Seven-Part Cause and Effect Meditation for Bodhichitta (Berzin 2000)
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Description
Introduction
We have precious human lives with all the respites and enrichments that allow us to follow the Buddhist path. These freedoms and opportunities, however, are not going to last forever. Therefore, we need to take full advantage of the opportunities that we have.
The best way to take advantage of our precious human life is to use it for developing a bodhichitta aim. A bodhichitta aim is a mind and heart focused on our own individual enlightenments that have not happened yet, but can be imputed later down the line on our mental continuums on the basis of our Buddha-nature factors that will enable its attainment. These factors include our networks of positive force and deep awareness, our various good qualities, and the natural purity of our minds. This bodhichitta aim is accompanied by two intentions: to achieve that enlightenment as soon as possible and to benefit all beings by means of that.
When developing bodhichitta, we develop the two intentions in the opposite order. First, we fully intend to benefit all limited beings, and not just humans. This is brought on by our love, compassion, and exceptional resolve, which we will discuss later in this lecture. Then, in order to benefit them the most effectively, we fully intend to gain enlightenment and become Buddhas. We need to gain enlightenment in order to get rid of all of our limitations and shortcomings, because we see that they prevent us from being best able to help others. For instance, if we get angry with others, how can we help them at that time? Also, we need to gain enlightenment in order to realize all our potentials. We need to realize them fully in order to be able to use them to benefit others. So, when developing a bodhichitta aim, it’s not that first we want to become Buddhas because that’s the highest state and then, like some nasty tax that we have to pay, we need to help others.
There are two main methods for developing a bodhichitta aim. One is through the seven-part cause and effect teaching, the other is by equalizing and exchanging our attitudes about self and others. Here, we’ll discuss the first of the two methods.
Developing Equanimity
The seven-part cause and effect teaching has six steps that act as causes for the seventh, the actual development of a bodhichitta aim. It begins with a preliminary step, not included in the count of seven. It’s the development of the equanimity with which we overcome being attracted to or attached to some beings, repulsed from others, and indifferent to yet others. The point of this preliminary step is to be equally open to everybody.
The understanding of everyone being equal, which is required for being equally open to everyone, comes from realizing that the mental continuum or mind-stream has no beginning and no end. Therefore, everybody at some time has been our friend, everybody at some time has been our enemy, everybody at some time has been a stranger, and the status is always changing. In this sense, everybody is the same.
The main point that we need to understand behind this way of thinking is beginningless mind. This is a basic assumption in Buddhism. Rebirth concerns continuities of experience. Mental continuums are continuities of experience. They are individual and do not have inherent identities as human, animal, male or female. The life form and gender that a mental continuum manifests in any particular rebirth is dependent on previous karmic behavior and its aftermath.
This point about beginningless mind is a fundamental, necessary understanding for being able to develop bodhichitta, because based on this understanding, it becomes possible to develop loving compassion for absolutely everybody. We do not see other beings as merely a mosquito, for example. Rather, we see this being as an infinitely long individual mental continuum that in this lifetime happens to have the form of a mosquito because of its karma; it is not inherently a mosquito. This allows our hearts be as open to the mosquito as to a human being. The power of bodhichitta derives from the fact that with it, we intend to benefit absolutely everybody. Of course, it’s not easy.
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