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The commentary explains Atiśa's presentation of the three levels of practitioners: those of small capacity (seeking better rebirth), medium capacity (seeking liberation from samsara), and higher capacity (seeking enlightenment for all beings). Khunu Lama emphasizes the centrality of bodhicitta—the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings—as the defining feature of Mahāyāna Buddhism that distinguishes it from other spiritual paths.
The teaching covers the essential practices: generating bodhicitta, observing moral conduct, developing single-pointed concentration, and cultivating the wisdom realizing emptiness. Khunu Lama stresses that both method (compassion and skillful means) and wisdom must be practiced together to achieve enlightenment. He concludes by encouraging his Western students to study Dharma deeply, learn Tibetan, and spread these teachings, noting that concern for others' welfare rather than one's own is the fundamental distinction of the Mahāyāna path.The enlightened attitude, bodhicitta, which has love and compassion as its basis, is the essential seed producing the attainment of buddhahood. Therefore, it is a subject that should be approached with the pure thought, "May I gain enlightenment in order to be of greatest benefit to the world."
If we want to attain the state of the full enlightenment of buddhahood as opposed to the lesser enlightenment of an arhat—nirvana, or individual liberation—our innermost practice must be the cultivation of bodhicitta. If meditation on emptiness is our innermost practice, we run the risk of falling into nirvana instead of gaining buddhahood. This teaching is given in the saying, "When the father is bodhicitta and the mother is wisdom, the child joins the caste of the buddhas." In ancient India, children of inter-caste marriages would adopt the caste of the father, regardless of the caste of the mother. Therefore, bodhicitta is like the father: if we cultivate
bodhicitta, we enter the caste of the buddhas.The teaching systematically covers the essential elements of the Buddhist path: proper guru devotion as the foundation of all spiritual attainment; recognizing the precious opportunity and impermanence of human life; understanding karma and its inevitable consequences; developing renunciation of samsara; cultivating bodhicitta by recognizing all beings as former mothers suffering in cyclic existence; practicing the six perfections, especially moral discipline; developing the union of calm abiding (shamatha) and penetrative insight (vipashyana); and entering the Vajrayana path as the swiftest route to enlightenment.
Khunu Lama emphasizes the Madhyamaka view as the most refined Buddhist philosophy and stresses that Tibetan Buddhism uniquely preserves all aspects of the Dharma—Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna—in their complete form. He concludes by encouraging his Western students to master Tibetan language and grammar to fully access these teachings and then spread the Dharma in the West, adapting presentations skillfully to suit different capacities of mind, like a doctor prescribing appropriate medicine.
