Three Principal Aspects of the Path, 13 August 2003

So in order to establish all sentient beings in a state that is beyond so, and in order to establish all sentient beings in all excellent in all excellence in all the excellent aspects of happiness, then may I get rid of all that needs to be get rid of and practice all that needs to be practiced. And by developing this mind, which is the mind of bodhicitta, may I achieve may this be a cause for me to achieve enlightenment so I can be for of benefit to all sentient beings. This is the mind that we need to generate. So in order to get rid of all our faults and practice and to get all of the qualities we need in order to attain this goal, then we are going to listen, contemplate, and meditate on the three principal aspects of the path, which are the essence of the graduated path to enlightenment or the Lam Rim practice. So we’re going to listen to these in order to generate the virtue virtuous cause for achieving our final goal.

And so this final goal being the ability to achieve enlightenment to benefit all beings. So we should try and meditate on that thought for a few minutes. So me. So if we can meditate for two minutes on that. Okay?

Okay. Okay. So if we take if if we in order to understand what bodhicitta is, it’s good to use an example of if we He doesn’t think there’s any way to sit over there. Okay. So Śāntideva gave an example.

They said that, like the essence of milk is butter, then the essence of the teachings is bodhicitta. It’s like an example. We know that if we churn milk, then the thing that we will get from our churning and turning of milk is butter. That’s what it will turn into. Butter we can use to benefit us, to eat, to use in lots of different ways to benefit us.

It’s the essence of milk, if you like. So but in the in the same way, the essence of the Buddha’s teachings is bodhicitta. There are many different ways that the Buddha taught. The Buddha taught the Hīnayāna path, taught the Mahāyāna path, taught the three different vehicles. He taught Sūtra and he taught Tantra.

The essence of all these is bodhicitta. So if we were going to combine all these different teachings, then in order to understand their essence or to understand their heart, not their heart, their essence, then we would have to say that that was bodhicitta and you need to understand bodhicitta. Hīnayāna vehicles and the two vehicles of the Hīnayāna path, these are considered to be the preliminary practice for developing bodhicitta. All the practices associated with them are the preliminaries that we do in order to develop bodhicitta. Then once we’ve developed bodhicitta, then the other practices, the six perfections of the Mahāyāna vehicle, the four different classes of tantra, whether it’s action tantra, behavioral tantra, yoga tantra, highest yoga tantra, of these practices are like the tools of bodhicitta.

They’re the things that use from bodhicitta. On the one hand, we have these preliminary practices that lead up to the development of bodhicitta. And then once bodhicitta is developed, then the other practices that are usually described after the development of bodhicitta are called the tools of bodhicitta. And bodhicitta depends on compassion. So once we’ve developed great compassion and in bodhicitta, then we can do these other practices that are like bodhicitta’s tools.

So whether something becomes Mahāyāna or not, a Mahāyāna practice, whether someone becomes a Mahāyāna being or not depends on whether they have bodhicitta or not. So even if a bodhicitta practice is being done, if there isn’t bodhicitta in the mind stream of their being doing it, then that practice is not a Mahāyāna practice. It’s not a Mahāyāna Dharma. It’s a Dharma practice. You can have Dharma practice which isn’t Mahāyāna practice.

Dharma practice can be done by someone who hasn’t developed bodhicitta in their mind stream yet, but in order to describe something as Mahāyāna, then you need to have this bodhicitta. Once someone has developed bodhicitta, then whatever they do, then that becomes Mahāyāna practice. Whatever practices any practices they do, ethics or giving and so forth, all of these things become Mahāyāna practice. And that person who has developed bodhicitta in their mind stream becomes a Mahāyāna being. Whether they are a monk or a nun or a lay person, whatever they are, once they have developed bodhicitta in their mind stream, they have become part of the Mahāyāna path. They have become a Mahāyāna being.

So in order for someone to be counted amongst Mahāyāna practitioners, then they have to have this bodhicitta in their mind stream. Now, in order for us to develop bodhicitta, we need to know the cause of bodhicitta, the main cause of bodhicitta. Āryadeva said from amongst the seven points of mind training that the main cause for bodhicitta, the main thing to develop bodhicitta was the great compassion. From amongst these seven points, then the main point would be great compassion. Also, in order to develop great compassion, which is the essence or the the root cause of, bodhicitta, in order for us to develop great compassion, then we need this great love and kindness.

And great love and kindness is the main cause of great compassion. If we don’t have great love and kindness, we can’t develop great compassion. So first, before great compassion, we need to have great love and kindness. So if we want to know what great love and kindness is, then great love and kindness is is the mind or a thought that with great love, with great love from the heart, seeks to separate or to establish all beings in happiness. So from this great great sense of love for all beings, then there’s the idea of them being separated from anything bad, but to have this kind to have this for them to be in a position of experiencing great joy to reward those qualities.

So it’s this feeling, this feeling is love for all beings. That’s what great love and kindness is. So we don’t have great compassion. The reason we don’t have that is because we don’t have great love and kindness. If there’s no great love and kindness, then there’s no great compassion.

And if there’s no great compassion, then we can’t develop bodhicitta. So the reason that we can’t develop this great love and kindness is because we divide all beings into three different types. There’s either the beings that we feel very close to and have great love for and the beings that we consider an enemy and consider ourselves distanced from and the beings in the middle who we don’t particularly have feelings for either way. So because we’ve divided beings into these three different groups, then we can’t have this great love and kindness towards all sentient beings. We’ve divided them into groups so that stops us developing great love and kindness for all of them.

So this what this this love and kindness, this great love and kindness is is, for example, if there’s as a mother, it’s the same as your parents love for their child, and if there’s a mother, for example, who only has one child, and the way that they they relate to their child is like this because if there’s a mother that only has one child that they have a a lot of love for, then whatever that child experiences, the mother will react to or have feeling for. So whatever the child says, then they will listen to the child. If the child is happy, then they will be very very happy. They not only like and love the child, but they empathize with the child. So they have this intense feeling for the child in whatever they experience.

Now if this child was to experience some kind of illness or some kind of suffering, then they would think that this was a horrible thing. They would be trying in any way they could to stop that child’s suffering in that way, and any time that they said anything or thought anything, it would reflect what was happening to their child. They would have this intense feeling for the suffering of their child and try and do anything to stop them having to experience their suffering. So so this mother who has this this feeling for this child won’t be able to stop thinking about the suffering of their child when they think about their child’s suffering, whether they’re going to work, whether whatever they’re whatever they’re thinking when when they’re even when they’re sleeping and in their dreams, they will continually be thinking about the suffering of their child. That that that will be the the main focus of attention.

Now great love and kindness a similar thing to that. That’s what it is about in terms of the suffering of sentient beings. It’s the same as the mother’s love for her child in terms of not stopping to think about it. So the great love and kindness is developing that kind of feeling towards all sentient beings without exception, all sentient beings. If the same love that a mother has for their child, thinking that they can’t possibly bear the sufferings of their child, that it’s not right for the child to suffer like this.

So have this strong feeling of love for their child and try and find ways for them not to suffer, then that feeling of love, when it’s directed to all sentient beings, without exception, all sentient beings, is what’s called great love and kindness. So if we have this great love and kindness for all sentient beings, then that means that we won’t distinguish between those beings we consider close to us, those beings we have no particular feeling for either way, and those beings that we consider, to be enemies or to to have negative feelings towards. If we have great love and kindness to all sentient beings, then these wipes out these these three different categories. And this feeling of love and kindness to all sentient beings not through love and kindness is equanimous as well. Equanimity, seeing others as your mother, remembering their kindness, and wanting to repay their kindness are the four things, the four practices that we do in order to develop this great love and kindness.

These practices, if we go through them and we do them and we familiarize ourselves with them, so starting with this idea of equanimity, then seeing others as our mother, remembering their kindness, wanting to repay their kindness, if we go through these, familiarize ourselves with these, then great love and kindness will come to us, where arise in us, will will develop in us. So we we have this division into three of of beings, those that we consider to be our enemies, those that we are fairly neutral towards and they are completely neutral towards, and those that we consider to be our friends. Now the reason that we consider some to be friends and some to be our enemies is because of either hatred or attachment. So if we start with the being in the middle, though, then we can examine this. The being in the middle has neither harmed us nor has they helped us particularly in this life.

So you have no feelings of either towards them. So you can see that we can see that they that they we can I can’t remember what we can see? So, yeah, that’s it. Haven’t they haven’t harmed us, and they haven’t helped us. Now the the beings that has helped us, the reason that we consider them to be close to us and we consider them to be friends to us is because they’ve helped us slightly in this life.

What they’re going to do in the next life or what they did in past lives, we don’t know. They may have killed us or they may kill us. We know that they are helping us now, but we don’t know what the situation is going to be like in the future. We can see that that help really that substantial. And it’s the same with the beings that we consider our enemies.

They may have harmed us a little bit in this life, but in past lives, they have been our mother. They have given us milk. They have given us food. They have given us shelter. They have looked at our own clothes, have looked after us completely.

So this little harm that they’ve done us is nothing compared to the great kindness that they have showed us. So if we follow this process, then we see that all these beings are actually the same in the way that they’ve helped us. It’s and they’re always the same in the way that they’ve helped us. So this being that we consider to be incredibly close to us that we consider this we have this affection. So this being that we consider to be very close to us, they can change into an enemy fairly quickly if they start abusing us, so using really harsh words with us or hitting us in the head.

Then they then they will consider them an enemy very quickly. So it’s a similar situation with these the beings that we consider an enemy. Okay? We consider them an an enemy at their stop. But if they start saying nice things about us and give us presence, then maybe you’ll think they’re really good after that.

And so so then it will be that if if once we become friends with them when they have not lived, then we won’t feel comfortable. We won’t feel happy with them not being there. So So so there’s there’s all these different ways in sense that that things can happen, but they can change really quickly as well. Okay. So once said, he’s he’s eating he’s eating his father.

He’s yelling at his mother. He’s holding his enemy in his arms. Samsāra really is a funny place. It’s place to laugh. And now the reason he said this is there’s a story: once upon a time, next to a lake, there was a family.

There’s a family living in a house next to a lake. And in the family, there was a father and a a mother and a son. Now the father used to fish all the time, and when the father died, he actually had the karma to be reborn as a fish in the lake. Yeah? And then the mother died, and because of her negative karma, she was born as a dog.

Alright? And then after the boy grew up, his wife actually had an affair with the neighbour and the man got so angry he went and killed the neighbour. But then that neighbour was reborn as his son. Alright? So so then he was in a situation where he was holding this the rebirth of this man that he killed, and his mother he was eating his father, or the flesh of his father, and then from the bones, the bones fell down.

So his dog came up, the dog was actually his mother, so it was, like, hitting the dog and shooing the dog or anything. Go away. So because she was trying to eat the bones, and so this is when Śāriputra saw this, and then he said, so he’s eating the father, abusing the mother, and holding his his enemy that he killed very close. Samsāra really does is is a place of laughter or something. Or not laughter.

It’s not it makes you laugh. Yeah. So so karma really is like this. karma is incredibly difficult to understand too because it’s very complicated. Buddhists can understand it but ordinary beings it’s incredibly difficult to understand.

It’s also incredibly changeable. It’s changing from one thing to another constantly so someone who may have been a mother in a past life becomes a child, someone who has been a friend becomes an enemy. All these things are in a constant state of change. And it’s not even in different lives that this changes, it also changes in this life. Someone can change from being our enemy to our friend within this life.

It’s a very fluid thing. If someone was inherently from their side our enemy or inherently from their side our friend then they could constantly stay like that but they’re not like that, it’s not like that. It’s in a continual state of flux. Things are emptying of being inherently existent so in that way they’re continually changing so it’s difficult for us to know whether someone is really an enemy or friend because this idea is coming from us not from their side, not from their inherent existence as an enemy or a friend. Okay.

So we know how kind our mother was to us in this life. We know the kindness that they’ve showed us but we have to extend that out to all beings because in countless lifetimes we’ve had countless numbers of mothers. Now the Buddha said this: if we wanted to count our mothers, one way to do that — counting how many we’ve had in countless lives — one way to do it would be if we turned something the size of the earth into a mud ball and took little bits of it off, converting the entire earth into clay. Yeah. Then becomes entire huge and then we’re breaking off little bits of it, little bits of it and we’re putting them to the side.

And if we were counting all our mothers, then we would have completely finished with the the clay or the mud by the time we’ve counted all all our mothers. Counting how many times this present mother has been your mother. So this is the way that the Buddha described it. The times when my mother has been a mother is countless.

Now and Buddha knows these things. The other things we need to count is that means that the kindness that these mothers have shown us is uncountable. If we added up to all the milk they’ve given us, it would be an ocean. There’s an incredible kindness that they have showed us in all these lives. And not only that but negativities that they have accrued in order to help us.

When mothers are giving children food then there’s actually countless bugs that get killed in this process so in order for mothers to give their children food then they have to kill all these animals, all these mother sentient beings and other animals. So in one day how many non virtues do they do for the sake of their children? And not just in one day but if it’s countless in one day then in a month how much negativity do they do in order to help their children? It’s uncountable and by the force of this, in order to help their children they create these negativities, by the force of these negativities then they have to suffer in the lower realms. This idea that the mothers would have helped us so much when suffering, when we think about them, we have to think of compassion because we’re looking at their suffering that they’re going through because of helping their children.

So if we think about the fact that of how many times his mother has been a mother and that in every one of these lifetimes how many insects or small creatures that have been killed in order for her to help us, how much negativity she has gained through trying to help us in all these countless lifetimes. If there’s countless number of negativities done in this lifetime, then how many negativities are done in countless lifetimes? So if we look at it this way, it’s inconceivable. So that means that also the beings in the lower realms, beings in the hells, beings in the hungry ghost realms, beings that are born as animals. We look around us, all the animals that we see, all of these beings are our mothers.

And all of them are suffering incredible suffering and will continue to experience incredible suffering. If we then don’t do something in order to repay their kindness, if we don’t do something in order to show them how to stop suffering, then that’s just it’s not wrong, it’s not good enough. If we sit here in some way in comfort that we can achieve by ourselves and just ignore the sufferings of our own mothers then we can’t consider that to be a good thing, we can’t consider it to be right. We have a human rebirth. Not only do we have a human rebirth but we have faith in the teachings, we’ve heard the Buddhist teachings, we’ve met with a spiritual teacher, we have the ability to meditate, we have all of these things in our lives.

So we really need to use those in order to attain a state where we can show these beings that are suffering so much and have shown us such kindness how to stop suffering. We need to use the rebirth we have to attain a state that will enable us to do that. So then we think about all these beings in all these realms who have been our mothers and fathers all these countless times, and then we have to seek to be able to repay that kindness to be able to stop them suffering this unbearable suffering. So the process that we use in order to establish that, the process that we use in order to establish birth that we have at this moment as a precious human rebirth where we have met the Buddha’s teachings and we have met with a teacher where we have faith and are able to practice. We need to use that in order to be able to show these beings how to stop suffering, show these kind parents that we have how to stop suffering.

The process that we do then is by, once we’ve established equanimity in all beings and seeing them as our mother, remembering their kindness, wanting to repay their kindness, then through great compassion developing bodhicitta. Once we’ve developed bodhicitta, then we worked towards developing enlightenment. Asaṇga, when he achieved enlightenment, he then achieved the enlightenment of Buddhahood, he then taught. He taught to millions and millions of beings, not just to a few beings but to millions and millions of beings. Now amongst these millions of beings, some people achieved enlightenment from hearing his teachings, some people achieved their realisation of emptiness, some became Aryas, some developed bodhicitta.

His millions of beings were all helped by his practice and his achievement of Buddhahood. He was able to help millions of beings from experiencing sufferings. So the bodhicitta is considered to be the the main cause for us to achieve enlightenment. Once we have established bodhicitta in our mind stream, then whatever it is that we do becomes a virtuous move. Okay.

Becomes a virtuous action. So if we have bodhicitta in our mind stream when we’re sleeping and we’re creating great merit, we’re doing positive things even when we’re asleep. If we develop bodhicitta by doing these practices, then it is invaluable for Buddhahood. bodhicitta is the main cause for us to achieve Buddhahood. It’s like if we have a seed and we plant it in a good field and we put water on the seed and the seed has sunshine and everything, then it will grow into sprout or it will start sprouting, it will grow.

So the seed is like the bodhicitta. If we don’t have that seed then no matter how much water or how much sunlight that area gets then the plant won’t come about. So we’re a bit like that. If we don’t have bodhicitta, we may be doing all these practices and everything but we don’t have the cause for us to achieve enlightenment. So in order for us to achieve enlightenment then we need this bodhicitta, so it’s difficult to underestimate the positive qualities of bodhicitta.

This is how we see how important bodhicitta is. bodhicitta is the reason that people develop buddhahood. Now there’s many different teachings that the Buddha taught. He taught the different paths, he taught sūtra and he taught tantra and all of these came about because he reached Buddhahood and he was a Buddha and he was able to teach them. Now there’s all these different practices or different belief systems that people have, but none of them had developed their understandings in the same way that the Buddha did.

There’s all different Hindu faiths or tenets that they have and none of them developed this understanding the same way that the Buddha had. Because the Buddha was a Buddha, then he was able to understand and describe emptiness. He was able to understand and to teach bodhicitta and also renunciation and also refuge. Now these four things are unique to the Buddhist Dharma. They’re unique to the Buddha’s teachings.

So the path of refuge and of renunciation of bodhicitta and emptiness not shown in other ways and the reason that he understood this is because he thought he became a Buddha. So the Buddha, once he had achieved enlightenment, he understood all of these different things. He understood the practice of understood emptiness. He understood bodhicitta. He understood sūtra.

He understood tantra. He understood all these things. But he didn’t teach them all at once. He slowly, slowly introduced these different teachings because he thought that if he taught them at that time, then people wouldn’t understand them. So he didn’t teach them all at once.

He understood them, but he didn’t teach them all at once. Okay. So if we are going to ask ourselves, can we achieve Buddhahood? And ask ourselves, can we achieve Buddhahood? Then we have to say, yes, we can definitely achieve Buddhahood.

If we have refuge, if we develop renunciation, if we develop bodhicitta and understand emptiness, then we will achieve Buddhahood. In the same way as Buddha Śākyamūni, the different teachers, Milarepa, Tsongkhapa, they all achieved Buddhahood and we say, Is there any difference between them and us? Then no, if we do the same things as they did then we will achieve Buddhahood. In all the different schools, in the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug schools there has been many people that have actually followed this path and achieved Buddhahood. And likewise in India, there was many, many people who had achieved Buddhahood by following this path, achieved realisations by following this path.

So if we can see if they did this, if they did these practices, abandoned what they needed to abandon and practiced what they needed to practise, then they followed that path and achieved Buddhahood. So we can see that they were able to do it and there’s no difference between us, our ability to do it and what they were like before they achieved this. And if we also think about all the teachings that have been given, the teachings that Buddha Śākyamūni gave, all the varied teachings that he gave, and all the different paths that we were able to follow. Then there’s many different ways that we can follow these paths, especially considering the Buddha has taught this time the practice of tantra which enables us to achieve enlightenment in just one lifetime. So there is a practice of tantra in the physical body then we can achieve, in this very life, we can achieve enlightenment.

So this special practice is also being given to us and we have access to these teachings. And especially within the Gelug tradition then, Mañjuśrī gave Lama Tsongkhapa teachings which enabled him to achieve enlightenment in twelve years. Following these practices he was able to achieve enlightenment in only twelve years. So we have a precious human rebirth with all the leisures and the endowments. We have these infallible teachings that we have been given.

We’ve met with teachers. We have friends that can help us to do these practices. We have all these conditions that will enable us to be able to do these practices. So we shouldn’t have doubts about whether we can do it or not. We are able to do it.

The difference is that we aren’t actually doing it. So if there’s a really qualified doctor, this really qualified doctor gives the exact medicine to a sick person, that person eats the medicine, takes the medicine, then they’re going to get better. But we’re not like this patient, we’re like the patient that doesn’t take the medicine. We’re like the patient that’s been given a specific medicine but doesn’t take it so we’re remain sick cause we’re not following the instructions of the doctor. So because we’re not doing these practices that we’ve been giving then we’re not achieving the end result.

So we’re not doing these practices, we haven’t entered into the different practices that have been given to us in order to achieve this goal. We’re basically just hanging out and not doing much. That’s the problem with the way that we look at it. There was a man called Dromtonpa who was supposed to be an incarnation of Chenrezig. He went to Tibet a long time ago, and he said, you know, being a monk is quite good if you if as long as you don’t die because they don’t do any worldly they don’t do any worldly work, and they don’t seem to do if they don’t do any worldly work and they don’t do any Dharma work, then all they have to do is is not much and eat a lot and.

No? Supposed to be a real Chenrezig actually. Yeah, yeah. The incarnation of Avalokiteśvara. That’s right.

And what he said was, you know, the spiritual life and the real life, between the spiritual life and the real life there’s a person who has shaved head. They are very lucky if they don’t need to die, that’s what I said. Because then it’s something So just hanging out and if they don’t have to die then that’s good but if they have to die then you’re in trouble. Okay. Alright.

So that was the first story. Then another time he was walking into town and he was carrying a box full of tea. Yeah? And he was walking on and goes, is anybody suffering and putting up with it? Is anyone bearing suffering or is anyone, you know, practicing fortitude against suffering?

Because if you are, then I’ll give you this tea. And then this guy said I’m suffering, I’m coping, I’m practicing patience, I’m bearing the suffering, I’m coping with this suffering and he said, and this So if the the Buddhas didn’t teach us, then we wouldn’t know what it was that we had to practice and what or what which way we were supposed to try and relieve our suffering. So the the Buddha’s teach the Buddha’s the fact that the Buddha’s taught us, it depended on the on their having achieved Buddhahood. So then we can see how important bodhicitta is. Now the Buddhas taught many, many different things.

Amongst the different things that they taught was concept of refuge, the concept of renunciation, emptiness, and and tantra, and so forth. Now amongst the things they taught, one of the most important things that they taught was the concept of what was a wrong view and what wasn’t a wrong view. The wrong view is one of the ten non virtues that was taught by the Buddha who was able to say what was an action that was going to lead to suffering and what was an action that was going to lead to happiness. So therefore, what was a negative action and what was a positive action. Now the ten non virtues, the three non virtues of body killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct.

The four non virtues of speech is telling lies, harsh speech, slandering two different people, splitting our friends, and speaking nonsense. And then there’s the three non virtues of mind, the mind of of a covetous mind, a harmful mind, and a wrong view. So now this wrong view, there’s many things that we can have wrong views about. We can have the wrong view that the the Three Jewels don’t exist. We can have the wrong view that that karma doesn’t exist.

We can have many we can have the wrong view that many different things don’t exist. So So we can have the wrong view that things do exist and they aren’t inherently free from inherent existence. Now all of these can be based upon the teaching of cause and effect because if we have the teaching of cause and effect then we can understand that there must be a future life. Because of the teaching of cause and effect then we can understand there must be a future life and past lives. By understanding the concept of future lives, then we understand the concepts of the different realms.

By understanding the concepts of the different realms, then we understand suffering better. By focusing on the sufferings of the different realms, then we are able to develop renunciation better. By understanding this, then we can progress along the path towards enlightenment. All of this is based on the teachings of karma. Through karma, then we understand how the other things work, and Buddha showed all of these things.

Now there are all these different paths as well. There all different practices that we can do based on these understandings. The Buddha taught all different teachings of the three different vehicles, the sūtra and tantra paths, all these different ways that we can practice. Amongst these, this tantra path is incredibly important because in the tantra path we can achieve Buddhahood in this very lifetime. We have been given the practices that enable us to achieve Buddhahood in this lifetime and we have met with qualified teachers and received the correct teachings in order to do this practice.

We can’t underestimate the importance of this practice because of its uniqueness and its rarity. We should try and practice this because of these things. Now even amongst the different tantric approaches, then there is many different tantric approaches in Tibet. There’s different Tantric traditions. And what Lama Tsongkhapa did was he took the essence of all the different Tantric practices of the different schools that were there, Kagyu, Nyingma, Sakya, Kadam schools.

He took the essence of those, and he also took the essence of all the sūtra teachings. He took the essence of the sūtra teachings and the essence of the tantra teachings and brought them together under the guidance of Mañjuśrī. By doing this, he gave us the perfect practice for us to practice, the perfect teachings for us to follow as a practice. We’re given this extraordinary opportunity to be able to practice in this lifetime. So now Rinpoche says he’s given us the seed of bodhicitta.

The seed of what bodhicitta is, we’ve listened to and we’ve taken it into ourselves. So we’ve got a seed of what bodhicitta is. But if we don’t water this seed and the water that we need for this seed is a way of meditation, we need to keep meditating and familiarizing ourselves with this idea of bodhicitta. If we keep doing that, then we develop imprints of what bodhicitta is, and then eventually we will be able to develop bodhicitta and achieve Buddhahood. If we want to know why we don’t understand bodhicitta or we don’t realise bodhicitta now, it’s because we haven’t placed enough imprints, we haven’t given ourselves enough familiarization in our mind stream towards bodhicitta.

Hence, we haven’t developed the realization of bodhicitta. By placing these imprints on our mind stream and by familiarizing ourselves with bodhicitta, then eventually we will develop bodhicitta. And that will mean that when we hear the word bodhicitta, just the word bodhicitta, then we will start crying and stuff. And it’s the same as when people hear the word emptiness. Once they have all the imprints on their mind stream of what emptiness is and once they’ve developed this concept in their mind and when they hear it, they become it affects them.

Okay. So it’s the same as Australian rules football. So if some people have a disposition towards Australian Rules Football, when they win, they get very emotional and can cry and be affected by winning. Now other people, they don’t quite understand that, and they don’t have that same reaction to Australian rules football. So it’s the same with bodhicitta.

If we had done the practice, if we had the imprints, then bodhicitta will have an effect on us. If we don’t, then it doesn’t. Okay. So In the Lamrim, Lama Tsongkhapa explains the combination of the seven point mind training with the mind training practice of exchanging self with others. He talks about the combination of these two mind training exercises.

Rinpoche has only spoke about the seven point mind training exercises in these teachings, He’s not going to teach on the exchanging self with others practice at this stage, but he will teach about it at Sera, where he’s going to teach on it. That was the explanation of bodhicitta and next week we will talk about the view. Okay, thank you very much. We’re going to stop it there tonight because we’re out of time, but we should try and remember to try and do meditations on bodhicitta and try and develop bodhicitta because by developing bodhicitta then our imprints will ripen and we will achieve Buddhahood. If we think, well, maybe I won’t achieve Buddhahood, then that’s not the case because all sentient beings without exception will achieve Buddhahood.

If that’s going to happen then that means us too. And also when we achieve Buddhahood then we’ll be able to benefit sentient beings immensely. So at this stage, we try and help beings by giving them food, giving them shelter, trying to help them out, by giving them money if they don’t have it, by trying to help them in these temporary ways, but in actual fact we’re only helping them in a very, very small way by doing this. If we give someone food today, they’re going to be hungry again tomorrow. If we give them clothes, then they’re going to wear out.

We’re only helping them for very short periods of time. If we really want to help beings, then the way that we help them is by showing them how to achieve Buddhahood, by teaching them or showing them the way to achieve liberation from suffering or to achieve Buddhahood. That’s how we really help them. That’s how we show them true happiness as opposed to very brief happiness. Okay.