The essence of the cultivation of
bodhicitta is the desire to achieve perfect, complete enlightenment for the
benefit others. (Gampopa)
The desire to practice bodhicitta is
a basic tenet of Mahayana Buddhism. This implies that everything we do both in
practice and in our daily lives is backed by the motivation to benefit others
in all that we do. On the surface this seems an obvious and desirous
achievement, but in reality it is not easy and, consequently we approach
bodhicitta in a gradual and step-by-step manner.
First, we divide bodhicitta into two
main categories: ultimate Bodhicitta and relative bodhicitta. So far, every
sutra and commentary I’ve read on the subject teaches these backwards,
beginning with the ultimate aspect of bodhicitta and then reviewing the
relative benefit. We can approach any desire by enumerating our ultimate goal,
our mission statement, if you will, but first we need to recognize that nearly
everything we cover when discussing Mahayana Buddhism revolves around dealing
with samsara, recognizing its attributes, discovering a path and methods for
diminishing the suffering, negative emotions and so on associated with samsara.
So, as I’ve mentioned, the ultimate
aim of bodhicitta is to achieve or even postpone enlightenment until we can
take all other sentient beings with us on the road to liberation. That is a
pretty hefty goal and not one that can be expected of those of us who are far
from becoming Buddhas. So we start at the beginning with relative bodhicitta.
Relative bodhicitta can be divided into two aspects: aspirational and actionable.
Aspirational bodhicitta is a desire to generate bodhicitta. We’d really like to
get on this path and incorporate it in our daily lives. But like many of our
aspirations, this is no easy feat. Never the less, having the desire to achieve
a positive attribute is the beginning of any activity. In the process of
cultivating aspirational bodhicitta, we contemplate the benefits of bodhicitta.
Most of us haven’t really convinced ourselves that we really want complete
enlightenment. In my experience, many practioners go through the motions of
listening, contemplating and meditation, but in reality, I think in the back of
their minds, they really wish to just come back and have another shot at
achieving another human life and not making the same mistakes or enjoying a
“better” mode of living. But, in samsara, there is no “better” life.
Understanding and having contemplated the essence of samsara, we should, by
now, know that any samsaric existence, by its very nature, is associated with
suffering. If, in our contemplations, we have concluded that liberation or
enlightenment is beyond our reach, then way down deep, you have not fully
understood the nature of impermanence and the other thoughts that turn the mind
towards a spiritual path. In our deluded minds, we see others around us
apparently enjoying quite luxurious and comfortable lives, but I can assure you
that their very experience of this lifestyle is conducive to attachment and the
belief that sensual pleasures and possessions can bring ultimate happiness,
although, for a time, they seem to bring a momentary escape from some of the
stress of day to day existence.
I do want to mention, however, and I
hope you understand this; some pleasurable activities of samsara can be
approached in a meditative way due to the all-encompassing and the single
pointed mindfulness necessary to do them. The Buddhist Mahayana path, itself,
is undertaken through the window of samsara and there are some activities that
can be used to help us further our practice. Take for example, sailing. When
one is sailing, one’s mind is completely focused on the task at hand and,
approached like this, it can be an object-based form of shinay meditation.
Also, let me stress, these are my thoughts and not those of my lineage or my
lamas. But there are parallel examples to this when one thinks of tai chi or
some other martial art which is meditative in nature. I am digressing, but I
think it is important for you to understand that one can easily justify the
benefits of recreation in samsara, and, if done with the guidance of your guru,
some of these activities can be transformed into meditations which can lead one
to understand that Buddhist practice and daily life are inseparable. We listen,
contemplate and meditate, but then we think we are obligated to do what we must
in daily life to provide food, clothing and shelter and think this is separate
from our Buddhist practice. In fact, our practice is a full time occupation.
But when we get a little more advanced in our practice, then the
post-meditative phase is really the only place where the proficiency of our
practices show and can be judged. Now, also let me say that it should be
obvious that we can’t use these kinds of activities, even when taken as a
meditation, and apply bodhicitta principles to it.
I’m going to digress again to give
you a more concrete example. Perhaps I’ll write a book on this topic alone. I
am a weight trainer. I work out with weights and for many years I had an
extraordinary trainer who said to me “I will only train you if you do
everything I say during a workout, save your questions for the end, don’t speak
with others during your workout. Do every exercise I instruct to do with
mindfulness, visualizing the correct form, anticipating the load and
maintaining a single pointed focus on the movements. Don’t worry about your
body. It will change. I promise you. Just follow my instructions. If you can’t
do this I won’t train you.” Now, I’m sure this sounds very familiar. Listen,
contemplate, visualize (as in yidam meditation), and maintain mindfulness and
meditative concentration. Don’t worry about the results. In other words, do the
practices as you’re instructed and don’t worry about whether you will become
Buddha or achieve liberation. I am not saying that you should not question what
you learn. In fact, this is very important. It is essential for one to build an
intellectual foundation that one can have complete faith and confidence in in
order to form the platform for a spiritual practice. Your intellectual
foundation must constantly be challenged for it will change and modify as you
begin to understand and experience the dharma through contemplation and
meditation. It will happen if you are diligent and act with devoration, that is,
the intention to minimize ego-clinging. Key to this is faith. I had absolute
faith in my trainer. I’ve often thought of this word because without faith in
what we’re doing, whatever it is, we will not succeed. But in what or whom are
we placing our faith? These activities further our ability to maintain
mindfulness and single pointed focus, but they really are not advancing
bodhicitta. Knowing that, at the very least, we should keep aspirational
bodhicitta in mind. Sailing for pleasure is a temporary thrill. Sailing with
meditative concentration in mind furthers our skills but only in that it
improves our ability to calm our minds during formal meditation. If you really
limited your activities to those that promoted bodhicitta then you would
abandon these mundane activities. I don’t think most practitioners are prepared
to do this. This is why we approach bodhicitta in a gradual way, beginning with
the aspirational aspect of it.
When our practice develops to the
stage where we are actually ready to turn aspirational bodhicitta to action,
then we must begin to apply method. The first aspect of this path is an
examination of the six paramitas which are delineated in the 37 Practices of a
Bodhisattva. They include cultivating generosity, discipline, patience, joyous
effort, meditative concentration, and understanding the non-dualistic aspect of
ultimate reality or emptiness. The last paramita can only be experienced
through meditation and only when the mind has been stabilized enough to move
from calm-abiding meditation to insight meditation. That is a topic for another
time. I will only address the first five paramitas here because we are
discussing Buddhist practice from a samsaric point of view.
When intentionally working to improve
our actions through the lens of the paramitas, it is important to remember to
apply the basic moral precepts at the same time. For example, suppose you come
across a homeless man, destitute and lost. He’s hungry and asks you for a
handout. What should you do? Give him $5 for a hamburger, go and buy him a
hamburger, or, if you have the means, give him a few hundred dollars so he can
eat and find a place to sleep? At first, if we had the means, the third option
seems to be the most generous, but, as we can only know our own mind, we must
be careful. This man’s karma, along with contributing causes and conditions,
have led him to this state. Our tax money and other charities are available to
help this man, but he has chosen not to utilize them. Now, I suppose I will be
felt to be in violation of my Buddhist practice, but I think the best answer is
to buy him a hamburger. With $5 he might go to McDonald’s or he might go buy a
beer. With several hundred dollars, he may be compelled, by his own ability to
apply mindfulness and his extreme attachments, to go to his drug dealer, or he
may fall prey to his fellow homeless who could rob, injure or even kill this
man to get the resources you so generously gave. The point is every action we
take, even when acting within the six paramitas and applying the best ethical
and moral decision we can, has consequences mostly unknown to us. This is
because we may never know which of our actions creates the causes and
conditions for karmic seeds to ripen.
So, how do we go about cultivating
the six paramitas? We must be sure that whatever we do can in no way produce
harm. Remember, you are working to improve yourself and your own practice for
the benefit of others. So there is a fine line between doing this and imposing
our practice on others. Generosity needs to be approached gradually just as
bodhicitta. So first we generate aspirational generosity. We contemplate the
real meaning of what it means to be generous in Buddhist terms and we meditate
on generosity because it is best cultivated by allowing it to arise
primordially from our own Buddha-nature. When we approach the paramitas in this
manner, then our actions will be guided by our own primordial wisdom, the
essence of mind. The most generous thing we can do is truly commit to
bodhicitta, liberation for the benefit of all
sentient beings. We can give away our material possessions or at the very least
cultivate non-attachment to our stuff, and that is good, but most people do not
give away the things most precious to them. They take their old clothes to the
Salvation Army and give their worn-out furniture to their kids when they get
their first apartment, not out of generosity, but so they can justify buying
new furniture. So generosity in this manner is not generosity at all, but
desire, craving and attachment. Now, I am certainly not suggesting that you
should clean out your house and give away all your possessions. This is
contrived generosity, not bodhicitta generosity. According to the sutras,
generosity has three aspects: giving material goods, giving fearlessness, and
giving dharma (not by teaching, but by practicing). For any act of giving
material goods, we must fully understand our motivation, what we are giving,
who we are giving to and how we are giving (Is it in an environment that will
best serve the recipient or in an uncertain way that may create the causes the
conditions and conditions for negative karmic seeds to ripen?)
So, in the same way, we examine our
method of cultivating generosity, discipline, patience, joyous effort, and
meditative concentration. These attributes and attitudes are meant to further your
own achievement of ultimate bodhicitta.
Let’s look at the next paramita:
discipline. What does this mean in Buddhist terms? Discipline is first our
aspiration to stay true to our path and desire to practice bodhicitta. Second,
discipline involves incorporating morals and ethics in all our activities of
body, speech and mind. Some of these ethical and moral actions are enumerated
in the Gampopa’s sutra “The Jewel Ornament of Liberation” and we have spoken of
them many times. These are the desire to avoid harming or killing any sentient
being, not taken what is not freely given, sexual misconduct, and avoiding
substances that alter our ability to be mindful and maintain clarity of
thought. The last ethical topic covered has to do with avoiding false speech.
In my mind, this is the most difficult precept to follow and it has some
subcategories mentioned in the sutra. These include lying, divisive speech,
harsh words, idle talk, and even harmful thought. Every action begins with a
thought, so it is our duty to purify all aspects of speech because they are the
beginnings of harmful thoughts. The main method for the purification of speech
and the cultivation of the other ethical activities is mindfulness. As we
become more familiar with the true nature of mind, the essence of
Buddha-nature, we will naturally act ethically. Why? Because, once again, our
actions will not be contrived but a natural emanation of our own essence. Our
actions will arise from our primordial nature. Primordial nature is pure and of
infinite potential. This is all the more reason for us to practice ethics.
Infinite potential means just that. So there is infinite potential for good and
infinite potential for bad, in a subjective sense. Ultimately, these terms do
not apply. Primordially, there is no bad-good. What arises as bad or good is a
judgment in the realm of samsara. Liberation from samsara is the experience of
our primordial nature, our pure essence with no karmic imprint, free of seeds
that can arise as roses or weeds. If you contemplate on this you will see it to
be true, but the point here is to maintain discipline by adhering to your
commitments of refuge in the Buddha, dharma and sangha and by the continued
effort to practice bodhicitta.
You may be seeing a pattern here when
cultivating the paramitas. We first reflect on the faults and virtues
associated with each. We try to define and classify the characteristics
associated with them both through listening, contemplating and meditating on
them and then by putting them into action. So we work to increase our ability
to incorporate each paramita, perfecting its effects and observe and be mindful
of the fruition of our practices. We can go through this process for each
specific paramita. We’ve already done this for generosity and discipline. Now
let’s do it with patience. What are the faults and virtues? Without patience we
allow anger and hatred to fester. This happens as a result of our attachment to
self and the ego that arises as a result. Ego, in turn, gives rise to pride and
when our pride is attacked? Well, you can see how this goes. It is my true
belief that pride, attachment and ignorance of the true nature of mind are the
cause of all suffering. We’re talking about patience, but whenever I mention
those three root causes of suffering, I am challenged. “What if I get sick?
What does that have to do with pride or ignorance?” The illness itself is a
result of karma, causes and conditions that created the pathogenic origin of
disease. But you are not your body. Your body is a tool of your mind. So,
whether we like to admit it or not, our previous karma and it’s necessary
causes and conditions has given rise to disease, even if it was just being in
the wrong place at the wrong time; even this arises from karma. But here is
where we become impatient. We can’t allow our attachment to samsara to keep us
from generating the patience we need to get well, rest, pursue treatment, or
whatever. Our pride says “Why me? How could this happen to me?” My own lama,
Tai Situ Rinpoche, says “Why not you?” What makes me so special that I should
be immune from the results of karma? Patience truly is a virtue. Acting with
patience enhances our ability to be mindful. The fruition or result of being patient
is a mind that is at ease and more amenable to stability.
Joyous effort can be thought of as
perseverance. Perseverance is the antidote to laziness. Laziness leads to
listlessness and the abandonment of our practice. There is no such thing as
aspirational practice. Practice means just that. If we no longer need to
practice then we have achieved Buddhahood. We practice in order to achieve a
complete obliteration of ignorance, attachment, negative emotions and
habituation so that we won’t need to practice any more. In both the Armor Sutra
and the Aksayamati-Requested Sutra, perseverance acts as a shield from
afflicting emotions, non-virtuous activities and negative habituations of
thought. As I said previously, thoughts are the first step towards action. Perseverance
in purifying our thoughts is the application of method. In this way, being
mindful of our thoughts and actions is the first and most important step
towards liberation. Joyous effort is the abandonment of self and ego-clinging
to achieve action bodhicitta. In examining efforts and exertions to achieve
bodhicitta we are committing ourselves to acting for the benefit of all
sentient beings. What is a sentient being? In the West, I think we tend to
define sentient beings as a creature that is aware of its own existence. This
is an acceptable way to begin to enact bodhicitta. We can even narrow the field
more than that. LhaTong is a meditative practice which is also known as “Giving
or Sending”. The practitioner develops the idea that on the in-breath he or she
is breathing in all the sufferings of sentient beings and on the out-breath,
breathes out loving-kindness and compassion, thus taking on the suffering and
providing comfort and happiness to the recipient. True LhaTong is all-inclusive
meaning that no sentient being is excluded from your thoughts, not a friend, an
enemy nor anyone at all. This is quite a challenge for most of us as there are
some people whose very existence gives us the shivers. This is inconsequential.
In Buddhism, a sentient being is defined as any living creature whose essence
is Buddha-nature. That includes me, you, the birds and beasts and even the
bacteria that flourish in our intestines. This is a pretty hefty load to bear
so I’m telling you not to worry about it. Begin your practice by taking in the
problems of someone you love and giving the compassion and love to those who
are no challenge, a sick mother, your financially challenged friend and the
like. When you start your practice like this then joyous effort is no effort at
all. Later, when you are more comfortable with the practice, expand it to a
larger circle of friends and acquaintances and then include some you’re not so
attached to. We’ve looked at sentiency from a both a Western and Eastern point
of view and I realize it is very difficult to have bodhicitta to a bacterium
that is making you sick. Don’t worry about it. As your practice improves, you
will see that this kind of joyous effort arises primordially. You don’t have to
think about it. It just happens. That is the fruition of joyous effort.
Finally, we’ll look at meditative
concentration. This is the Buddhist way of saying contemplation. I think the
former term is confusing as it implies a kind of logical way of thinking while
in a meditative state. I’m not saying that a meditative state is trance-like or
anything beyond your natural ability, but never-the-less, in this case I’m
talking about sitting in solitude and mulling over all of the ideas presented
to you in your readings or by your teacher. You dissect the logic, accepting
what fits your paradigm and tossing out what doesn’t make any sense to you at
the moment. Why? I am going to reiterate an earlier point: It is imperative
that you build a perfectly logical intellectual foundation for your practice.
It is only in this way that you can cultivate absolute faith in what you’re
doing. And this is where we started, with faith. For us in the West, faith is
an extraordinarily difficult thing to give. We don’t have faith in our friends,
family or often even ourselves. Why is faith so difficult for us to generate? I
think in our society we are encouraged to be independent and free thinkers.
That’s good. It is not incompatible with Buddhism. I don’t want you to blindly
follow the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni or anyone else. I want you to tear
your teachings apart. Look for holes. Examine every avenue until you can fully
accept what fits your intellect. That’s how you engender faith. Most of us have
some degree of faith in our parents, especially as children when we are so
dependent on them for our well-being and safety. Revering your mother and
father is very important to a Buddhist because all of us and everyone else
could have at one time been each other’s mother or father in another
incarnation. This is the Buddhist view. Reincarnation is another very difficult
subject for people who are even afraid to speak of death. I will address this
in another lesson. It is really not that difficult a concept when one considers
the ultimate essence of who you really are, but before we worry about that, it
is necessary and fitting to understand bodhicitta, aspirational, actionable and
in its ultimate sense. So far, I have only referred to the first two.
Ultimate bodhicitta is the perfection
of method, the fusion of wisdom and compassion. I can try to logically explain
to you the aspect of ultimate bodhicitta and I will, but one can only truly
comprehend it through experience because it is non-dualistic in nature. That
experience is found in meditation. The sutras define ultimate bodhicitta as the
all-pervading emptiness endowed with the essence of compassion, clarity and
lucidity of mind. That’s a headful isn’t it? Emptiness is the essence of the
Heart Sutra and we will examine that in detail later on. For now, practice
aspirational bodhicitta and actionable bodhicitta, if you can. One who is
actually practicing actionable bodhicitta is known as a bodhisattva and there
are considerable obligations associated with that. I think the biggest pitfall
here is to allow one’s self to slip into a prideful sort of bodhicitta thinking
“I’m all that and look at me because I’m so advanced in my practice.” Be
careful, very careful. Dedicating one’s life to activities done for the benefit
of others is a great responsibility and is easily abandoned and abused.
Practicing aspirational bodhicitta is a wonderful progression. When you are
ready to commit to actionable bodhicitta in a completely detached, yet
compassionate way, you must clearly understand the karma associated with moving
from an aspirational thought to actual action. Intention is as important as
action. Thoughts are the root cause of most suffering. So, when we speak of
bodhicitta we can never abandon our commitment to an ethical and moral path. We
can begin to put some structure in place by practicing the paramitas and then
allowing ourselves to be open to teachings and self-arising thoughts that show
us other ways to expand the bodhisattva path in all we do.
Through meditation, we can get some
experience of primordial wisdom, Buddha-nature and only through meditation as
this experience is non-dualistic. If you are committed to your practice with
joy and compassion and diligently continue to follow your path of meditation
then you will have more frequent glimpses of your primordial essence.
We have studied the eight levels of consciousness.
The first six are approachable in a dualistic sense. We can talk about ways to
diminish our negative emotions through cultivating mindfulness and find methods
to create new ways of looking at our sensory experiences. But in looking at the
seventh consciousness, the klesha mind, we see that this is where habitual and
highly embedded behaviors lie that we are often totally unaware of, the kind of
things others point out to us but we frequently deny. I have been told that I
have been arrogant, prideful, and an entire host of other descriptions I’d
rather not discuss. But the point is, these behavior and attributes were
evident to others. As we work consciously to eliminate the poisons of
ignorance, pride, anger and attachment, we use the same methods of listening,
contemplating and meditating. It is through meditation that what we have
contemplated settles into our ground consciousness, allowing primordial wisdom
to become more apparent and affective in our samsaric lives. This is how
kleshas are destroyed. I think of it like this: suppose the klesha mind is like
chicken wire in the snow. The more it snows (that is the more negativity we
generate), the more it adheres to the wire, obscuring what lies beneath.
Through practice, we begin to melt the snow, allowing the bright light of
Buddha-nature to shine through. The more the light shines through, the more the
snow melts. When all the snow melts, your mind is resting in your ultimate
essence and that’s what practice is all about. All through the process of
melting the snows of the klesha mind and other negative attributes and
emotions, our ultimate nature shines through more and more bringing with it the
Ultimate Bodhicitta that is our long-term goal.
So contemplate bodhicitta. Begin by
cultivating aspirational bodhicitta. When you are ready and have full
confidence that you are at a point in your practice where you can be skillfully
mindful and aware, then move on to actionable bodhicitta. Maintaining faith in
your practice, ultimate bodhicitta will arise naturally. You don’t do anything
in the samsaric sense for ultimate bodhicitta is an expression of the true
non-dualistic existence of you.
