicitta. The other is being determined to achieve, to realize one’s Buddha potential, to achieve enlightenment, understanding that only as an enlightened being will I be able to help all sentient beings be free of suffering and bring them to their own enlightenment. So we can generate that thought, at least in some degree right now, by especially allowing ourselves to be aware as much as possible of how we are intimately, inextricably interconnected with every sentient being that we always have been and always will be.
We particularly depend on their kindness which we receive in every way over and over again. And we particularly depend, especially when we’re human beings but also as animals and as pretas for example, we particularly depend on receiving the kindness of a mother. And we have received this from every sentient being many times in beginningless cyclic existence. So, to help strengthen that thought, that awareness, we try and imagine all sentient beings surrounding us right now. So of course that is extremely difficult to do.
So we have to make it realistic by at least thinking of, imagining around us right now, our mother on our left, our father on our right, the rest of our family, all our friends, all those people who we can think of, remember, who have helped us, been kind to us in any way in this life. We think of all those beings behind us. We think of those who may have harmed us in front of us. And we are encouraged to put them there, not to generate negative thoughts towards them, but to sort of force ourselves in a sense to realize that these beings also have been immensely kind to me in past lives, will be in future lives, and in this life, the reason they are harmful to me is because they are trapped in their own suffering. So in reality, they deserve my compassion, not my aversion.
So at least we try and think of those people, but as much as possible, we open our hearts and minds to an awareness concern for all beings of cyclic existence, remembering not only how they are our only kind, but because they’re in cyclic existence, they are suffering and most are experiencing the really truly horrible sufferings of cyclic existence right now with far less ability to understand, modify, or eliminate their suffering. And in their confusion, sentient beings are unfortunately creating the causes of more suffering, more cyclic existence. So thinking like that, we can generate this thought that no matter what, I must use this precious human rebirth that I have, all my future rebirths, to follow the path, achieve enlightenment for their sake. And in order to achieve enlightenment, I have to follow the path, the path to enlightenment. And that begins by actually generating authentic, spontaneous bodhicitta.
And this text, the Mind Training Like the Rays of the Sun’ is all about how to generate bodhicitta, how to sustain it, increase it and use everything possible to be able to proceed along the path to quickly achieve enlightenment, to quickly end the suffering of all sentient beings. So for this reason I will study this text I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then we can imagine the Buddha pleased with our motivation and showing this by now coming to the crown of our head and when directly above our crown we imagine the Buddha dissolving into blissful golden light so that that light can pour down into us, blessing our mind. And then we reinforce that positive state of mind by doing some breathing meditation such as the nine round breathing exercise to enhance, to strengthen that mind of clarity, calmness and concentration so that we can use that mind that mind that is more calm, clear and concentrated to on listening to and thinking about the Buddha’s teachings tonight.
K. Thank you very much. Especially maybe for the newer people who haven’t been here before, this text we’re going through, the mind training like the rays of the sun, was written by a direct disciple of Lama Tsongkhapa, actually based on teachings by Lama Tsongkhapa, and is a commentary on a text called the Seven Point Mind Training. So everyone has a copy of that here tonight. So please don’t take this home.
The idea is we will be able to use this each each Thursday night just to be able to refer back to the the root text. We’re on page forty five of the Rays of the Sun text and we’re on to the section which says the actual techniques for cultivating the awakening mind. So it says the stages for training the mind that is in bodhicitta are explained in two sections: the actual training in the conventional awakening mind and the five precepts that are factors of the training. So the five precepts that are factors of training are referring to one of the main parts of the seven point mind training text which is once one generates bodhicitta there are the what are called the five precepts which are factors or in maintaining bodhicitta and sustaining it and increasing it and so on and these are called the five precepts or five factors of training are transforming adverse conditions so that one can use even the worst sufferings and problems as part of the practice rather than them becoming obstacles. So the text deals with that.
The second of the five factors or precepts is integrating one’s practice into a single lifetime So using everything, every aspect of life and practice to generate bodhicitta and overcome its main opponent which is the self-cherishing thought. Then there is the measures of having trained the mind. The fourth of the factors is the irreversible commitments to follow as part of the training. And then the fifth point is the fifth factor are the precepts of mind training. So we’ll cover those as we go through the seven point mind training and its commentary the rays of the sun.
So it goes on to say: The actual training deals with the conventional waking mind which is concerned with the welfare of others, which is explained by means of the teaching on exchanging yourself with others and the ways of cultivating the mind that is actually concerned with the interests of others and the awakening mind concerned with attaining the fully awakened state of being. So, actually there are two main ways of generating bodhicitta and in this section here it mentions one of them which is the teaching called exchanging yourself with others. So this method of generating bodhicitta comes from this great bodhisattva who lived in India in the eighth century of this era called Śāntideva. So his method of generating bodhicitta is particularly mentioned in this text. But it goes on to say: The great pioneers have explained that in general cultivating the awakening mind involves two fold activity of being concerned with the welfare of others and being concerned with enlightenment.
So just to explain that very briefly the great pioneers these are referring to someone a pioneer who is someone who kind of leads the way somewhere like the pioneers who came to Australia at least the white ones. The Aborigines were here for a long time, but they were the Europeans who became the pioneers of bringing settlement to Australia. Maybe that’s not such a good example. Delete that one. But it particularly refers to those great followers of the Buddha who sort of pioneered the Mahāyāna teachings in the world and that particular refers to and they’re sometimes called the great charioteers because in traditional ancient armies the chariots would go first because they would cause the the the a lot of destruction and then the foot soldiers would wipe up the rest.
Again, maybe a strange example to give in the Buddhadharma, but these great charioteers sort of paved the way for introducing practices to sentient beings. And those two main pioneers or charioteers are Nāgārjuna and Asaṇga. Nāgārjuna is particularly associated with the ultimate bodhicitta teachings about developing the wisdom realizing the true nature of things Asaṇga is particularly associated with the conventional bodhicitta teachings which we are dealing with here. But also in this case the great pioneers could also refer to Śāntideva because he was one of the major teachers of bodhicitta. So as it says here, Cultivating the awakening mind involves this twofold activity, which I mentioned in our motivation of being concerned with the welfare of others, the suffering of others unbearable, realizing that actually all sentient beings rich, poor, wealthy, same thing rich, poor, powerful and weak everybody is suffering one way or another.
And there’s various kinds of suffering but everyone is suffering in some way. So a mind arises that cannot a mind of great compassion that cannot bear the suffering of others. Yeah. Not in the way that we can say I can’t bear other people’s suffering which means I don’t want to know about it. It bothers my mind.
It you know, I I want to be happy so I can’t bear thinking about the suffering of others because if I do, destroys my peace of mind and I want to be happy. The way to be happy is to ignore the suffering of others but actually this the way to be miserable in the long run. So it doesn’t mean that not bearing, it means that one feels the suffering of others as one’s own. It becomes unbearable in the sense that one has to do something about it, not ignore it, but totally involve oneself in in overcoming the suffering of others because one feels their suffering as one’s own, because one feels those beings as intimately with oneself. And we have the potential to reach that kind of state and we have the ability to do it if we practice.
Especially right now with the precious human rebirth we have the chance to develop that ability because of our potential. So the awakening mind bodhicitta involves this two fold of activity of being concerned with the welfare of others and being concerned with enlightenment, being concerned with doing all the things that will bring about enlightenment because only as an enlightened being can we really free others from suffering. Because while we’re suffering, you know, we just have we just don’t have the ability to stop the suffering of others. We’re just caught up in our own suffering. And when we’re suffering, we tend to, unfortunately, either directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously, cause suffering to others.
So we need to be free of suffering, and more than that, we need to awaken all our qualities in order to benefit others. So, with regard to this first point of being concerned with the welfare of others, we should see those sentient beings who are the object of our concern as being equally pleasing and agreeable. So, first step this is referring to the first step in generating the first direct cause, one could say, of generating bodhicitta. If you can remember what I said last week at all before we can really directly work on generating bodhicitta, we have to renounce this life and work for our future lives. Then we have to be able to renounce cyclic existence so that we can work towards being free of all suffering.
Only when we have developed that level of mind can we authentically be really concerned with others because before that, we’re concerned with ourselves. But then, as the first stage of really generating bodhicitta, a general phase, is we have to develop this mind of equanimity that sees basically all sentient beings as the same. Because right now, what we do uncontrollably because we have self-cherishing just briefly, sorry if I, you know, bore the older students in saying because they know this backwards, but just for the newer people and maybe to remind the older students if they’ve forgotten or got confused, is that there are two very important concepts which can sound similar or even the same but are different, that are important to understand. So one concept is the concept of self grasping, and the other is self-cherishing. So these are two different things.
So self grasping is referring to ignorance, which is the very root of all suffering. The very root of Samsāra, the root of all our suffering, the root cause of all our delusions and so on is ignorance. And another term for ignorance is self grasping. Because what self what ignorance does is it creates the illusion of a truly existing or inherently existing self. A self that seems to exist from its own side under its own power.
It creates that illusion and then it grasp that that very mind of ignorance grasps that that illusion is actually true and a real existing phenomena. Me, the Self. So that’s why it’s called self grasping. And then because we have self grasping we have self-cherishing. Because we have the self me, the big me, and then dancing around that big me is our self-cherishing which is there to make me happy.
Happy. Number one has to be happy before everyone else. Number me has to be free of my suffering has to be dealt with before everyone else’s suffering because also my suffering is the worst suffering in the entire universe. Nothing compares to my suffering. My toothache is far greater than all the suffering of every sentient being that’s ever existed.
Right? That’s the self-cherishing thought. So something has to be done about that. Everybody else is suffering. They can just continue to suffer while I deal with my pimple or toothache or my hair turning grey or falling out.
This is the major major event of the universe to be dealt with. And my need to be happy that is like just so hugely vital to the well-being of the entire universe. Only when I am happy will the universe be happy. Right? So that’s the self-cherishing thought in its extreme form.
Now what am I talking about? Oh yes, so these two things self grasping and self-cherishing. Because of our self-cherishing, this is the point, because we have self-cherishing are under the control of self-cherishing what we do. Fortunately we’re not always one hundred percent under the control of self-cherishing or even ninety sometimes we’re not under the control of it at all, these small periods of time when it’s not there, but it does sneak up quite a lot. When it’s there, we uncontrollably see other people as either friends, enemies, or strangers.
And we do that almost in a second, in one second. Maybe sometimes it takes longer, but, you know, you walk into a group of strangers or people you don’t know and you look at them know maybe you just even look at them or you say a couple of words and you’ve plonked that person that’s a friend I’m gonna be nice to that person I’ll talk to them some more this one don’t like them not going to talk to them anymore you know this one might talk to them might not depend if they talk to me first I’ll talk to them but you know we don’t consciously think like that, but that’s, you know, what happens. It tends to happen. Friend, enemy, stranger. Friend, enemy, stranger.
Little boxes. Stuff people into boxes and try and keep them there all the time because of our self-cherishing thought. So what it’s saying here so the point is while we continue to do that, then we will continue to activate our disturbing thoughts, you know, desire attachment to the friend, aversion to the enemy, and indifference to the stranger. And while we perpetuate those those mental states, we we won’t be able to develop genuine loving kindness or compassion. And if we don’t develop loving kindness and compassion, we can’t generate great love and great compassion.
And if we don’t generate those, we can’t generate bodhicitta. If we don’t generate bodhicitta, we can’t achieve enlightenment. Also, that’s from a very high level, but even from our own limited point of view, while we have this mind that sees friend enemy and stranger, we perpetuate our own disturbing thoughts, we engage in negative actions, and that brings suffering and limitation to ourselves apart from, you know, keeps us in saṃsāra. So what what the author of this text, Namkha Pel, is saying, which all the great masters have said, is that: Firstly, we should see sentient beings as being equally pleasing and agreeable. That all sentient beings are the same being agreeable and pleasing.
This is what equanimity is. Where we reduce more and more this sense of friend, enemy, stranger and basically seeing everyone as a friend. Trying to reduce our attachment to the friend, reducing our aversion to the enemy, reducing our indifference to the stranger. The ways to achieve this include being led through the method of seven causes and one result. That’s a little bit misleading.
That’s not the way to achieve equanimity, that’s the way to achieve bodhicitta on the basis of having developed equanimity, then the way to achieve conventional bodhicitta is the way, as I mentioned, ways, so there are methods. So one way is the method of the seven causes and one result. So the older students know that this is the method that comes from the great bodhisattva Asaṇga. I mentioned this the method of Śāntideva, but another major method of developing bodhicitta comes from this great bodhisattva Asaṇga who lived around the second century of this era, so about six hundred years before Śāntideva. So what we need to do is work on developing equanimity and then train in the different methods of generating bodhicitta such as Asaṇga’s method and Śāntideva’s method.
It goes on to say: Having realized that relatives arouse feelings of pleasure and therefore we get attached to that, enemies arouse feelings of unease and therefore we develop aversion to that. And those who are neither give rise to feelings of indifference meditate on all sentient beings as being close to you. So this is one of the essential things we have to do because with self-cherishing we have attachment to friends, so we want to be close to friends, but we completely push away so called enemies. And in this context, have to remember enemy doesn’t mean someone we necessarily have, you know, intense hatred for, but just anyone who annoys us or bothers us, who goes against our self-cherishing thought is what is meant by the enemy, someone we really don’t want to have anything to do with while that self-cherishing is there. So we hold on to our friends, always hang out with the same people, put all our effort into the same people, we reject another group of people, so called enemies, and we remain incredibly indifferent to the vast majority of living beings.
Right? So many people would argue, well, that’s all we can do. But the Buddha is telling us that we have this potential within us that is able to have genuine affection for every living being. That we don’t have to just focus on a small group. That we’re capable of something far, far greater than that.
And the more we focus on a little group, family and friends, the more we limit ourselves, the more we create obstacles to having genuine affection, kindness for others. Right? And I think it’s relatively easy to see if we have aversion aversion to some people, of course, that’s a great obstacle to developing love and compassion. But also attachment is an obstacle to loving kindness and compassion. Our attachment to people is not love, is not compassion, is actually an obstacle to these positive states of mind.
The more attachment, the more we are prevented from really opening our hearts beyond just this one person or two or small group. But also, it’s important to consider, to check up, that indifference also, which seems, oh, that’s not such a bad thing to be indifferent, you know, hatred is bad, anger is bad, or maybe attachment is not so good, but indifference is not so bad. Come on. But if you think about it, if we’re indifferent to people, this is also blocking our ability to be kind and compassionate. Even indifference is a huge obstacle if one remains indifferent to people to their existence, to their problems, their fears, their suffering, etc, etc.
If we remain indifferent to it, that potential for love and compassion just can’t flourish. And of course sorry if I repeat the same simple points again, that’s all I can do My excuse. Is that, you know, it it all goes back to, you know, one of the vital, vital insights of the Buddha. I like this forty five million vital insights, but one of the super vital ones, basic, basic, is that our disturbing thoughts bring all suffering. That is the cause of all our suffering, our own disturbing thoughts, Whereas our virtuous thoughts, the positive ones, which are a reflection of our Buddha nature, especially love, compassion, and all the the manifestations of that such as kind yeah, kindness and patience and generosity and all these things.
These are the actual basis of of genuine happiness. Right? This is what we need to understand. Otherwise, all of this doesn’t make sense. If love and compassion are the actual basis of the happiness that we really want to experience, whether we know it or not, then anything blocking it is a disaster, and indifference is a disaster.
Right? So we have to challenge ourselves to try to go beyond our little kind of thing of friend, enemy, stranger, being nice to people who it’s easy to be nice to because they fit with the self-cherishing thought. I mean this is also a very useful exercise to do, homework for the week, meditation for the week, is to check up, you know, why is this person a friend to me? You think of all your different friends. Why is this person why do I see this person as a friend?
What is the the fundamental reason? Fundamental reason. Rock bottom reason. And, unfor embarrassingly, what we may discover if we’re really honest is that the friend is what is labeled on a person who fits with our self-cherishing thought. They tell us we’re nice in some way.
They smile at us, and they agree with us. Or they disagree with us in a nice way for some time. Yeah. Why do I dislike this human being? If we check, it’s because they go against our self-cherishing.
Cherishing. As soon as someone goes against our self-cherishing thought, we don’t like them, at least for that time. We may change because that’s the nature of our mind. Friend becomes enemy, enemy becomes stranger. It goes around and around.
But while someone is going along with our self-cherishing, I love you. When they go against it, I hate you. I don’t like you. You are bad. You are really bad.
You’re really, really bad. How could anyone who go you know, disagrees with me be good? They must be bad because I’m good, because I’m the center of the universe. The universe exists for me. Right?
So whatever I want should happen, and you’re telling me I can’t have it. Very, very bad. Bad person. This is if we think purely with a self-cherishing thought. Fortunately, there are flashes of something else mixed with our self-cherishing.
Not always. And then, of course, the stranger why do we ignore most people? Because they don’t seem to help or harm us. They don’t either go along with our self-cherishing, they don’t challenge it. So, don’t care.
That if we look, I mean, that’s what we do, and and it’s what most people do. And it seems that’s all we could do, but it’s not. The Buddha is telling us that we are capable of something far, far greater than that. So it goes on to say, which is a little strange here, this sentence, it says, although in reality, all sinned beings are not your mother by meditating on recognizing them as your mother, remembering their kindness and wishing to repay it, a sense of their being attractive. What’s strange about that sentence is saying in reality, all sentient beings are not your mother, But actually in reality they are.
This is the whole Mahāyāna view Buddhist view. But I think what it means here is that in reality all sentient beings aren’t your mother of this life. That’s that’s true. In reality, everyone in this room, you know, all all of you are not my present you you you didn’t give birth to me in this life. Right?
I think, no. You’re not my mother. No. None of you are my mother. My But all of you are my mother in that you have been my mother in past lives.
When I was in another life, all of you my grammar goes berserker, you know what I mean. Everyone here has been my mother. We’ve all been mother to each other. That is the reality. Why?
Because of beginningless mind. We have mind which is beginningless. Sentence is referring to actually, do you remember that last week I gave you a two sheeted outline? I don’t know if you brought that with you or have looked at it, but in there are the outlines very briefly of Shanta Deva’s method of generating bodhicitta and Asaṇga’s. So this is referring to Asaṇga’s method of generating bodhicitta which is called the seven causes and one effect.
So the first cause of generating bodhicitta through Asaṇga’s method is realizing or recognizing that all sentient beings, without exception, have been one’s Mother. So the way to do that basically is to reflect that it to come to this realization depends on realizing one has a mind, not a brain, and that the mind is simply beginningless. It was never caused. It it was never created. No one created our mind.
Our parents didn’t create our mind. God didn’t create our mind. Buddha didn’t create our mind. Our mind has simply always existed. Going back and back and back.
Because, you know, you can always say, well, it must have started then, but all you all you have to say is, but before that, one moment before then, was a previous moment of the same continuum of mind going back and back. And the mind has always, like our mind now is in this body, it’s always had a body, some kind of body. So we’ve had not just a million previous bodies, not just a million rebirths, we’ve had infinite number of previous lives and bodies. So for those bodies, just like this body we’ve got, we had to have a mother to have this body. Our mother gave us this body and dad helped a bit.
A bit. Not so much but quite a bit. We needed the mom and dad, especially mom. So just like with this life, it’s true for all our previous lives, when we had an actual body, there had to be a mother to produce that body for us. So we’ve had infinite mothers.
Right? And since, you know, saṃsāra is beginningless, there has been time for the infinite sentient beings of this universe to have been our mother. At least one time, at least one time, every sentient being has been our mother. But since time is timeless, there has been timeless time, if that makes sense, for every sentient being to have been our Mother many times. Every sentient being has been our human Mother many times, has been our animal Mother many times, preta mother many times, desire god realm mother many times.
In the hell realms, you don’t have a mom. You just go there straight. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred. Go straight.
In the upper god realms, you don’t have mothers. But in the lower realms of the desire realm gods, you have a mom and a dad. So every sentient being has been our Mother in those different situations many times. Even the Mother of this life has been our Mother many times. This is the Buddhist view.
It’s terrific. It’s great. And so the first cause of generating bodhicitta according to Asaṇga’s method is not just knowing that or believing it, understanding it, is on the basis of understanding that, believing, having a rational belief, logical belief that every sentient being has actually been one’s mother, then the real cause of first cause of generating bodhicitta is training the mind to recognize every sentient being as one’s mother. Rather than seeing this person as man, woman, beautiful, ugly, friend, enemy, stranger, this person is my mother. That’s the most important reality.
So someone who can actually do that is beginning to generate bodhicitta. Just going back to that sentence that we just quoted, why do we see every sentient being as our mother apart from it being true? Is it leads to the second point of remembering their kindness. And what the reason for remembering the kindness of mothers is then, it leads to wanting to repay that kindness. Because if you think about it, as an ordinary person, when someone is kind to us for whatever reason, there is some kind of natural inclination to be kind to that person and to want to repay that kindness.
And the more kindness we recognize that we’ve received from someone, then the more energy we have to repay that kindness. Right, as a healthy human being. Right? So Every sentient being has been very kind in many, many ways, but the focus of the Asaṇga’s method of generating bodhicitta is to think about how every sentient being has been kind as the Mother because in general a Mother’s kindness is the most amazing. Of course not all mothers are in any particular situation very kind.
Of course there are very bad mothers who aren’t kind to their children at all. We’ll just leave that aside for the moment because it complicated. But even people who’ve had a bad mother in this life have had good mothers in previous lives and their bad mother of this life has also been their good mother in previous lives. That’s something to remember, actually. But the special feature of a mother’s kindness which distinguishes it from every a father’s kindness and every other kind of kindness is that it’s the real thing is that it’s unconditional.
Mums just love their kids. No matter who they are, what they look like, what they do, whether they turn into criminals or saints, whether they’re good or bad, this or that, moms just love their kids. They take care of them no matter what. That’s what moms do. So our mom did that for us.
So that’s incredible kindness. So we we have act yeah. So yeah. So one thinks of all the different ways the mother of this life has been kind for the purpose of then trying to realize that actually every sentient being has been kind in that way when they were my mother. Right?
There’s no doubt about that. Every sentient being has been has given has done those same thing. You see, you know, when you see someone, you know, like a mother holding their child and, you know, very kindly, you can think, oh, every sentient being has done that for me. Every sentient being has cradled me in their arms for hours and hours and sort of talked to me nicely, you know, goo goo and said, mommy, daddy, all these nice things. Every sentient being has done that, just like the Mother of this life.
Every sentient being. Many, many, many, many times. Every good thing our Mother has done, every sentient being has done when they’re our mother because that’s what mothers do. You think of all the meals your mother of this life has cooked for you, which we never thought about. We just gobble it up, leave the dishes, run out to play or whatever.
So our mothers, every every sentient being has done that for us. And there’s some very small things mothers do for their children, but which are really, really, somehow very important. Because our mother is incredibly important to us even as, know, a very old adult person, somehow feeling one’s mother’s love is very important. I’m trying not to get too gushy here, but My mother, when she got old, she had a series of strokes, so she ended up in a old folks home or whatever you call them. There’s polite words now here in Adelaide.
I was attendant at the time. Well, anyway, so but Lama Sopa Rinpoche came to Adelaide, and so I went to visit my mother in this place. And she she was sitting in this place in a circle with all these other people. And she couldn’t move half her body, she couldn’t speak. I went up to her and she recognized me and we talked a little bit and whatever.
And I remember and I was, you know, I can’t remember, forty, fifty at the time or something. And I remember leaving her and I could see that as I moved away, I I could really see that she’d forgotten already that I I was there, that her mind had gone in back into that blank state that she was in. And it really was painful to think, oh, my mom’s forgotten me. Because even as an adult, you want your mother to remember you and, you know, like you and love you. We we really need it.
Yeah? It’s it’s it’s absolutely vital thing. So we we get that from, you know, our mother of this usually from the mother of this life. But since know, but, you know yeah. We’ve and we’ve received it from all sentient beings.
And it doesn’t have to be in a, like, a huge dramatic fashion. In most cases, our mother’s love isn’t shown in some major dramatic fashion. It’s just in all the little things of life and just the mere fact that she’s there. And just sort of knowing that your mother cares for you is so incredibly important. And we we’ve received it and and thrived on it.
So we take the example of our mother of this life and then try to realize that everyone has done that. Everyone. So you can’t distinguish that the mother of this life is better than any other mother. All mothers are the same. You can’t say the mother of this life is really more my mother than the other mothers.
Because I I don’t know how to express this, but properly in English, as you know, I can’t speak the language very well. But and it’s not a nice way to put it. But if if if if and when well, your your mother. When our mother dies, we don’t think, I don’t have you know, I don’t I’ve never had a mother. That person in our mind is still our mother.
She’s not with us. The body has gone. But we still think of that person as our mother. She hasn’t stopped being our mother. Whether we believe in reincarnation or whatever, a person who doesn’t even believe in future lives, still there is person who is my mother or was my mother.
Right? So all our previous mothers the only difference between the previous mothers and the mother of this life is time. How can they stop being my mother? Because at some point the mother of this life, you know, I won’t know her at all. I’ll be in another place, in another body, but it doesn’t stop the fact that she was my mother.
Right? So it doesn’t stop the fact that every sentient being has been our mother just because of time and we can’t recognize we don’t know we can’t recognize them anymore. One thing I think can be very helpful, just one simple there’s many things, one thing that Rinpoche emphasizes in for people who have had a difficult time with the mother of this life is to consider that and thinking, oh, my mother of this life wasn’t kind to me, was very unkind. Kindness, even the so called unkind mother has given us, is our body. Because she could have, you know, got rid of us.
Even when it was you know, now time nowadays, it’s very easy to do that. In the past, it was difficult. But even when it was difficult in cultures, people women did it. But our mother didn’t. So even so that that itself is an incredible kindness because because now we have this body, we’ve had the chance to meet the Dharma and practice it, which is the most precious, amazing thing of all.
So just that is an incredible kindness. But it’s also important to reflect if we’ve had a hard time with a mother or father of this life is to think that is to try to be mindful that our mother is just a human being, Subject to delusions and fears and worries is suffering in saṃsāra. So maybe, although she didn’t do a very good job, maybe it was the best she could do. Maybe she was trying to be a good mother but couldn’t be because of all sorts of problems in her life, which, as an ordinary child, we, you know, we probably don’t think of about much or are aware of. I know when I was a kid, I I, you know, I just assumed my you know, assuming isn’t even word.
It was so more basic than that, that my mother would just totally look after me, which she did. I was very lucky. But it never occurred to me that my mother might be having some problems or that it would be tiring looking after me and cooking after cooking for me and for me all day long and washing me and washing my dishes and clothes and everything else. And and I never maybe when I was a little bit a lot older, like sixty. No.
But no. But when I was young just the idea that you know my mother wouldn’t do that. Why wouldn’t she do that? I’m here. I need to be fed.
Of course my mother’s going to feed me. You know? And, you know, and I never thought of all the effort involved in it. Just, of course, you will do that. But may and and for many people, mothers, it’s kind of okay to do and easy to do.
But maybe for some other mothers, for all sorts of reasons, it can be very difficult. Suffering physically, mentally, financially, difficult relations with husband or whatever. So many things could be going on. So maybe she tried her best. And maybe even the things that, you know, we argued, you know, you do that and we don’t want to do that.
We think, oh, you know, she’s making me do something terrible. But maybe our mother thought that would was best. Maybe it was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t best at all or even close to best, but maybe she honestly thought it was because of her culture, conditioning, this and that. It’s important to try and think of those things.
So anyway, it’s really good to reflect on all the different ways our Mother from the simplest to the most profound ways our Mother has been kind to us, which is a reflection of her love and then realize every sentient being has done that to me, has given me that love and protection and care. And so the more we become aware of that, how much we’ve received, we want to return it, want to repay that kindness. That’s the purpose of thinking of all sentient beings as one’s mother, the kindness, and that leads to wanting to repay that kindness. And then that leads to thinking what’s the best way to repay that kindness. And it goes on to say just to repeat that: ‘By meditating on recognizing sentient beings as your mother, remembering their kindness and wishing to repay it, generate a sense of their being attractive.
So what by by remembering training to see every sentient being as your mother, because it’s true, remembering their kindness and wanting to repay that kindness, this leads to a kind of love which is called affectionate love. And that arises by seeing people as attractive. Just like if our mother has been kind to us in this life and we love our mother, no matter what she physically looks like objectively, we see our mother as attractive. No matter how old she is and wrinkled and whatever, she looks beautiful in one way because she’s our mother. It occurred to me once when my mother was alive that I lived in a street which was full of old people.
There was hardly any young people in it. But this was when I was actually an adult and a Buddhist by this time. But it occurred to me that there were all these old ladies in the street. I didn’t find any of them attractive, of course. They were just old ladies, you know, with white hair and, you know, this and that, wrinkles and everything.
But my mom, she was an old lady and conventionally she wasn’t an attractive, she was fat and all sorts of things. But in my eyes she looked great. I wouldn’t hug these old ladies in the street but I would hug my mom because she was my mom. But objectively, you know, her body wasn’t any better, nicer than any of the other old ladies in the street. The only difference was she was my mom.
And so she was beautiful, huggable. Right? So we can train, you know, by thinking of the kindness of others, we can start to see them. Because, you know, if you if if, you know, people you like who are kind, it doesn’t matter what they look like, there’s an attractive quality to them. There are people who can look physically very beautiful or sexy or whatever, But if you start to discover that they are really not very nice people, even their physical appearance starts to be not quite so attractive.
So in Tibetan school, can’t pronounce it properly, but it’s something like Yewonkie Jampa, which sounds very funny. Yewonkie Jampa, which means affectionate love, which is that mind that by remembering, feeling the kindness that one has received from others, expression Lama Sopa Rinpochee uses, which is not very good English but actually works really well, is that you see them in beauty. You see another in beauty. You see them in beauty. There’s a beautiful quality about them, a certain beauty.
And, of course, anything that is beautiful, we like and enjoy, and we want to take care of it. You know, this is a beautiful flower, so we want it to last long, so we put it in a vase of water. We take care of it. If someone, you know, damages it, we get upset because there’s something pleasing and attractive about it. And same with people.
If we see something pleasing and attractive about them, we want to take care of them. It’s enjoyable being in their presence, and we want to take care of them. We want them to be happy. It just naturally comes to some extent. The more kindness we recognize, the more we see beings in beauty, and the more we want them to be happy, just naturally.
Okay. Just just to make one point, some some clever people would say, Well, that’s all very nice that every sentient being has been our mother and very kind, but also it could follow that every sentient being has been our enemy and very nasty to us. Firstly, that way of thinking doesn’t help generate our good qualities. So it’s not good to dwell on that point. But the point but also it’s not quite so valid an argument because if you take just this life, in this life, very few people are unkind to us, you know, really harmful to us.
Some some are in in varying varying degrees, but, you know, more people are kind than unkind. A lot are indifferent to us because we just don’t see them or know them. But if you if you think of the people we have some relationship with at all, the majority are more kind than unkind. So this is true in every life. So the kindness we receive at any time in any life far, far, far outweighs the unkindness.
Because there’s billions of ways people are kind in some way directly, indirectly. Oh, I think we had an argument with one lady who’s not here anymore. Friendly argument about, you know, even, like, a shopkeeper is kind to us. Her argument was, oh, but she’s being or he or she’s being paid to do that. That’s true.
But they’re still doing it. It’s very kind that there are shopkeepers. If we didn’t have shop keepers, we wouldn’t be able to shop and get what we want. So it’s very kind that there are people doing that job. You know?
It’s very kind that there are garbage collectors. Because if people didn’t collect our garbage, life would be disgusting. Yeah. Yes. They’re being paid, but not everyone wants to do that job.
Every every you know, all the jobs that are being done from the simplest to the most sophisticated, people are being paid for them to do them, but we need them. So it’s really incredibly kind that people do it. Because we’d be miserable and suffer. Our life would be, you know, much more complicated and difficult if they didn’t do it. And, of course, the shopkeepers paid to say what would you like?
What do you want? The fact that they do it still is kind of kind because some don’t. You wait and you wait and you wait. And although they’re being paid some people do it really nicely so it’s very kind. Know everyone you know people you know police you know put down so much, but it’s very kind that we’ve got them.
So much kindness people give us, much of which we don’t recognize because of our self-cherishing thought. We’re so wrapped up in ourselves, we don’t recognize these little things that people do. But they do do it. Okay, we’ll stop here but maybe just one or two questions or? Any points?
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, sure. Sure.
Well, it could also work even if you think that only human beings are sentient beings, but since our mind has always existed, would follow that we’ve always been human. If you think only human beings are sentient beings, then we would have been only human beings, but therefore every every human being has been our mother. If they are the only sentient beings, but if you realize that animals are sentient, then it means that every animal has been our mother. Yeah. Well, it’s you know, there’s no length to it.
Are pretas being born from others? How do you become a preta? No, according to the teachings, one is born in the womb of a precious mother because of that karma. You create the cause for that kind of suffering so there has to be to experience that suffering you have to have the conditions which is to be have a preta body in a preta realm. So in the Bardo state one makes the mistake of choosing a mom, that actually is a preta.
A preta mom. Yeah. Well, that’s yeah. Yeah. Heat and and what’s the other one?
Spontaneous. Well, spontaneous refers to being born in the upper god realms and in the hell realms. There’s spontaneous birth. There’s four, isn’t there? Born from womb, born from heat, born spontaneously.
And what’s the other one? Eggs. Eggs. Yes. Yeah.
Eggs. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think the examples were like flies and things like that, but I think this is because it wasn’t understood that actually there were itty bitty eggs or something.
I I think yeah. No. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Sure. You do. Yes. Yes, of course. If you get out of the when you when the karma to be in the hell realms finishes, one has to be reborn in some other realm such as you get reborn as a preyta or an animal or a human or in the god realms.
So or say if you get reborn as an animal, you get out of the hell realms, you get reborn as an animal, then if you were born as a female animal you can become a mother. If you get reborn as a male animal you can become a father. Right? And you would have a mother. No.
Not in Samsāra. No. None of the realms are yeah. Yeah. One isn’t permanently in any realm.
One yeah. The only lasting state, well, is enlightenment. Once you got once we get enlightened, that doesn’t cease. That’s the deathless state. That’s what we’re aiming for.
Okay. I think it will have a tea break. Or hello? Is this working? Yeah?
Before carrying on of generating bodhicitta. I’ll give some people who weren’t here last week. There’s a little bit bit of handout here you could have at the end of the class if you’re interested which gives some details about bodhicitta and the two methods of generating it and so on. So I’ve only got a couple of copies but you’re welcome to have them especially if you’re thinking to come back. Anyway, so the six causes and one effect technique of Asaṇga is so we’ve covered three very very briefly.
The first cause is firstly on the basis of developing equanimity towards all beings, then one realizes that all these kind beings are actually my mother, that they’ve been incredibly kind, and then you generate the developed wish to repay that kindness, and that leads to the next cause of the next two causes. So the first three are in a logical sequence. The next two don’t have to follow a sequence, Anyway, the next two causes are generating love and compassion. So what I’m trying to say is, you know, the wish to repay the kindness of Mother sentient beings can lead to then generating love and then compassion, or it could be compassion and then love because the two go together there. If, you know, if you if you love some someone, you have compassion for them.
If you have compassion for someone, you have love for them. Those two things will go together even though they’re slightly different because the simple definition of love in what is what is meant by love in Buddhism is it is the mind wishing beings to have happiness. Right? That that’s what that’s the the mental factor that we are trying to cultivate, which is the one of the main bases for real happiness is the is that potential to wish beings happiness. And what we should also understand in that context is that the happiness that we are wishing them is not worldly happiness.
Because worldly happiness is the suffering of change. It’s just a very subtle kind of suffering. So real love is wishing beings to have genuine happiness. Right? And and compassion is the mind not wanting beings, including oneself, to to experience suffering.
And, of course, also what goes with that with love and compassion is the it’s the love is the mind wanting beings to have happiness, but also and and very importantly to have the causes of happiness. And compassion is the mind wanting beings not only to be free of suffering, especially to be free of the causes. So in wanting to repay the kindness, we have to think, how can I repay the kindness of sentient beings? What is the best way? Would repay the kindness of the mother of this life?
Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, even to repay the kindness of the mother of life, the one mother of this life, very, very difficult. Because our mother has given us so much, suffered so much on our behalf, starting with giving birth to us, worrying about us, all sorts of sufferings. So it’s very difficult to, you know, repay the mother the kindness of the mother of this life. You know, we have Mother’s Day and we give our mom a box of chocolates or a hankie. Do we still have hankies?
Yeah. Hankies or a packet of Kleenex then. Yeah. Or we buy her, like a, I don’t know, piece of furniture, you know, depending on how much money we’ve got. TV set, new washing machine, how wonderful, you know.
But does that repay the kindness of our mother? Not really. Of course, our mother doesn’t want to be kind repaid. And if just if we just say we love her, that’s you know, she’s happy. But in in in from our side, that doesn’t repay the kindness, which leads I I think I’ve already told you this story already, but I I I like to tell this story.
It’s so nice, and it’s true. One of my friends who is now a nun, an American woman, she was telling me how when she went to the her first kopan course, which is kopan is Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s monastery in Nepal. And every year there’s this month long meditation course. And she attended it. She was not a Buddhist.
She was just new to the whole thing, a little bit cynical and everything. But she was getting into it. And then Rinpoche came along towards the end of the course and started teaching. She asked for an interview and got one. She said that she’d always had this thought and she was very close to her family and she said she often would think if I had a million dollars then I’d buy this for my family and this for my family and she would fantasize what what different things she would how she could, you know, repay the kindness of and then she heard Rinpoche teaching about repaying the kindness.
And so she asked to see Rinpoche, and she asked Rinpoche, how can I repay the kindness of my family? And and Rinpoche, as he tends to do, closed his eyes and went sort of into some kind of state that Rinpoche tends to go into and it lasted a long time. So this friend of mine, I didn’t know her then, but of course she wasn’t really familiar with Rinpoche and his amazing qualities so she thought he’d just fallen asleep. And she was, you know, she was waiting and waiting for the answer. And so, you know, nothing happened.
So she started going into this thing about thinking, well, if I had a million dollars, I’d do this and I’d do that. And in the middle of this fantasy, which it had many, many times before, Rinpoche suddenly opened his eyes, leaned over to her and said, but a million dollars wouldn’t repay their kindness, would it? And it wouldn’t. Giving our mother a million dollars, a billion dollars wouldn’t repay her kindness. Because, you know, sorry, you know, no matter how much money we gave our mother, no matter how many things we gave our mother, it wouldn’t stop our mother growing old, wouldn’t stop our mother getting sick, it wouldn’t stop our mother suffering, it wouldn’t stop our mother dying.
So then we think, no ordinary thing is going to help, but how wonderful it would be if my mother could have happiness, real happiness. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could Well, I can’t give my mother happiness, but if I could help her to create the causes of happiness. How wonderful that would be. Would that be wonderful? Yes, it would be wonderful.
So that’s the beginning of developing love. Well, first, there’s the affectionate love that wants her to be happy, and then you think that is the way to repay her kindness, to help her to actually achieve genuine happiness, not the illusion of it, not pleasure and blah blah, but real happiness, meaning real peace of mind. And also and that leads to the thought how wonderful it would be if my mother could be free of suffering and especially the causes of suffering. If I could help that, that would really repay her kindness. And then you extend that, of course, to all sentient beings, thinking how wonderful it would be if all sentient beings could have genuine happiness and its causes.
How wonderful it would be if every sentient being friend, enemy, stranger all sentient beings were free of every kind of suffering, not just obvious suffering, but the subtle suffering which we think of as happiness. And very subtle compounded pervasive suffering if all sentient beings could be free of all of it and all its causes. And then that leads so that leads into great love and great compassion, which is more than just thinking how wonderful it would be, but great compassion and love is where one is determined to do it. I’m going to help all sentient beings to have happiness and it’s because I am actually going to dedicate my life, my lives, to helping all sentient beings be free of the causes of suffering. Right?
So that’s the first I mean, have we got? Five causes: recognizing sentient beings as mother, thinking of their kindness, wanting to repaying it, developing love, great love and great compassion. And that leads to the sixth cause which is called in Tibetan ‘lhaksampa which translates as something like the superior thought or the supreme thought, the great wish, which as His Holiness calls, translates it as universal responsibility. And this is the thought which is really in one way completely insane. One way of looking at it, but is because great love and great compassion is the thought that I will definitely be involved in helping all sentient beings be free of suffering and achieve happiness.
And so great this lhaksam, this universal responsibility, is an even greater step than that, which is the thought that I alone will free every sentient being of all suffering, and I alone alone, nobody else, I alone will enlighten all sentient beings. So that’s kinda crazy at one level. It’s insane how you know? And in a sense, it’s not true because and not possible because, in fact, already many sentient many Buddhas are enlightening sentient beings. And when I become a Buddha, I won’t be the only Buddha.
There will be other Buddhas enlightening sentient beings. But the point about it is it’s a very vital state of mind to get into. It’s this immensely it’s another level of compassion and courage that thinks that I alone will do it. And the reason to develop that mind also to think I alone will free all sentient beings from suffering, I alone will enlighten them, is because the logic is that since every sentient being has been kind to me, then only I can repay that kindness. Right?
So, for example, if Jan lends me a dollar and then and then Will gives Jan a dollar, I still owe Jan a dollar. Right? It’s my responsibility to repay what I receive from her. So right now, there are countless Buddhas benefiting sentient beings, and they’re doing that because they’re repaying the kindness they received when they weren’t Buddhas, when they were ordinary suffering sentient beings. So now they’re repaying all that kindness.
But that doesn’t left me off leave me off the hook of repaying the kindness I’ve received. No matter what Buddhas do for sentient beings, it doesn’t relieve me of repaying the kindness I’ve received. Only I can repay the kindness I’ve received from other sentient beings. That’s my job. That’s my responsibility.
That is my universal responsibility. That is all of our universal responsibilities. So it’s a state of mind. It’s a state of mind. An amazing, inconceivable state of mind.
The most brave, courageous, super duper. Not entirely, there’s one more, which is bodhicitta. So they are the six causes and that leads to the generation of bodhicitta. Because you think, I alone am going to enlighten all sentient beings. So then you look at I.
I am going to do it. And then there’s no way this I can enlighten all sentient beings. I’m just a deluded dill. You know? I can’t enlighten myself.
So if I’m going to enlighten all beings, it means I have to purify my mind of every negativity. I have to get rid of all my delusions because my delusions harm sentient beings. They don’t benefit them. So I have to destroy all my delusions, which means getting rid of ignorance, which means getting out of saṃsāra. And not only that, that’s not enough.
I have to awaken all my positive qualities. I have to develop perfect love, compassion, generosity, patience, perseverance, perfect wisdom, every quality necessary to benefit sentient beings. So I will. Since if that’s what’s needed for me to repay the kindness of all sentient beings, I will. I will do it.
So that becomes bodhicitta, that determination to do it, to achieve enlightenment by realizing it’s the only way I can repay the kindness of Mother sentient beings. So I will do it. I will do it. And I will do everything necessary for however long it takes to achieve enlightenment. That’s bodhicitta.
Right? And that’s how one does it according to Asaṇga. So that gives some hint, some idea that real bodhicitta is I shouldn’t say this, but have to is incredibly difficult to generate. Once one has generated a bodhicitta, one is actually a Bodhisattva. So many people think Bodhisattva means nice person.
A bodhisattva is far, far more than a nice person. Someone gives you a cup of tea, Oh, what a bodhisattva! A bodhisattva will give you his or her arm much more. They will give not just one life but all their lives just to benefit one sentient being. But we have that potential in us.
This is what the Buddha came to this earth to tell us. We all have Buddha nature, and it will never go away. It’s there. It’s it’s it’s an intrinsic quality of our mind. It is our true nature to be a Buddha.
In the Gelugpa tradition, whether you know it or not, we’re following here. The Gelugpa version is that everyone has Buddha nature, is a potential Buddha. In the Nyingma tradition, they say everyone already is a Buddha, but they just don’t know it. So the process is is learning to to realize you’re a Buddha. It all comes down to the same thing.
But we have this put in nature in us, and this is the way to realize it. Renounce this life, renounce saṃsāra, develop equanimity, which we can do along the way. We can develop equanimity right now. Very useful quality equanimity. And then you train our mind to realize how every sentient being has been our mother and then particularly practice that when we look at other people, when we think of other people, try to treat them as our mother rather than friend, enemy, stranger.
They’re actually my mother. That’s the main reality. That’s the most important thing. This person is my mother. Or at least was my mother.
Was my mother is my mother. Very kind. Gotta repay it. I mean, if you think about it, even if all sentient beings haven’t been our mother, it’s really useful to think that they were. We would be so much nicer and more tolerant to people if we really thought of them as our mother.
Alright? But it’s actually true. It’s not just a trick. It’s true. They were.
They are. So I think I’ve got to stop there for tonight. Any questions? More debates? Disagreements?
Suggestions? Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Sure. Which they have. Yeah. Every sentient being has been our brother, sister, auntie, uncle, best friend, teacher.
Every sentient being has saved our life many times. Every sentient being has given their life for us many times in Samsāra. But it also very useful for people who have had a difficult time with their mother to try to that mind, trying to see their mother in a different light. And which doesn’t involve denying what happened, the reality, but trying to see why was my mother like that. That can be very helpful.
I mean, that can apply to all of us with difficult people rather than thinking that person is just just nasty, you know, that they’re bad, you know, that that’s what they are. We we need to try and under understand that people are what they are because of causes and conditions. No one is inherently, you know, bad and blah blah blah. The the the it’s not denying their negative qualities, but and behavior, but why? That that’s what we have to try and work on.
Oh they are indeed! Yeah. I mean, all all the lamas say that I mean, soleness often says the best, you know, protection if if one is being harmed by harmful sentient beings, both spirits and things is rather than, you know, doing all sorts of nasty things, is to try and sort of cultivate love and compassion towards that that being, to try and get into a state of wishing that being, may you have happiness, and so on. Because I yeah. It depends on how nasty the spirit is.
But it seems to be able to work to some extent. And the point is that that’s the best protection for our mind anyway. You know whether the harmful being is a spirit or just a temporary nasty human being, the best protection for ourselves is trying to rather than generate negativity towards the person is is, you know, if they’re gonna hit us, it’s better if we can to be hit with the thought, may you be happy, then, I hope you die, Usod. Being hit by the enemy is one pain, but our generating a negative thought to that person hitting us is even more painful, and the pain will last much longer than just being punched because there’s a lot you know, lifetimes of negative influence. I mean, easy to say, difficult to do, but that’s that’s what the Dharma is.
That’s what the Buddha is is suggesting we try and do. I mean, think I’ve tried to say this, that as a Dharma practitioner what we should try ideally what we should try and do in every situation is rather than you know the world attitude is to protect our body, our possessions, our reputation, you know, our this, that, and the other. But the dharma attitude is the most in any situation, the most important thing to do is to protect the mind. And that means to protect the mind from the negative thoughts. Because ultimately, that will take care of everything else.
Yes, yes. To enter the actual Mahāyāna path, has to generate spontaneous oh, yeah, spontaneous. But maybe we can talk about spontaneous and contrive bodhicitta next week. There’s many ways to divide bodhicitta. I think that’s the end of the class, folks.
Okay. So, thank you very much. I hope something intelligent and useful was said. If oh, and if so, we can dedicate the merit. But before we do that, just one advertisement.
Sorry. Are called merit boxes, and there is the merit box project. Project. The idea is you can take one of these wonderful Merit Boxes home free of charge and put money in it and at the end of the year especially on Lama Tsongkhapa Day which is usually in November December the money is collected and this money is offered to Lama Zopa Rinpoche not for him personal spending but Lama Zopa Rinpoche who is the supreme head of the FPMT organization and at the very least a real, absolute, definite bodhisattva, a truly, truly sublime being who has renounced the self-cherishing thought for sure. Lama Sopa Rinpoche has about over thirty different major dharma projects, not counting building the biggest Maitreya statue in the world, not counting that one.
Like, Lama Zopa Rinpoche is responsible for feeding all the monks, the three and a three and a half thousand monks at Sera Je monastery. He he provides the the the food, the money to buy the food for the meals of three and a half thousand monks every day at Sera Je Monastery. He’s building eye hospitals in Tibet. What else? There’s thirty major major projects.
If His Holiness wants something done, he calls up Lama Sopa Rinpoche to do it because he knows Rinpoche will kill himself to do what any anything that His Holiness asked to do. Anyway, the idea is you can put what I do is when I go shopping for food, I don’t do much other shopping. Anyway, all the silver change I put in there. And at the end of the year, it’s full. You could also put gold coins and paper stuff in there as well if you like.
But even just, you know, silver coin change, Then it’s offered to Lama Sopa Rinpoche, who is a supreme dharma practitioner. Some of you may see him as your Guru. This is incredible merit. And then it’s used in so many incredibly beneficial ways. Highly recommended!
So you can get one tonight, tomorrow, anytime from the center. Thank you very much. That was the advertisement. And, especially, it’s really good to put some money in them on the four holy days of the year. And the second we’ve just finished the first one, the the Buddha’s the Saka Dawa, the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment, and passing away.
And twelfth of July is the next holiday, the the first turning of the wheel, the first time the Buddha actually taught on this earth. It’s a Friday. I highly recommend if if you’re a Buddhist to take the day off work. Tell your boss, I’m a Buddhist. This is a special holy day.
I don’t work on this day. I’m going to Buddha House to take precepts and do all sorts of holy things on this day. Really, no. I’m serious about this. This is very really, as Buddhists, you know, like all other religious people, religions, they have their holy days when they don’t do things.
You know, serious Jews don’t do anything on Sundays, every Sunday. Don’t, you know, they they don’t cook, they don’t do anything except holy things something like that right? Saturday sorry Saturday yeah so at least four days of the year we Buddhists could stop doing ordinary work and think of the Buddha and be kind to sentient beings. Really, this is my job in this life to encourage people to do this. And you can put some money in there, so more merit on those days.
Any good thing So if you offer to the Dharma on those days, skies of merit. Okay. Sorry. I’m raving, it’s getting late. Very sorry.
So we can dedicate the merit if you’d like to join in. Page something. Page ten. No. No.
Eight. 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. The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the Guru, the wish granting jewel, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the Master Padmasambhava, the Dharma King Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen, the Abbot Shāntarakshita and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet and the Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for a thousand years, as well as those who along with many others died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and His Holiness.
May all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the son of Tibetan Buddhism has now risen in the West, which was a dark land. That I have met with the Dharma, I have received the perfect human body, enabling me to lead a meaningful life. Our refuge and savior, the Supreme One, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us. Remembering this, we make the following dedicating prayers: May all His Holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes, be successful immediately.
May the Snowland of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly. Savior of the snow land teachings and transmigratory beings who makes extremely clear the path that is unification of emptiness and compassion to the lotus holder Tenzin Gyatso I beseech may all your holy wishes be spontaneously fulfilled. You who uphold the subdue his moral way, who serve as the bountiful bearer of all, sustaining, preserving, spreading Mañjuśrī’s victorious doctrine, who masterfully accomplished magnificent prayers honoring the Three Jewels, savior of myself and others your disciples, please please live long. Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued makes clear in the light of your well spoken advice the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, O foremost and holy Lama, to you who are supreme.
O Lama, please, please live long. Okay, thank you very much. So, for those people who feel comfortable to