Entering the Middle Way, 28 February 1991, part 1

Within the tradition ness of sentient beings is emphasized that they had been extremely kind to us when they were our mothers, but additionally at those times when they were not our mothers. And those very sentient beings who have been so kind to us are are presently troubled by many sufferings, undergoing many unwanted problems. So we should seek to develop the healthy attitude which aims at leading all of these troubled sentient beings to seeking to protect them by ultimately leading them to a fearless liberation and happiness. In order to lead them to such a state, to lead them out to a purest complete happiness that oneself must attain that very same state of the purest happiness. So for the next three minutes cultivate the motivation of the awakening heart that in order to bring to all sentient beings a happiness where there is no suffering whatsoever, that I must practice the Dharma of the vehicle.

In order to do that I must understand the various practices, and therefore developing the motivation to listen to the present teaching as a means to benefit all sentient beings. The Entering Into the Middle Way, where it says in the very first verse, it says, The mind of compassion, nondual understanding, and the altruistic mind of enlightenment are the causes of children of conquerors. Explaining this first, we begin with those beings who are the hearers and solitary realizers, those practitioners who are practitioners of the lesser vehicle, specifically the foe destroyers. Foe destroyers are those who have abandoned cyclic existence, and that they are born from the teachings of the Buddhist Dharma. By listening to the teachings and putting the teachings into practice, they achieve their status.

And the cause and effect sequence goes on. Well, the the hearer are born from Buddhas, but where where are the Buddhas born from? And it said the cause of the Buddhas are the Bodhisattvas. So from where do the Bodhisattvas arise? They arise out of what we have just mentioned in this verse, the mind of compassion, non dual understanding, and the altruistic mind of enlightenment.

So the root is great compassion, the compassion which takes responsibility to separate from, to free from suffering the causes of suffering all sentient beings. And then nondual understanding refers to the wisdom realizing emptiness, and this through innumerable types of reasonings. And out of these out of these two, two arises the awakening heart. So the bodhisattva arises out of these out of these three, the mind of compassion, non dual understanding, and altruistic mind of enlightenment, the awakening heart. And what is the order of the arising of these three?

The awakening heart arises from the wisdom realizing emptiness. The wisdom realizing emptiness arises out of great compassion. Therefore, great compassion is the root. So this is this is the sequence or order of practice for those trainees intent on on on practicing as set forth in entering the text, entering into the middle way, the trainee intent on entering. First they would train in equanimity.

On the basis of equanimity they would go on to recognize one’s mothers, and having done that, then they would go on to remember the kindness of mothers, and dependence upon that develop a pleasant love, and dependence upon that they would develop great compassion, and dependence upon that great compassion they would develop the wisdom of realizing emptiness. Depends upon that. They would develop the awakening heart. So we have already discussed the way of development of compassion, the procedures in its development. And we have pointed out that the wisdom is the root of all the various vehicles, and that the three three types of I’ve been saying wisdom, I mean compassion.

There are the three types of compassion. There is the compassion observing sentient beings, compassion observing phenomena, and compassion observing the unapprehendable. The compassion which is being referred to here is the compassion of exceptional resolve. It is the type of compassion which wishes to free all sentient beings, and taking responsibility to actually free them. As we mentioned in the development of compassion, there were the levels of, Wouldn’t it be wonderful if sentient beings were free of their suffering and the causes of their suffering?

Then the level of, May sentient beings be free of their suffering and the causes of their suffering? And then this level of compassion where I myself will free sentient beings of their suffering and the causes of their suffering. This is the compassion of exceptional In dependence upon having developed exceptional, the compassion of exceptional resolve, one develops the attitude that I myself will free sentient beings from suffering and the cause of the suffering. Then those practitioners of the highest intelligence would go on to question. This is the procedure for practitioners of highest intelligence.

They would go on to question, well, can in fact I actually achieve this? I have this courageous resolve wishing to take responsibility to free sentient beings, but can I do it? And when they examine, they find in fact they cannot. They don’t have the ability to bring this about, in fact. Then they go on to question, well, who, in fact, does?

Who can lead sentient beings into a type of happiness completely divorced of any suffering? And the question is answered that a Buddha has the ability to, has his abilities to be able to bring this about. Seeing this very clearly for themselves, they develop aspiration that I myself must attain Buddhahood to do this. This is the aspiration. So the practitioner has determined that I myself, I must attain Buddhahood.

But he goes on to examine, well, in fact, can I attain Buddhahood? So the practitioner goes on to examine, beginning to question, well, can I attain that aim? Can I attain Buddhahood? Well, what is stopping me? What are the hindrances?

What obstacles are preventing me from attaining Buddhahood? In in through this questioning, the practitioner goes on to examine what in fact are the obstacles to attaining Buddha, what are the obstructions. And he sees that the obstructions are the distorted conceptions, that of the grasping as grasping at true existence, grasping as truly existent, that in fact which is not truly existent. This distorted conception, along with its latencies, along with its predispositions, these are the knowledge obstructions, these are the obstacles to the attainment of Buddhahood. Understanding what are the obstacles to the attainment of Buddhahood, seeing that it is the grasping at true existence.

In fact, phenomena are not truly existent, but there is a distorted conception which holds phenomena to truly exist. And this is, this along with its latencies are seen as the obstacles preventing Buddhahood. So then the practitioner goes on to investigate this obstacle, this distorted conception. Is this conception, is it valid? Is this awareness?

Is it a valid awareness? Is it distorted awareness? Is it stable? If it’s not stable, can it be eliminated, examining it in this fashion? Proceeding with an examination as to the nature of this awareness, grasping at true existence, and making use of the understandings as set forth in the Buddhist texts of the teachings on the transcendent wisdom, the various texts such as Entering Into the Middle Way, and making use of reasoned analysis, examining the nature of grasping at true existence, the reasoning such as the I as the subject, it is not truly existent because it is a dependent arising, and beginning to see that in fact this distorted awareness, grasping of true existence, is not a stable awareness.

It can be eliminated, and beginning to gain a realization into emptiness, and removing this distorted awareness. So we come to understand that the distorted conception of grasping a true existence is not a stable awareness. It can be eliminated from the mind, and what eliminates it is the wisdom realizing emptiness, and by this means that we can we can abandon grasping the true existence. Through this process of examining the nature of disorder of awareness of grasping a true existence, understanding that it is the obstacle to the attainment of Buddhahood, and coming to understand that it is a distorted awareness, that it is an unstable awareness, that it can be eliminated from the mind, one comes to a definite conclusion, I can remove the obstacles to Buddhahood, that I have that ability, that I can actually achieve Buddhahood. So in this order of practice, one has first developed compassion, and then in dependence upon having developed that compassion, the second cause, one goes on to create this as the first cause.

The second cause one would go on to create is that of the wisdom realizing emptiness. So out of this exceptional, the compassion of exceptional resolve, seeing that one must attain Buddhahood, one goes on to proceed in the examination as to the obstacle, and in order to attain it, and in the course of that gains the realization of the wisdom understanding emptiness, and out of this arises the awakening heart. And then how is the awakening heart developed out of these two causes? That one, in order to bring, one has determined to bring about the welfare, aspires to bring about the welfare of sentient beings. One sees that, in fact, one can bring about the welfare of sentient beings.

And then one goes goes on on to to develop develop the the attitude attitude of of committing committing oneself, oneself, or that is to say promising that I myself will attain Buddhahood in order to lead all sentient beings to pure happiness. One makes that commitment, and this is the development of the awakening heart. In dependence upon creating these three causes, and meditating, cultivating these three practices again and again, developing a forceful awakening heart. Initially we must make great effort and think again and again of, of, for the sake of all sentient beings I must attain Buddhahood, and this must be very forceful, and it doesn’t come easily until we must make a great deal of effort, until it becomes automatic. So this awakening heart which arises out of forceful contemplation, again and again having to think of the necessity to attain Buddha for the sake of sentient beings.

This is termed artificial awakening heart. So this this artificial awakened heart is not the actual awakened heart. It is merely given the name awakening heart. So this is a nominal awakening heart. Once but one proceeds again and again bringing and developing the awakening heart until a point is reached where the mind has become so habituated to the attitude of the awakening heart that it arises automatically without effort, naturally.

And this is the actual awakening heart. This is a fully qualified awakening heart. So once once this fully qualified awakened heart is developed, one becomes a bodhisattva and has achieved the first of the five paths, the path of accumulation. One is a bodhisattva. One is called the bodhisattva.

So this is a process of training of the mind. The the gradual development of the mind to higher and higher levels, the development of the wisdom and all the various qualities of the mind until the mind reaches a state where the awakening heart arises without effort. It is completely a spontaneous arising of the awakening heart. Upon that at that point one enters into the path and is a bodhisattva. One is the practitioner of the great vehicle.

Forehead. Forehead? It’s a a play on the words in Tibetan. And and and the Tibetan language, great vehicle is, in Tibetan words, is And but also means forehead. One has a great forehead.

And but just because one has a high hairline, a great forehead doesn’t mean you’re a great vehicle practitioner. That only comes about through development of one’s mind. So in in Sanskrit, it’s Mahāyāna. Maha means great, and yana means vehicle. The great vehicle vehicle is a quality of mind.

It’s not something outside of the mind. Sometimes people think that when they talk about the great vehicle, it’s like a monastery with monks around with dialecticians debating, wearing red robes. This isn’t the vehicle. So a vehicle is an inner quality dependent upon the mind. So, how does a practitioner of the great vehicle arise?

It arises through the development of the awakening heart. The awakening heart is not, the development of the awakening heart is not the monopoly of monks or nuns. That it also arises in the minds of lay practitioners, men, women, even those that don’t have to wear special clothes in order to develop it. Even animals can develop their awakening heart. If any of us were to cultivate and develop the awakening heart, then we would be a great vehicle practitioner.

We would be we would be a bodhisattva. So no matter what our external appearance might be, you know, whatever type of clothing we might, you know, people think, well, you have to, in order to be a bodhisattva you have to wear special clothes, and maybe you have to be fat, or you have to have a very radiant body. But none of none of these determine whether one is a bodhisattva. Someone who has never had doesn’t have any of these, who who doesn’t have any other quality, if they develop the awakening heart, then they are a bodhisattva. The definition of a vehicle is is an awareness which is awareness which is able to support the welfare, either of the two welfare, one’s own welfare or the welfare of others, is able to carry, is able to an awareness which is able to carry to an exalted knower which is able to bear which is able to bear the either of the welfare of others or oneself.

So within the Buddhist teachings, are the there are two vehicles. There is the lesser vehicle and the greater vehicle. Therefore, the of the lesser vehicle is the awareness which is able to bear, bring about, to carry out the welfare, one’s own welfare, the welfare of oneself. So, vehicle of the lesser vehicle is the awareness which is is an intention which voluntarily acts to bring about the mainly voluntarily acts to bring about the elimination of one’s own suffering and the attainment of the bliss of liberation. And the reason it’s such an attitude is referred to as being the lesser vehicle is because because it is a very limited mind, and therefore it has a very limited, engages in very limited activities, and thereby it only attains very limited results.