- Buddha-Nature
- Compassion
- Defining Bodhicitta
- Emptiness
- Equalizing & Exchanging Self and Others
- Equanimity
- History of Bodhicitta Teachings
- How to Develop Bodhicitta
- Interdependent Origination
- Lineage of the Profound View
- Lineage of the Vast Conduct
- Mahāyāna
- Mind Training
- Non-Self
- Seven-Point Instructions of Cause and Effect
- The Bodhisattva Ideal
- The Bodhisattva Path
- The Bodhisattva Vow
- The Bodhisattva's Goal
- The Four Immeasurables
- The Six Perfections
- The Three Higher Trainings
- The Two Accumulations
- The Two Truths
- Tonglen: The Practice of Sending and Receiving
- Types of Bodhicitta
The seven-point instructions of cause and effect are a systematic meditation practice for cultivating bodhicitta through a logical progression of contemplations. The practice begins with recognizing all beings as having been one's mother in past lives, and then moves sequentially through five other contemplations until the seventh instruction is reached—that is, the arousing of bodhicitta, the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. This stepwise method builds bodhicitta by transforming one's relationship with others from indifference to a strong sense of connection, unconditional love, and responsibility.
The Lineage
The sevenfold cause-and-effect instructions for developing bodhicitta belong to the Vast Conduct lineage, also known as the lineage of Extensive Deeds. The practice derives from an unbroken transmission originating with Śākyamuni Buddha, who passed the lineage to Maitreya, who then transmitted it to Asaṅga. This lineage was then passed on to Asaṅga's brother Vasubandhu, and subsequently through to Candragomin and Atiśa. Atiśa brought this lineage to Tibet, where it was subsequently adopted by the Kadampa masters.[1]
The Instructions
The seven-point instructions of cause and effect are so named because six of the points are causes leading to bodhicitta, while the seventh is bodhicitta itself, as the resultant state of mind. It is named "cause and effect" because the mind cultivated through each instruction acts as a cause for the next, with each subsequent state of mind arising as the effect of the one preceding it.
The six causes are:
- 1. recognizing all beings as having been our mothers (མར་ཤེས་)
- 2. remembering the kindness of all those mothers (དྲིན་དྲན་)
- 3. wishing to repay these mother beings' kindness (དྲིན་གསོ་)
- 4. affectionate love for all these mother beings (ཡིད་དུ་འོང་བའི་བྱམས་པ་)
- 5. great compassion wishing that all beings be free from all forms of suffering (སྙིང་རྗེ་ཆེན་པོ་)
- 6. superior altruistic intent that takes responsibility for doing something about the plight of beings trapped in samsara (ལྷག་བསམ་རྣམ་དག་)
The seventh instruction is the result itself that we are aiming for:
- 7. the mind of enlightenment—that is, bodhicitta (བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་སེམས་)
By contemplating each of these instructions and developing the realizations associated with them, step by step we put each cause in place so that, eventually, we can give rise to our goal, the resultant mind of enlightenment.
Extensive Explanation
Equanimity and Compassion as a Foundation
Prior to these six causes, most traditions emphasize the importance of cultivating equanimity toward all beings, whether we perceive them to be a friend, a stranger, or even an enemy. Without this unbiased foundation, the subsequent instructions will always be colored by partiality toward some beings over others. Once equanimity is established, we can correctly engage with all the succeeding stages, such as love and compassion. For further details on the topic of equanimity, see this article:
In his masterwork The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Lamrim Chenmo, ལམ་རིམ་ཆེན་མོ།), the Gelukpa master Lama Tsongkhapa reminds us that before we begin to engage in this practice of the seven instructions, it is important to gain certainty about their sequence. He first explains the importance of compassion as the root of the Mahāyāna. He then explains how, within the seven points, all the other instructions apart from great compassion are either causes of compassion or effects of compassion.[2]
Tsongkhapa points out how the first four instructions—from recognizing all beings as having been our mothers up until the fourth instruction on affectionate love—all act as causes of compassion. The last two instructions, superior altruistic intent and the mind of enlightenment, he explains to be the effects of compassion.
The important point here is to recognize how all seven instructions are related to compassion, and how compassion therefore forms the basis not only for the practice of generating bodhicitta but for the entire path of the Mahāyāna practitioner. For further information on compassion and the Mahāyāna tradition, explore the following pages:
1. Seeing All Beings as Your Mother
This first instruction encourages us to recognize all beings as having been our mother. This recognition is underpinned by the understanding that consciousness has no beginning and no end, and that although the body of this present life will cease to exist, our consciousness will continue on to a new life. If consciousness is unceasing, then we must have lived countless births in the past, and if that is so, we must have been born as the offspring of innumerable beings.
On this, Venerable Lobsang Gyatso, in his book Bodhicitta: Cultivating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment, makes a crucial point about the continuity of consciousness and how there must be an infinite number of lives:
Something which is of a material nature cannot be transformed into or produced in the nature of consciousness. Rather, each individual moment of consciousness is generated from the substance of its own former moment in an uninterrupted continuum. In this sense also there can be no beginning point to the sentient being.[3]
Material phenomena cannot act as the substantial cause for immaterial phenomena such as consciousness. This must mean that each moment of consciousness must have a preceding moment of consciousness. It then follows that consciousness has no beginning and no end, and therefore that previous lives are beginningless and our future lives are endless.
In his Great Treatise, Tsongkhapa explains how there is no living being who has not, at some point in our beginningless series of lives, been our mother.
Because cyclic existence is beginningless, your births are also without beginning. Therefore you have died and been reborn time and time again. There is absolutely no kind of body which you have not assumed in cyclic existence. There is absolutely no place where you have not been born, and there is no person who has not been a relative such as your mother.[4]
Not only is it explained that all beings have been our mothers but also that all beings will be our mothers a limitless number of times in the future. Asaṅga mentions this point in his Treatise on the Grounds of Yogic Practice (Yogācārabhūmi), where he cites from a sūtra as follows:
I have difficulty seeing a place wherein you have not been born, gone to, or died in the distant past. I have difficulty seeing any person in the distant past who has not been your father, mother, uncle, aunt, sister, master, abbot, guru, or someone like a guru.[5]
We must reflect upon this and become convinced that all beings have been our mothers in the past, and that they will continue to be our mothers again in the future. Developing this conviction will then naturally lead us to remember their kindness and so forth. If we do not develop this understanding, we will have no basis for remembering their kindness.
2. Remembering the Kindness of All Those Mothers
Having recognized that there has never been a being who has not been bound to us in the most intimate of relationships, the next crucial stage toward developing bodhicitta is to understand how kind they have been to us—and the majority of mothers, in the way they care for their children, give us a vivid example of that kindness.
It is important to make sure that we take our mother in this life as an example and remember her kindness. Of course, there are some people who have had very problematic and painful relationships with close members of their family such as their mothers. In these cases, it is advised not to take them as a model for cultivating the remembrance of kindness, as it could create complex feelings that would not be in accord with the development of this stage of instruction. Instead, those people should choose a person other than their mother who has been close to them and shown them great kindness in their lives.
In his Great Treatise, Tsongkhapa shows us how to meditate on this sense of kindness by beginning with our mother of this life:
Imagine your mother clearly in front of you. Think the following a few times: "Not only has she been my mother at present but she has been so an incalculable number of times throughout beginningless cyclic existence." As your mother, she protected you from all harm and provided you all benefit and happiness. Particularly in this lifetime she carried you for a long time in her womb. Then, when you were a helpless, newborn infant, she held you to the warmth of her flesh and bounced you on the tips of her ten fingers. She suckled you at her breast, used her mouth to give you soft food and to remove mucus from your nose, and used her hand to wipe away your excrement. So in various ways she nurtured you tirelessly.
Moreover, when you were hungry and thirsty, she gave you food and drink; when you were cold, clothes; when you were poor, she gave from her wealth those things which were very dear to her. Even more, what she gave to you were not things that she had obtained easily but that she had secured through great hardship while engaging in wrongdoing and receiving ill repute and suffering. If you suffered from illness, pain, or the threat of death, your mother made the choice from the depths of her heart that she would rather be sick than you be sick, she would rather be in pain than you be in pain, she would rather die than you die. By putting this feeling into action, she did what was needed to alleviate these troubles.[6]
We bring to mind in front of us someone from this life who has shown us great kindness and reflect carefully on the ways in which they have cared for us. They have sacrificed themselves in so many ways for the sake of our welfare, and in some cases they would even be willing to die for us. Visualizing the person of this life directly in front of us helps us not just remember them in words but manifestly feel that sense of gratitude toward them.
Once we have contemplated the close person of this life, we then extend that feeling of kindness to all beings, starting with other close relatives and friends and eventually radiating it out to all beings who we have already recognized as being our mothers. Eventually, this mind of gratitude will extend even to those we consider our enemies.
The twelfth-century Kagyu master Gampopa takes up this same theme in his Ornament of Precious Liberation (དམ་ཆོས་ཡིད་བཞིན་གྱི་ནོར་བུ་ཐར་པ་རིན་པོ་ཆེའི་རྒྱན།), one of the very first texts in the stages of the path genre, drawing on the Mahāyāna sūtra called The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines (Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā, ཤེར་ཕྱིན་བརྒྱད་སྟོང་པ།) to help us cultivate a genuine sense of gratitude for our mothers' kindness:
Mothers gave birth to us, underwent hardships, kept us alive, and taught us all about the world.[7]
In his commentary to this verse, Gampopa provides us with some wonderfully evocative images of why we should feel gratitude for the kindness of our mothers. He also goes on to break down the positive things we receive from our mothers into four categories—the kindness of nourishing our body, the kindness of undergoing hardships, the kindness of keeping us alive, and the kindness of teaching us the ways of the world.
Advising us on how to contemplate the kindness of our mothers nourishing our body, he writes:
This body of yours did not start out fully grown, with its flesh fully developed and with a healthy complexion. It developed gradually inside your mother, through the different embryonic and fetal stages, being gradually created and nourished by vital fluids from her very own flesh and blood. It grew thanks to nourishment from the food she ate. It came into being by her having to put up with all sorts of embarrassment, sickness, and suffering.[8]
The person you are now and the body you have grew from the fetus that your mother bore in her womb. Our mothers underwent tremendous hardships, including the pain of childbirth itself, to bring us into this world.
Next, Gampopa instructs that we should consider the kindness of how our mothers underwent hardships:
You did not come into this world clothed, finely adorned, with money in your pocket and provisions for the journey. When you came into this unfamiliar place, where you knew no one and had nothing, the only wealth you had was your howling mouth and empty stomach. Your mother gave you food so that you would not go hungry, drink to keep you from thirst, clothes to fend off the cold, and wealth to keep you from poverty. It was not as though she just gave you things she no longer needed herself: she herself went without food, without drink, and without new clothes.[9]
We knew nothing when we came into this world, and it would be impossible for us to survive without help from our parents. Most mothers will deprive themselves of food so that their children can be fed and will use every last penny they have to keep their children alive. We must remember this kindness.
When we were born, we did not know how to even feed ourselves, let alone do other complex tasks necessary for survival. Next, Gampopa explains how to consider the kindness of our mothers keeping us alive:
It is not as though you were born as you are now, knowing how to feed yourself and endowed with the necessary ability to accomplish difficult tasks. When you were helpless, useless—a little worm unable to think—your mother did not discard you but did an inconceivable number of things to nurture your existence. She took you on her lap, protected you from fire and water, held you away from dangerous precipices, got rid of all sources of harm, and prayed for you.[10]
Finally, Gampopa gives a wonderfully vivid expression of how helpless we were when we were born and how much our parents showed us how to survive and grow:
Apart from being able to bawl out to other members of your family and flap your limbs about, you were ignorant. When you did not know how to feed yourself, it was she who taught you how to eat. When you knew not how to dress yourself, it was she who taught you. When you did not know how to walk, it was she who taught you. When you could not even speak, it was she who taught you, repeating "Mama," "Dada," and so on. Having taught you various crafts and skills, she helped you become a balanced being, strengthening your weaker points and introducing you to the unfamiliar.[11]
We knew only how to scream and cry when we were born. We had no idea how to feed or clothe ourselves, and everything was done for us by our mothers. We had to be taught to speak by our parents, and it was they who taught us skills for life and encouraged us to develop.
Gampopa's resonant images invite us to sit with these reflections and truly feel the weight of what our mother of this life has done for us. By contemplating her kindness in this vivid and detailed way, we build the emotional foundation from which we can then extend that same sense of gratitude outward to all beings. For those who find it difficult to use their mother as the focus of this contemplation, it is entirely appropriate to bring to mind another person who has shown them deep kindness and closeness.
3. Wishing to Repay the Kindness
Having brought to mind the kindness of mothers (or an equivalent kind person), the next step is to wish to repay that kindness. In ordinary life, those who appreciate the generosity of others and are careful to repay them in some way are respected in society. Here, being aware of the greatest generosity of all in this world—that of someone being a kind and caring mother—we must feel the urge to repay them for that kindness. With gratitude for all they have done, we must not only wish to repay that kindness but do something concrete to acknowledge all their care.
Lama Tsongkhapa quotes from Candragomin's Letter to a Student (Śiṣyalekha, སློབ་མ་ལ་སྤྲིངས་པའི་སྤྲིང་ཡིག།) to remind us of how shameful it would be if we were to watch all these beings who have been our mothers in the past suffer while we stood by and did nothing to help them.
While you see that your relatives are engulfed in the ocean of
cyclic existence,
And are as if fallen into a pit of fire,
There is nothing more shameful than to work for your own
liberation,
Neglecting those whom you do not recognize due to the
process of death and rebirth.[12]
Just because we do not recognize our mothers from past lives directly, due to the process of death and then rebirth, there is no reason to ignore the terrible plight of beings. Understanding the connection we have with them and how kind they have been to us in previous lives, we must develop the wish to repay their kindness.
In Bodhicitta: Cultivating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment, Venerable Lobsang Gyatso suggests a number of ways we can repay others' kindness:
A variety of means can be employed in showing kindness to others: helping the poor and needy by providing materially, befriending the weary and forlorn, offering strength and support to those who are oppressed by fear, coming to the aid of those who face sentences and punishments such as death, helping the wretched, such as those who are ill, with medicines and rituals, providing knowledge and learning for beings who are afflicted with ignorance, and offering perfect Dharma to those who desire ultimate happiness.[13]
When thinking of repaying the kindness of our mothers, particularly our mothers of this life, our minds usually turn to the thought of providing material and physical support for them. This can be very beneficial, but we also have to be careful that it is not taken to an excess. Repayment of kindness in this form can only ever satisfy the short-term needs of others and should only be done in moderation. Material help alone can in fact be counterproductive. There will always be a financial or material limit to what we can offer, and in some cases it can actually become a hindrance to the other, as it can feed their afflictions of pride and greed.
Buddhism does not view things only from a short-term perspective, but always tries to consider the longer-term. It encourages us to think about providing others with more lasting forms of assistance. Even in worldly life, it is often said that rather than giving only financial support to the poor, it is best if we can also provide them with education and knowledge so they can build a better life for themselves.
Likewise, in the bodhisattva path, the driving goal is to be able to attain enlightenment in order to help others reach that exalted state—that is the ultimate happiness that we could give another being. With this overarching aim in mind, the help we provide others to repay their kindness should be focused on lasting results. Therefore, it is said that imparting knowledge of the Dharma to others is the most excellent way to repay their kindness. With this in mind, it is crucial that we also study and practice the Dharma so that we will be able to offer them this enduring support in a way that is most appropriate to them.
Most ordinary beings work for worldly goals, and due to ignorance of the causes that bring happiness and those that bring suffering, their efforts to achieve happiness prove fruitless. They continuously bring misfortune upon themselves because, being confused about which actions bring about which results, they inevitably act in ways that reflect that confusion. The practical application of this training in resolving to repay the kindness of all sentient beings is therefore to work to the best of our ability for the sake of others, teaching them correctly what should be cultivated and what should be avoided. This point is captured in a verse widely attributed to the Buddha:
I cannot wash away your misdeeds with water. I cannot remove the suffering of living beings with my hands. I cannot transfer my realizations to you. The only way I can help you is by teaching the true nature of reality, Therefore, you must strive to liberate yourself.
This verse captures the essence of why studying and practicing the Dharma is the most profound form of kindness we can offer to others—for it is only through understanding the true nature of reality that beings can find lasting freedom from suffering.
4. Affectionate Love
In his book Bodhicitta: Cultivating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment, Venerable Lobsang Gyatso explains exactly what this mind of affectionate love is. He writes:
Affectionate love differs from the love of the four immeasurables in that the latter is the love which wishes to ensure the happiness of an immeasurable number of sentient beings, whereas affectionate love is a state of mind which sees whomever we encounter in an attractive light, just as a mother sees her beloved only child.[14]
While the love of the four immeasurables wishes that immeasurable beings have happiness and its causes, affectionate love is more personal in quality—it is a heartfelt warmth and cherishing directed toward every single living being without exception. For more information on the four immeasurables, see this article:
Affectionate love is being attracted to all sentient beings as if they were your own children. It has that sense of tremendous closeness embedded in it, and we need to feel that sense of closeness for all beings in order to develop this stage of the practice.
In his Precious Garland (Ratnāvalī, རིན་ཆེན་ཕྲེང་བ།), Nāgārjuna mentions the following benefits from meditation on this type of love:
Giving the food of three hundred clay pots every day, three times a day, cannot compare to even a fraction of the merit of just a short moment of love. (3.83)
Even if not liberated, you will attain these eight excellent qualities from practicing love: gods and humans will love you, and they will also protect you; you will have peace of mind and much happiness and not be harmed by either poison or weapons; you will effortlessly attain your aims and be reborn in the realm of Brahmā. (3.84-85)[15]
The power of this affectionate love is said to be so strong that it outshines even the merit accumulated from tremendous acts of generosity, such as offering many people sustenance every day for years and years.
Having understood what affectionate love is and appreciated its extraordinary power, we may now ask how we go about actually cultivating it. In his Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, Tsongkhapa explains that this cultivation takes place through a series of stages, beginning with those closest to us and gradually extending outward:
First, cultivate love toward friends. Then, cultivate love for persons toward whom you have neutral feelings. Next, cultivate love toward your enemies. Then, cultivate it gradually toward all beings.[16]
It is important to start developing this sense of affectionate love for those we feel naturally close to. Later, we can develop it in relation to those who are like strangers to us whom we hardly notice, and then eventually even to beings we consider to be our enemies. Once we can feel love for beings in any of these categories and wish that they have happiness, we can bring to mind this love in all its forms and think of offering it to all living beings without exception.
Affectionate love comes before great compassion in the sequence of instructions. It acts as a cause for great compassion, and great compassion cannot be developed if affectionate love does not precede it. The importance of this sequence is illustrated beautifully in Kamalaśīla's Stages of Meditation (Bhāvanākrama, བསྒོམ་པའི་རིམ་པ།), where it says:
After the mind has developed equanimity toward all sentient beings, meditate on loving-kindness. Moisten the mental continuum with the water of loving-kindness and prepare it as you would a piece of fertile ground. When the seed of compassion is planted in such a mind, germination will be swift, proper, and complete. Once you have irrigated the mindstream with loving-kindness, meditate on compassion.[17]
This sequence—from equanimity through affectionate love to compassion—is not arbitrary but reflects the natural progression of an awakening heart.
5. Great Compassion
Having generated the affectionate love described above, we now cultivate the mind of great compassion. It is important to note that the approach to developing each of these two states of mind differs significantly. Affectionate love comes primarily from contemplating the kindness others have shown us. But to develop great compassion fully, we must deeply contemplate how sentient beings are tormented by a whole range of suffering, even the subtlest sufferings such as the mental suffering of the god realms.
However, in order to develop the understanding of the sufferings of others, we must first contemplate these very sufferings in our own life. If we can't generate the wish to be free from all forms of suffering for ourselves, how could we possibly do that for others?
In Bodhicitta: Cultivating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment, Venerable Lobsang Gyatso explains the importance of developing this wish that we ourselves be free from all suffering, a mind wishing for what is known as definite emergence (niryāṇa, ངེས་འབྱུང་), before we can develop that in relation to others:
Careful reflection on how these sufferings endlessly follow one upon another and relentlessly plague us will induce the thought of definite emergence—the desire for one's own freedom from cyclic existence. Contemplation of the same phenomena as they relate to others and their experiences will induce great compassion[18]
It is essential that before turning our attention to others, we come to recognize the depths of our own suffering. The kind of suffering we should wish to be free of is not just the manifest pain and discomfort that we all feel and try to avoid in life. Most creatures have an innate wish to be rid of this kind of gross suffering. Simply acknowledging this level of suffering is not considered a factor responsible for the development of either the wish for oneself to be free of suffering or great compassion. Instead, we must appreciate how the whole process of birth in samsara is characterized by suffering, even to the extent of our very own body and mind. With that level of insight, we develop the wish that both ourselves and all other mother beings be free of even the subtlest forms of suffering within samsara, the cycle of contaminated existence. Until we are free from this cycle, we will have to experience uncontrolled rebirth at the mercy of our karma.
Having developed some wish to free ourselves of these deeper levels of suffering, we turn our minds to the suffering of others. At the beginning, it is crucial that our reflection is connected with specific, real people before we widen the scope to all beings. If we have a very generalized thought of "others" but do not connect it to specific people in our lives, we may feel that we have given rise to great compassion, but in reality we have not. Lama Tsongkhapa makes this point very strongly in his Great Treatise:
If you train in these attitudes of impartiality, love, and compassion without distinguishing and taking up specific objects of meditation, but only using a general object from the outset, you will just seem to generate these attitudes. Then, when you try to apply them to specific individuals, you will not be able to actually generate these attitudes toward anyone. But once you have a transformative experience toward an individual in your meditation practice as explained previously, you may then gradually increase the number of individuals you visualize within your meditation. Finally, take all beings in general as your object of meditation[19]
Thus, according to Tsongkhapa, it would be very difficult to connect this very generalized view of the suffering "others" to very specific beings in our lives. Rather, we start out by taking specific people from the three categories—friend, enemy, or stranger. It is only when we have transformed our minds into this deepest feeling of compassion for those we love, are apathetic toward, or actively hate that we start to increase the scope of our compassion until it encompasses all living beings.
It is important to be clear that great compassion has a different aspect from that of affectionate love. The aspect of the mind of affectionate love is one of feeling closeness to all beings, and through that the wish that they have every happiness and the causes of happiness. The mind of great compassion is the wish that all sentient beings be free of even the tiniest suffering, feeling the unbearable weight of that suffering as if it were our own. Not only that, but great compassion carries with it the aspiration to actually help eliminate the suffering of all beings.
Kamalaśīla's First Stages of Meditation gives the measure—the precise criterion—for knowing when this fifth stage of great compassion has been fully developed:
Just as a mother responds to her small, beloved, and suffering child, when you develop a spontaneous and equal sense of compassion toward all sentient beings, you have perfected the practice of compassion. And this is known as great compassion.[20]
Venerable Lobsang Gyatso also specifies the exact features this mind must have to qualify as great compassion:
As for the nature of that great compassion, it is derived from seeing how ordinary sentient beings are tormented by the various levels of suffering; it is a non-contrived thought which, desiring them to be separated from those sufferings, has the aspect of not being able to bear the fact of their plight.[21]
In sum, actual great compassion sees the whole range of suffering that others experience, feels a sense of being unable to bear that suffering, and wishes to remove it all, just as a mother would of her child. Great compassion must also be uncontrived, which means that it arises spontaneously, without the need for elaborate reasons or reflection, and can be brought to mind almost instantly. When we have fulfilled these criteria, we can say we have generated great compassion in our mindstreams.
6. Special Intention
Special intent, also translated as wholehearted resolve or altruistic intent, involves a determination to take responsibility for freeing all beings from their suffering. It is not just the wish that they be free but the commitment to directly help them to be free of suffering.
Special intention is not just a passive and hopeful wish that all beings have happiness and be free of all suffering. It is an active resolve that wishes to take responsibility for all.
But why is it so hard for us to feel the urgency and energy to take responsibility for helping other beings? Venerable Lobsang Gyatso encourages us to examine this question:
Similarly, when we see that each sentient being has acted as our mother on many occasions, showing us a boundless kindness like the mother of this life, and when we realize that we should repay this kindness, we should ask ourselves the question, "Why do I not yet feel that such a responsibility falls upon myself?" We should then endeavor to instill such an attitude.[22]
There is the danger that even if we understand all beings to be our mothers, feel their kindness, and have the wish to repay that kindness by wishing they have happiness and have no suffering, we may still not actually take it to the next level—that of taking personal responsibility to make this happen. Here, Ven. Lobsang Gyatso offers the following lines of reasoning to encourage us to instill this attitude of responsibility in us:
(1) [. . .] [E]ach sentient being has acted as our mother countless times; in the past they all have shown us the same degree of kindness as the mother of this life, and they will continue to do so in the future. Thus it becomes our responsibility to repay their kindness.
(2) In a nation, a community, or a single family, the person who is most qualified in learning, ability, and experience should assume authority; the most capable child should guide the brothers and sisters. In a similar way, when it comes to the elimination of suffering, those who are more proficient in the task should guide those with little or no skill. If through the kindness of competent spiritual guides we have been able to encounter the Mahayana Dharma and receive training in the methods of eradicating suffering, it is reasonable that this effort to benefit others should be expected of us.
(3) If we fail to exercise whatever ability we have to be of some use to others it not only contravenes worldly standards but also spiritual ones.
(4) The Tathagatas' fulfillment of the two excellences [the perfection of their own realization and their capacity to benefit all beings] derives from their working solely to achieve the welfare of others.
(5) Bodhisattvas of the present time are training in such a manner, and we as fellow trainees wish to emulate their behavior.[23]
If we have already understood the close connection we have with all living beings, understood their kindness, and seen how they suffer, why would we only wish that they be free but not engage in helping them to free themselves? It is only logical, asserts Venerable Gyatso, that we take that next step.
7. Generating the Mind of Enlightenment
The seventh and final instruction is the effect of all the six prior causes, the result of bodhicitta. The previous stage of special intent is a state of mind that takes responsibility for freeing all beings from every single form of suffering. But that wish alone does not qualify as the mind of bodhicitta. Helping to free all beings from suffering and placing them in a state of stable peace and happiness is a lofty goal indeed, but how will we be able to practically do that? It is important to be realistic about what we are capable of. We must ask ourselves, "What can I actually do to fully help beings?"
Venerable Gyatso emphasizes that complete buddhahood is the ideal state from which we can most effectively benefit all sentient beings.
By engaging in the deeds of the Bodhisattvas, we will be in a position to benefit a great many sentient beings. Then on the basis of that, by progressing further to the state of complete Buddhahood, we will fully comprehend the predispositions, mentality, and potentials of every sentient being. We will have reached the highest state of awakening and, apart from those who lack the development and maturation of their lineage, we will be able to unceasingly perform the task of benefitting all sentient beings spontaneously and effortlessly.[24]
In addition to an omniscient mind (dharmakāya, ཆོས་སྐུ་) that knows the mentality and predispositions of all beings, our achievement of this state also comes with possessing the form body of a buddha (nirmāṇakāya, སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་) that is able to effortlessly and spontaneously reach out to all beings to help guide and teach them. With those two aspects, along with all the other magnificent qualities the buddhas possess, we will be in the best position to effectively help all beings forever.
Having seen the need to attain the enlightened state, we enhance this wish for buddhahood by contemplating the incredible qualities of the body, speech, and mind of the buddhas. With faith in those qualities, we wish ourselves to attain them, motivated not from selfish concerns but for the welfare of all. As Tsongkhapa writes:
First, increase your faith as much as possible by contemplating the good qualities of the Buddha's body, speech, mind, and enlightened activities as previously explained in the section on going for refuge. Then, as it is taught that faith is the basis of aspiration, develop the desire to attain those good qualities from the depths of your heart and induce a certainty that it is absolutely necessary to attain omniscience even for your own welfare.[25]
In other words, by deeply contemplating the extraordinary qualities of the buddhas and developing a heartfelt faith in them, we naturally give rise to the wish to attain that same state ourselves—not out of self-interest, but as the most complete and effective way of fulfilling our responsibility to all sentient beings.
It is important to understand exactly what bodhicitta is. Bodhicitta has two main aspirational components—the primary aspiration to help all beings attain the highest possible form of happiness, and the secondary aspiration to attain the state of a fully enlightened buddha. The aspiration for the highest welfare of all is an expression of the deep compassion for every single living being. The aspiration to become a buddha is the practical application of the wish for the highest happiness for all.
Thus, the state of mind of bodhicitta is one that thinks, "Wishing to repay the kindness of all beings, my dear mothers, I must help them attain genuine and lasting happiness and its causes, and to free them from suffering and the causes of suffering. To do that I myself must attain the fully enlightened state, replete with the wisdom body and form body, and then with spontaneous and effortless skillful means place them all in the state of the unsurpassed, perfect, and fully enlightened Buddha."
Initially we have to repeatedly make effort again and again to bring the thought of enlightenment to mind. But eventually, through training, it will arise naturally and spontaneously in an uncontrived fashion. When we have reached that state of mind, we can say that bodhicitta has truly arisen within us.
For more information about the seven-point instructions of cause and effect, visit the Practice section.
Notes
- ↑ Elio Guarisco and Ingrid McLeod (Kalu Rinpoché Translation Group), trans. and ed., The Treasury of Knowledge, Book Five: Buddhist Ethics, by Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Tayé (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion Publications, 2003), 172.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, trans., The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment, by Tsongkhapa, ed. Joshua W. C. Cutler and Guy Newland (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2000), 2:36.
- ↑ Ven. Lobsang Gyatso, Bodhicitta: Cultivating the Compassionate Mind of Enlightenment, trans. Sherab Gyatso (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1997), 22.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 2:38.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 2:38.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 2:38.
- ↑ Ken Holmes, trans., Ornament of Precious Liberation, by Gampopa, ed. Thupten Jinpa (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017), 90.
- ↑ Holmes, Ornament of Precious Liberation, 90.
- ↑ Holmes, Ornament of Precious Liberation, 91.
- ↑ Holmes, Ornament of Precious Liberation, 91.
- ↑ Holmes, Ornament of Precious Liberation, 92.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 2:39.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 32.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 32.
- ↑ Sarah McClintock and John Dunne, trans., Nāgārjuna's Precious Garland: Ratnāvalī (New York: Wisdom Publications, 2024), 122.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 43.
- ↑ Dalai Lama, 14th, Stages of Meditation: The Buddhist Classic on Training the Mind, root text by Kamalashila, trans. Venerable Geshe Lobsang Jordhen, Losang Choephel Ganchenpa, and Jeremy Russell (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2019), 42.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 42.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 2:44.
- ↑ Dalai Lama, 14th, Stages of Meditation, 48.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 44.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 45.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 46.
- ↑ Gyatso, Bodhicitta, 53.
- ↑ Lamrim Chenmo Translation Committee, The Great Treatise, 2:48.
