(1.13) Just as when those who are greatly afraid rely upon a courageous one,
Whoever relies upon bodhichitta will immediately be freed from danger
Even if they have committed unbearable evils;
So why do the conscientious not rely upon it?

When people are afraid, they naturally turn to those who can protect them.  This is true in virtually every domain of life.  But how much better it would be to not need to turn to some outside source for protection, but to instead find all the security we need from within ourself.  With a mind of bodhichitta, we truly live without fear, free from all danger.

As was discussed in the series of posts on cultivating a true self-confidence, when we align ourself with the intention of the Spiritual Guide (who is the synthesis of all the Buddhas), all of his power flows into us so that we have nothing to fear.  All of our suffering, inabilities and ignorance ultimately come from the fact that we have knocked ourselves out of alignment with how things truly exist and function.  But when we bring ourselves back into alignment, it is as if everything powers up and we literally feel as if we have immediate access to all of the abilities and capacities of all of the Buddhas at our fingertips.  We merely need invoke them to accomplish their function, and they will do so through us.  For all practical purposes, even though we ourselves are not yet a Buddha, it will be as if we were one since all the Buddhas can now work through us.  The mind of bodhichitta brings us back into alignment.  The powerful winds of all of the Buddhas blow in the direction of the enlightenment of all beings.  If we run counter or cross this direction, we have no power.  But when we bring the sails of our mind into alignment with these winds, everything becomes easy and possible.

Once we have attained spontaneous bodhichitta, our eventual attainment of enlightenment is guaranteed, even if you die in between.  Spontaneous realizations are distinct from the non-spontaneous kind in that they are self-reproducing.  They are like a perpetual motion machine, which once started never stops.  Once we have attained spontaneous bodhichitta we couldn’t not attain enlightenment, even if we wanted to!  We will continuously be pushed forward towards enlightenment, even while we sleep and even though death itself.

We also come under the care of the Buddhas who take care of us and protect us from danger.  Our bodhichitta motivation creates the cause to receive their protection.  They correctly see us as a future Buddha.  Their sole purpose in attaining enlightenment was to help those who follow in their footsteps do the same.  If Buddhas help all living beings without exception every day, can there be any doubt that they take especially good care of those who seek to join their ranks?

(1.14) Just like the fire at the end of the aeon,
In an instant it completely consumes all great evil.
Its countless benefits were explained by the wise Protector Maitreya
To Bodhisattva Sudhana.

It was explained before that the precious mind of bodhichitta is the supreme method for purifying our negative karma.  The reason for this is the mind of bodhichitta single-handedly runs directly counter to every single harmful deed we ever performed.  In one fell swoop, it seeks to make up for all past harm by delivering these beings to permanent freedom.  Since its time horizon is towards an eternal future, it functions to purify an eternal past.  Even the smallest number multiplied by infinity is infinity.  In the same way, even the smallest virtue motivated by bodhichitta will undo all past harm.

These benefits of bodhichitta are not abstract speculation, nor are they exaggerated.  They are the living experience of all those that have taken the time to develop such a powerful mind, and if we do develop such a mind, it will be as if all of our negative karma were purified in merely an instant.  Such is the power of this mind.

(1.11) Since the limitless wisdom of Buddha, the Sole Navigator of living beings,
Upon thorough investigation has seen its preciousness,
Those who wish to be free from samsara’s suffering
Should firmly maintain this precious mind of bodhichitta.

Turn on any TV or click on any webpage, and we will find no end of things promising us happiness and freedom from suffering.  The total size of the world economy is about $65 trillion a year.  Virtually all of this money is spent in pursuit of finding happiness and freedom from suffering.  Yet none of it works.  All of these sales people are false prophets for false gods.  They are not reliable, and their message is deceptive.

It is incredibly rare to find people in this world whose wisdom is reliable.  We don’t know who we can trust and nobody seems to have a clue what to do.  We need somebody with omniscient wisdom who knows directly all paths.  But it is not enough to have somebody with omniscient wisdom, we need somebody who is selflessly looking out for our interests, without any ulterior motive trying to sell us some pack of lies.  Such a being we could trust.  Their word and advice we could rely upon.

And what do these enlightened ones tell us is the most precious, non-deceptive, beneficial thing in the universe?  The mind of bodhichitta.  There is nothing more valuable, nothing more beneficial, nothing more powerful.  And its free!  Geshe-la says in Eight Steps to Happiness all we need to do is cherish others more than ourself, and everything else will flow naturally from that.  When we cherish them, their happiness will matter to us.  When they suffer, we will want to do something about it.  When we know there is something we can do, we will do it.  What do we need to do?  Become a Buddha ourselves.  The methods are there, they are not complicated, and all those who have sincerely put these methods into practice for sufficiently long time have come to possess the mind of bodhichitta themselves and know directly its value.

If we found a treasure map we knew to be authentic, we would waste no time following it.  But such treasure, in the end, is of limited value.  But we have been given a perfectly reliable treasure map which leads to the greatest treasure there is – the precious mind of bodhichitta.  Yet, we squander our opportunity to seek out this treasure by wasting our time on meaningless pursuits.  I think there are two main reasons for this.  First, we don’t really believe the map is legitimate; and second, we don’t believe we are actually capable of following it.  If we believed these two things, we would quite naturally seize the opportunity we have before us.  We should focus our efforts on these two things, and the rest will come quite naturally.

(1.12) Whereas all other virtues are like plantain trees,
In that they are exhausted once they bear fruit,
The enduring celestial tree of bodhichitta
Is not exhausted but increases by bearing fruit.

Karmically speaking, the power of our virtue is multiplied by the number of beings upon whose behalf we engage in the virtue.  If we engage in a virtuous action just for ourself, the power of that action is multiplied by 1; if we engage in the action for ourself and one other, it is multiplied by 2.  If the action is engaged in for the benefit of countless beings, the power of the virtue is multiplied by countless.  What does this mean?  It means engaging in one virtuous action, such as making somebody dinner, with a motivation of bodhichitta is karmically equivalent to engaging in that same action countless times.

Sometimes people doubt, how it is possible to attain enlightenment in one or a few short lifetimes if we have been cultivating bad habits and engaging in negativity since beginningless time.  The answer is bodhichitta.  With a mind of bodhichitta, in just one moment we can create more merit than it would take us aeons to do with other virtues.  Bodhichitta makes any virtue, even the smallest virtue of letting somebody go first as you walk through a door, into a virtuous act of cosmic proportions.  There is literally no way to exaggerate the multiplying power of bodhichitta.

One of the most amazing things about bodhichitta is the merit we accumulate in dependence upon it continues to work until the object to which it was dedicated is accomplished.  If you dedicate towards a temporary goal, the merit will be exhausted once that goal is accomplished.  Since the final goal of bodhichitta is the enlightenment of all living beings, it will continue to work until that goal is accomplished.

A good way to understand this is through the example of working for the center.  The merit we accumulate by working for the center continues to increase for as long as the center exists and the beings who are touched by this center engage in virtue.  Even if we have long ago left the center and moved on somewhere else, like some spiritual annuity, we continue to accumulate merit from our initial investment without any additional effort on our part.  Our actions motivated by bodhichitta work in exactly the same way.  Any action engaged in with a bodhichitta motivation will continue to operate as a beneficial force in this world until its final goal is realized.

(1.9) The moment bodhichitta is generated
Even in pitiful beings bound within the prison of samsara,
They become Bodhisattvas – a “Son or Daughter of Buddha” –
And are worthy of veneration by humans and worldly gods.

It is worthwhile considering why this would be true.  The reason why they merit being venerated by everyone in samsara is because part of them is outside of samsara.  What part?  Their aspiration.  This is equally true for only even a fraction of bodhichitta, because even a fraction of ourselves outside of samsara is extraordinary.

Samsara is, for all practical purposes, hermetically sealed with no escape.  Absent explanations of Dharma (or any other qualified spiritual path), there is literally nothing in samsara that even hints at an existence outside of samsara.  Even those who have been in the Dharma for many, many years scantly have a clue what samsara is and what lies outside of it.  For most people in the world today, “samsara” is the name of an exotic perfume.  If people have even heard the name, its connotation is something that is tantalizingly sinful – so good, it’s worth throwing personal discipline to the wind.  But most people so only know the prison that they don’t even realize they are in one.

Karma in general is of two types:  contaminated and non-contaminated.  Contaminated karma ripens inside of samsara, non-contaminated karma ripens outside of samsara.  The goal of the Buddhist path is to escape from samsara, so therefore we need as much non-contaminated karma as we can accumulate.  Non-contaminated karma is like a special type of spiritual rocket fuel without which we cannot generate sufficient escape velocity for escaping samsara’s gravitational pull.  Non-contaminated karma, quite simply, is created when its observed object is outside of samsara.  For example, when somebody regards an image of a Buddha, because the object is by nature outside of samsara we accumulate non-contaminated karma, even if we don’t see it as anything more than a pretty piece of art.  Venerable Tharchin explains that “the location of mind is at the object of cognition,” so if our observed object is outside of samsara, then the part of our mind that observes that object literally goes outside of samsara.  Cognizing the object is a mental action, creating karma.  This is why Geshe-la began the International Temple’s Project.  Busloads full of children and tourists come, each one leaves with non-contaminated karmic imprints on their mind.  These imprints later ripen in the form of these people finding a path out of samsara, or even being directly reborn outside of the prison of samsara.

The observed object of the mind of bodhichitta is outside of samsara.  It “sees” a future in which all living beings have been freed from the prison of their contaminated karmic hallucinations and it commits oneself to work towards realizing that vision.  All actions motivated by bodhichitta create non-contaminated karma, even brushing one’s teeth.  Having such a mind is like having within us a magic escape tunnel through which we can ferry all those we love out of samsara.  Even the most powerful person on earth, even a Chakravatin King, can at most make us a little more comfortable as we await our perpetual slaughter.  Only somebody with a mind of bodhichitta can free us from danger.  Only our own mind of bodhichitta can save our loved ones.

When we generate bodhichitta, our spiritual parents become the Buddhas, specifically the Spiritual Guide.  We become part of their family, and therefore come under their care and protection.  When you are a member of a royal family, you can count on their support and protection.  There is nothing a parent would not do for their child.  Ordinary parents, even royal ones, can only help us in very limited ways and the protection they can provide is partial at best.  But when you are a son or daughter of all the Buddhas, you enter an eternal, vajra family and you come under their care and protection.  They are always there for you, guiding you, protecting you, even when you don’t see them or even think of them.  They never stop caring for you.  We need but turn to them and ask for their help, guidance and protection.

(1.10) Just like the supreme elixir that transmutes into gold,
Bodhichitta can transform this impure body we have taken
Into the priceless jewel of a Buddha’s form.
Therefore, firmly maintain bodhichitta.

This does not mean that our ordinary body will transform into the body of a Buddha.  Our ordinary body needs to be completely left behind and is an object of abandonment.  Bodhichitta is the full acceptance of the limitations of our contaminated aggregates, both for ourself and for others, for this life and for all future lives. The limitations of our contaminated aggregates are realized in comparison with the responsibility we have taken on.  They just can’t get the job done.

But what aggregates of body and mind do have the ability?  The pure body and mind of a Buddha.  The pure body of a Buddha has the ability to emanate countless forms in countless worlds directly and simultaneously.  It is one nature with the Dharmakaya so it has the ability to bestow all the realizations of the stages of the path on all beings.  With this human life, we can train in the methods for changing the basis of imputation of our “I” from our ordinary body and mind into the “priceless jewels” of a Buddha’s form and mind.

(1.7) The Able Ones, the Buddhas, who have considered this for many aeons,
Have all seen bodhichitta to be the most beneficial
Because, through it, countless masses of living beings
Can easily attain the supreme bliss of enlightenment.

This is incredible when you think about it.  All the Buddhas with their infinite wisdom have examined and discovered that the most beneficial, the most precious thing in the entire universe is the mind of bodhichitta.  How can we understand this?

If you and all your friends were in poverty and somebody gave you $1,000, it would be very useful and beneficial.  It would be even more beneficial if they gave you a machine with which you could (legally) print your own money for yourself.  It would be even more beneficial if they gave you a machine that made the machines which print the money because then you could give one to each of your friends (assume away inflation for a moment).

In the same way if you and your friends are in spiritual poverty, what is the value of one non-contaminated karmic seed?  It would have to be worth more than all the wealth of samsara for all the three times combined because its ripened effect is beyond all of samsara.  So if you had one non-contaminated seed, it would be extremely valuable and precious.  A mind of renunciation – a mind seeking one’s own individual liberation – would be like a machine with which we can generate for ourselves non-contaminated karmic seeds.  This would be far more useful than just one seed because we can create as many as we want for ourselves.  A mind of bodhichitta – a mind seeking enlightenment to be able to lead all others to the same state – is like a machine which can make machines which can generate non-contaminated karmic seeds.  It generates a special type of non-contaminated seed that ripens in the form of us having the ability to lead others to enlightenment (the ability to bestow methods which enable them to generate non-contaminated seeds themselves). If just one non-contaminated seed is worth more than all the wealth of samsara combined, it is difficult to even fathom how infinitely valuable the mind of bodhichitta is.

(1.8) Those who wish to destroy their own suffering,
Those who wish to dispel the suffering of others,
And those who wish to experience much happiness
Should never forsake the practice of bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta fulfills all wishes.  All beings have the same basic wishes to be free from all suffering and experience perfect happiness.  Bodhichitta fulfills our temporary wish for happiness because it is the king of all virtues.  When our mind is mixed with virtue, it naturally becomes more peaceful and calm.  When our mind is peaceful and calm, we are naturally happy, even if our external circumstance is awful.  Living our life according to bodhichitta enables us to live a meaningful and rewarding life.  Those who have great wealth and can satisfy their every worldly desire often find their lives empty and devoid of meaning, but those who have bodhichitta in their heart live each day knowing they are dedicating their lives to something larger than themselves, something that offers a real and lasting solution to all sorrow.  From a purely individual karmic point of view, making bodhichitta our driving force in life enables us to generate literally unlimited merit, or good karmic luck, with which we can fulfill all of our wishes.

Bodhichitta also enables us to fulfil all of our ultimate wishes.  Our ultimate wish is to lead all living beings, including ourselves, to the everlasting bliss and happiness of full enlightenment.  The cause of all suffering is contaminated aggregates.  Contaminated aggregates are the technical Buddhist term for our ordinary body and mind.  A human suffers from human problems because they impute their “I” onto human aggregates, or a human body and mind.  An animal suffers from animal problems because they impute their “I” onto an animal’s body and mind.  The same is true for hungry spirits, hell beings, demi-gods and gods.  Bodhichitta, quite simply, is the wish to change the basis of imputation of our “I” from a contaminated body and mind to the completely pure body and mind of a Buddha.  Once we have done this, we are then able to help each and every other living being do the same.  In this way we are able to free both ourself and all living beings from all of their suffering.  The pure aggregates of a Buddha experience only non-contaminated bliss, which is the most sublime happiness a being can experience.  In this way it fulfills our own and others wish for pure, ultimate and everlasting happiness.

In science, causes are divided into necessary and sufficient causes.  In Dharma, causes are divided into substantial and circumstantial causes.  An acorn is the substantial cause of an oak tree because it is the thing that transforms into the next thing.  The circumstantial causes are the sunlight, water and rich soil which function to bring about the transformation.  If you have an acorn without sunlight, water and rich soil, an oak tree will never develop; likewise, if you have all of the circumstantial causes assembled but no acorn, an oak tree will never grow.

In exactly the same way, the precious Sutra mind of bodhichitta is the substantial cause of the sublime tantric mind of great bliss.  In Sutra, ultimate bodhichitta is meditating on emptiness motivated by bodhichitta.  The subject mind meditating is the mind of bodhichitta, and the object of its meditation is the wisdom realizing emptiness.  According to Tantra, ultimate bodhichitta is meditating on emptiness with the subject mind of great bliss.   Bodhichitta is the substantial cause of spontaneous great bliss.  By taking the acorn of bodhichitta and then adding the sunlight, water and rich soil of generation and completion stage practices, our mind of bodhichitta will gradually transform into the supreme mind of great bliss.  Without bodhichitta, just like without an acorn, one could engage in the Tantric practices for an eternity, and a qualified great bliss would never arise.  With a mind of great bliss meditating on emptiness, we can almost instantaneously purify all of our previously accumulated contaminated karma and quite quickly become a Buddha.

What could be more precious than bodhichitta?

In French, there is a very good phrase for describing those people who are close to us in life, namely our friends, family, work colleagues, close neighbors and so forth.  They are referred to as “nos proches.”  As Dharma practitioners, included within this is our Sangha friends, including our spiritual teachers.  There isn’t really a good English equivalent (which perhaps says something about English-speaking culture.  On the flip side, there isn’t a good French equivalent for efficient…  Now that I have offended everyone equally, we can proceed!).

One of the biggest obstacles to genuinely advancing along the Mahayana path is, in the beginning at least, it is very difficult to get any feeling for what “all living beings” really means.  It is so vast that it becomes abstract and loses any heartfelt feelings.  It quickly becomes intellectual or an all too common form of cherishing everyone except those close to us, who we normally view as obstacles and problems in our life.  Geshe-la tells us to overcome this problem we need to start by generating our Mahayana virtues with respect to those closest to us, such as our family and closest friends, work colleagues and neighbors – in other words, nos proches.  Once we get some feeling for what it means to put others first and generate genuine love, compassion and bodhichitta, then we gradually expand the scope of our Mahayana virtues until it encompasses all living beings in a heartfelt way.

In deciding who to include in the category of nos proches, we should try expand the scope as widely as we can, without losing the feeling for it in our heart.  If we expand too far and lose the feeling, we should bring it in closer somewhat.  If we have a good feeling, but find ourself caring for very few, we should try push ourself to expand the scope of our Mahayana minds.  For purposes of this blog series, I will quite often refer to nos proches.  The name of this blog is Kadampa Working Dad, and the purpose of this series is to try explore the union of Kadampa Buddhism and modern life.  From a practical point of view, we do this by in particular (though not exclusively) training in the Bodhisattva’s way of life with respect to nos proches. The wish to become a Buddha so that we may better be able to help nos proches is a modern, practical way of training in the Mahayana path and the basis for eventually developing full-fledged bodhichitta.  We can call it, “French bodhichitta.”  Through gaining experience practicing in this way, we can gradually come to include all living beings.  But by primarily practicing in this way, we can keep our practice heartfelt – we can bring the Bodhisattva’s way of life home into our daily lives.

I believe it is important to directly apply the Mahayana practices with respect to nos proches because these people represent our most important karmic connections.  At a profound level, we can say every member of nos proches,  is actually an aspect of our spiritual guide.  By purifying our negative karma with respect to each other we heal the divisions between us, even the most subtle, and are therefore able to unite our individual candles together into a blazing sun.  Further, by learning how to solve the problems that arise between ourselves and nos proches, we gain the wisdom to be able to help all those who have similar problems.  Gaining such wisdoms creates the karmic causes for those who have similar problems to find us, and then we can help them.  In this way, we naturally – almost magically – are able to expand the scope of our bodhichitta.

In particular, if we belong to a Dharma center (or an on-line Dharma group), we should make a special point to be on good terms with all of the members of our Sangha.  We need to function and operate like a vajra family.  Vajra means indestructible, or unshakable.  Healing the divisions and relationships with those within our spiritual community is arguably the most important thing we can do with our life.  Our karma with these people is arguably the highest stakes karma we have because it is with respect to the path.  Many people wind up abandoning the Dharma due to personality clashes with people in a Dharma center.  This is a great shame for all involved in such disputes, and for the wider spiritual community.  This does not mean we should push our disagreements under the carpet, rather it means we should have the courage to put all of our differences squarely on the table and then we collectively and constructively use our Dharma wisdom to work it out.

Shantideva now begins his explanation of the benefits of bodhichitta.  In Buddhism, we identify things by their uncommon characteristic.  The uncommon characteristic of a human life is the ability to accomplish spiritual goals.  Most human beings actually have the mind of an animal.  How do we know this?  Because the goals they seek are no different than what an animal does (gathering resources, defeating enemies, experiencing some samsaric pleasure).  The goal we pursue determines what level of mind we have.  The highest goal we can accomplish with this human life is full enlightenment – in other words, acquire the ability to lead each and every living being to full enlightenment.  In other words, we can solve all of our own problems and put in place the eventual solution to all the problems of all living beings for all their lives.  To attain enlightenment, we need to want to do so.  This wish is bodhichitta.

Bodhichitta is the mind that spontaneously wishes to attain enlightenment for the benefit of others.  It has two wishes.  The principal wish is to lead each and every living being to full enlightenment.  This wish is great compassion.  The assistant wish is to become a Buddha ourselves so as to be able to accomplish the principal wish.  From a practical point of view, normally we think of bodhichitta in terms of the assistant wish because we are in the process of trying to become a Buddha, but we should always keep foremost in our mind the principal wish.  If we don’t know why we are training so hard, it is very easy to simply stop training.

(1.6) Thus, while our virtues are mostly weak,
Our non-virtues are extremely strong and fearsome.
Other than bodhichitta – a compassionate mind wishing for enlightenment –
What virtue can overcome the heaviest evils?

The first benefit of bodhichitta is it is the most powerful method for purifying our negative karma, more powerful than conventional methods of purification, such as Vajrasattva or the 35 Confession Buddhas.  The reason for this is the mind of bodhichitta is directly orthogonal to all of the negative karma we have accumulated towards all living beings since beginningless time.  All negative actions are, one way or another, harmful to others.  In our countless past lives, we have harmed each and every being in a wide variety of ways.  All of these negative deeds have left a good deal of negative karma on our mind.

The mind of bodhichitta wishes to correct for all of our past deeds with respect to everyone.  When we wrong somebody, it is normal that we try set things right with them by making it up to them in some way.  When we do, we usually repair the relationship and purify the negative karma in the process.  Giving flowers to our wife after we have forgotten our anniversary is kind, but its benefits are quite limited.  Promising to take personal responsibility to one day lead her to the permanent freedom of full enlightenment purifies not only the negative karma of forgetting the anniversary, but all of the harm we have ever done to her in this and our countless past lives.  It makes up for all of our past wrong, and karmically purifies everything, even the deepest negative karma.  Bodhichitta wishes to do the same for all that we have wronged, in other words, all living beings.  In this way, it purifies all of our negative karma.

To purify our negative karma we practice the four opponent powers:

The power of regret is the most important.  Regret quite simply is a mind that realizes we have previously made a mistake and that if we don’t purify the negative karma we created, we will regret it.  We think, “damn, I wish I hadn’t done that.  If I don’t fix this and purify, I am going to have to experience terrible suffering as a result.”  Regret accepts the fact that we are still a deluded being and we can’t stop delusions from arising in our mind and taking possession of us, but at the same time it does not accept the validity of these delusions.  It knows they are wrong and when they arise it sees through their lies.  Regret, however, is not guilt.  Guilt blames ourselves saying that we are bad.  Guilt is a form of anger directed against ourselves, and like all anger it seeks to harm the object of the anger, which in this case is ourselves.  Regret makes a clear distinction between ourselves and our delusions.  Just as we are not our cancer, so too we are not our delusions.  They are the sickness of our mind, but they are not us.  We wish to completely destroy our delusions to free ourselves.  Regret it like compassion for our true selves.  It sees us as the victim of our delusions and their karmic consequences, and wishes to free us from their hold over us.  Regret is also forward looking.  It looks to the future and realizes what we must do to avoid the consequences of our negative karma, it doesn’t look back and beat ourselves up over our mistakes.  Here we acknowledge that we have enormous negative karma on our mind, and that if we don’t purify our future will be painful.  This naturally leads to the conclusion:  I need to purify to avoid this fate.  In the context of bodhichitta, we realize that as long as we allow this negative karma we have with others to remain on our mind we are unable to help those we love.  It is important to note that the specific regret we generate determines the specific negative karma we purify.  For example, if we generate a specific regret for all the negative karma we have created with respect to our family or the people we work with, then when we engage in purification practice we will purify that specific negative karma.

The second opponent power is the power of reliance.  The power of reliance can be understood with analogy of falling on the ground.  To get back up, we need to rely upon that which we fell.  Our engaging in negative actions towards living beings is like falling upon them, but we then rely upon them in the form of using them as the objects of our bodhichitta.  We need to purify to set things right with all of them and to undo all the harm we have inflicted upon them.  When we engage in negative actions, we likewise are falling on the holy beings.  Because the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas love all living beings, to harm any living being is like harming the holy being.  We don’t actually harm them because they are utterly beyond being harm, but it is no different than the reaction a mother would have when her children are being harmed.  To purify, though, we turn to them asking them to illuminate the sky of our mind.

The third opponent power is the power of the opponent force.  This is any virtuous action engaged in motivated by regret.  When we harm people and later regret having done so, we naturally do something nice to them to make it up.  We try undo the harm we have inflicted upon them and we apologize to try set things right.  This is the power of the opponent force.  The rest is just the different means or methods by which we set things right.  The ultimate opponent force is bodhichitta.  The mind of bodhichitta is a mental promise to another living being that for as long as it takes we will do everything to eventually lead them to full enlightenment.  As stated above, this is exactly opposite to all the different negative actions we have committed against a particular person, so it functions to purify all the negative karma we have with respect to that person.

The final power is the power of the promise.  This is a promise to not engage in a specific action again towards that person.  In this context, our promise is our promise to never harm this person and to never abandon the intention to lead this person to enlightenment.  For as long as we do not go back on this promise, it continues to function to purify all of our negative karma towards this person, even while we sleep.

(1.4) This precious human life, so hard to find,
Offers the ultimate goal for living beings.
If we do not strive to accomplish this goal now,
How will such a precious opportunity arise again?

(1.5) Just as on a dark and cloudy night
A flash of lightning for a moment illuminates all,
So for the worldly, through the power of Buddha’s blessings,
A virtuous intention occasionally and briefly occurs.

We have worked very hard to get this opportunity.  All we need do is look and see how hard it is for us to engage in virtue to realize that this is true.  Right now, it takes tremendous effort for us to do the right thing.  All of our natural tendencies are towards engaging in negativity and squandering the spiritual opportunities we have.  When we do manage to engage in some virtue, it is often feeble at best.  What’s worse is we quite often will “reward ourselves” for having engaged in some virtue by allowing ourselves to indulge in some samsaric pleasure.  What little virtue then remains, we usually forget to sincerely dedicate.  Mentally or verbally reciting some words of a dedication prayer with a distracted mind eager to finish our meditation and get on with our day is not actual dedication.  For dedication to work, we must genuinely feel like we have invested our virtue and given it away.  We rarely do that, and as a result when we subsequently get angry at life’s minor annoyances, what remaining virtue we had gets burned up.  So how much virtue actually remains?  Basically none.

Then, we should consider just how much virtue it takes to have the spiritual opportunity we have before us.  Just to be born human, we need to have engaged in extensive practices of moral discipline and generosity.  It is said it is easier to attain enlightenment once born human than it is be born human after having fallen into the lower realms.  To live in a country where pure Dharma instructions are available and we are free to practice, we need to have protected the rights of others to practice when they faced persecution (fighting for the religious freedom of others creates the causes to have religious freedom ourselves).  To encounter the spiritual path in a free country, we need to have made the spiritual path available and accessible to others.  To encounter a correct spiritual path, we need to have given correct Dharma teachings to others.  To have an interest in practicing that path when we meet it, we need to have practiced it purely and sincerely in the past.  To encounter the Mahayana path is rarer than finding the Hinayana path, and to encounter the Tantric path is rarer than finding the Mahayana path.  Using the analogy of the blind turtle explained in the Lamrim, I did the math once and found that a human life such as our own happens only once in every 550 trillion lifetimes!

And it is not enough to just find such a path, we have to sustain our interest in it over a long period of time.  Due to bad habits, we all relate to Dharma teachings like we do samsaric objects, believing that the instructions have some power to do something to us, as opposed to ourselves needing to do something with them.  We quickly lose interest in the path and wander on to the next thing.  So not only do we have to have enough good karma to find the path, we need multiple sets of that karma to help us survive our early years full of mistakes in the Dharma before we figure out how to practice the path correctly and make our practice self-sustaining.  How many people do we know who have found the Dharma, stuck around for a few years and then wandered off?  Thousands.  There are FAR more people who have come into the tradition and left than those who have come and stayed.  Yet we are still here.  It is not too late for us.  But if we don’t seize the opportunity we have before us, it is just a question of time before we too lose the path.

I personally am of the view that this one precious human life we find before us is the culmination of our spiritual destiny.  We have been saving up our karmic pennies for aeons and we have cashed them all in for this one opportunity.  If we don’t use it to the fullest, we will end this life having depleted our karmic savings and once again be plunged into spiritual darkness within the slaughterhouse of samsara for countless aeons before we have another similar opportunity.  Venerable Tharchin says if we don’t take full advantage of the spiritual opportunities we have, we burn up the karmic causes which created it and will never find it again.  If instead, we take full advantage of it, then we create the causes for it to continue and for our opportunities to get better and better.  While we are still motivated to practice the Dharma, it is vital that we contemplate this deeply.  I know far too many people who have lost their spiritual life.  It happens all the time, and it will happen to us if we are not careful.

From the perspective of karma, the worst possible life a living being can have is a wasted precious human life.  If we had a normal human life with no spiritual possibilities and we lost that life, we would consider it a great loss.  All life is precious.  But really, our loss would be quite small.  We weren’t accomplishing anything meaningful with our life anyways, and the world would scantly notice our passing.  In contrast, think of the passing of the truly great beings who have walked this earth, such as Buddha Shakyamuni, Jesus, Mohammed, Ghandi and quite recently Thich Nhat Hanh.  Their passing represents a tragic loss, and the whole world mourns.  I, however, would say it is even a greater loss when an ignorant being like you or I loses their spiritual life.  Why?  When the great beings pass away, they come back in different forms.  They remain with us forever, guiding us all to freedom.  So actually, they never leave and we lose nothing.  But somebody who had the spiritual opportunity to become a great being like these masters who then lost that opportunity represents a true spiritual catastrophe which takes aeons to recover from.  All the beings who this person could have otherwise helped if they had become a holy being themselves are then forced to languish in samsara for incalculably long periods of time until this person once again re-finds their spiritual path.

(1.2) There is nothing written here that has not been explained before,
And I have no special skills in composition.
My reason for writing this is to benefit others
And to keep my mind acquainted.

(1.3) Thus, the strength of my faith and my virtuous realizations
Might for a while be increased by this,
And perhaps others who are as fortunate as I
Might also find this meaningful to behold.

Shantideva is very clear that nothing he is saying is new, rather he is just saying once again what has already been taught.  By saying this, Shantideva shows that everything he says has lineage.  Anybody can come up with a new theory or new ideas, but only a few in this world have been able to present timeless wisdom.  In Buddhism, the essential meaning of the teachings remains the same, only the presentation changes.  We pass on what Buddha taught not what we think for the simple reason that he is enlightened and we are not.

Likewise, his saying this forces us to challenge our own attachment to hearing something new.  When Geshe-la publishes a new book, we usually focus our attention on what is “new.”  When he reproduces chapters found in other books, we tend to skip over the quickly thinking we have already heard that.  We relate to Dharma teachings like we do any samsaric object, namely always looking for the newest and latest instruction.  When we hear the same instructions over again, we feel like they have gone stale.  It is true, the instruction may be the same, but it will only feel stale if it is our own mind that has not changed since the last time we heard the instruction.  If when we hear an instruction we immediately put it into practice, our mind will change.  As a result, when we next hear the same instruction, even though the instruction will be the same, we will hear something different.  Because our mind has changed, we will discover a new deeper truth to what is being taught.  In this way, the instructions can seem fresh even if we have already heard them over 100 times.  The chapter on Ultimate Bodhichitta from Eight Steps to Happiness has been reproduced in several different books.  Geshe-la once said of this chapter that we should meditate for an hour on each sentence in it, and then repeat that process 100 times for the entire chapter.  One day, I hope to do exactly that.  In the meantime, I will try check my mind for attachment to new instructions.

As was discussed in the introduction to this series, when I first read this and its corresponding commentary in Meaningful to Behold, I took it to be the false humility it seemed to me that Buddhist masters sometimes show.  In reality, they are these high lamas, but they just say, “I am nothing but a humble monk, bumbling my way through.”  But actually, now, I think like everything else in the Guide we should take Shantideva at his word.  When he wrote the Guide, he did so to clarify his own thoughts and to provide himself with an opportunity to acquaint his mind with virtue.  If other people reading it also receive benefit, then all the better.  In fact, I would say it is because he had no attachment whatsoever to others receiving benefit from what he said and he has no need to change other people because he accepts them all as they are that his words function to provide benefit and induce change.

When reading the Guide, we should understand this is Shantideva talking to himself.  Sometimes when people read his Guide, they feel attacked by Shantideva and they reject what he has to say as a result.  Instead, we should understand that Shantideva is simply showing us how he talks to his own delusions and to himself.  He is attacking them, not us.  Further, he is revealing to us the attitude we ourselves should take vis-à-vis our own delusions.  Geshe-la says in Eight Steps to Happiness that when we make a clear distinction between ourselves and our delusions, we can simultaneously be utterly ruthless with our delusions while being kind and gentle with ourselves.  Shantideva shows us how to do this.  Our own inner discourse can come to resemble his.

I think these two verses reveal not only the voice of the Guide, but they also indicate how we should approach things like writing blogs or giving Dharma teachings.  It is very easy when writing a blog or when giving Dharma teachings to become attached to others receiving benefit from our teachings or even to receiving praise about how wonderful our explanations are.  Such attitudes completely destroy any benefit from our efforts, both for ourself and for others.  If we approach giving Dharma with such an attitude, people will naturally sense that this is our motivation.  As a result, they won’t see our explanations as sincere and they will reject them.  Further, if we are trying to change others with our explanations, people will naturally sense that too and they will begin to resist the change we are trying to bring about.  Far from helping them, we will actually make their situation worse because now they are rejecting the Dharma.

If instead we approach things as Shantideva does, namely we are writing to clarify our own thinking and to give ourselves an opportunity to acquaint our own mind with Dharma, then we will have complete equanimity whether others like our explanations or not.  Of course we want others to receive benefit, but we don’t need them to in any way.  Because we are not trying to change others, people feel no need to resist what we have to say.  A Bodhisattva accepts everybody exactly as they are without judgment.  As a result, when they share Dharma nobody feels attacked or manipulated by the explanations.  This enables them to accept what we have to say.

Quite often, after we have been practicing or teaching Dharma for some time, we can become very arrogant thinking we know all the answers or we become very judgmental about other people and the choices they make.  Even if we say nothing, others sense our disapproval and feel judged.  If the other person goes along with what we would want them to do in order to avoid feeling judged, they might externally seem to be practicing Dharma but in reality they are just avoiding our condemnation.  For Dharma to work, it has to be practiced from our own side and for our own internal reasons, not from the outside in an effort to avoid judgment.  Instead, if we adopt Shantideva’s approach of remaining humble and not presuming to impose what we are saying on others, then people will naturally be open to what we have to say and might receive some benefit.

Shantideva begins:

Homage to the enlightened Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

(1.1) I prostrate to the enlightened Buddhas endowed with the Truth Body,
And to the Bodhisattvas and all other objects of prostration.
I will explain briefly, in accordance with the Scriptures,
How to engage in the condensed practices of the Bodhisattva.

Prostrating, quite simply, functions to ripen within our own mental continuum the qualities we are prostrating to.  To prostrate means to request that all the obstacles that prevent us from acquiring these good qualities ourself be removed.  It likewise is a request that all these good qualities we are prostrating to are bestowed upon us.

In essence, prostration is the actualization of our faith.  If we have faith, what we do is we prostrate.  By prostrating we develop within ourself the qualities we prostrate to.  From this perspective, we can view the entire path of Tantra as – in effect – a giant practice of prostration.  There are four main types of faith, blind faith, believing faith, admiring faith and wishing faith.  Blind faith is faith without a valid reason.  Normally we say blind faith is rejected in Buddhism, but that is not entirely true.  Certainly blind faith is not enough, but it can be a stepping stone to higher forms of faith if we are lucky enough to have our objects of blind faith be reliable.  For example, those who have practiced it know that the Kadam Dharma of Lamrim, Lojong and Vajrayana Mahamudra are perfectly reliable.  Anybody who practices them sincerely will enjoy the results of Dharma practice.  If somebody doesn’t know this to be true, but nonetheless develops blind faith in the Kadam Dharma, they can get started on their path, gain some initial experience of its truth, and then these experiences provide them with “valid reasons” upon which they can build higher forms of faith.  But it is also possible that we could develop blind faith in incorrect teachings and be led astray.  For this reason, we generally say blind faith is unstable, possibly dangerous and certainly not good enough.

The second type of faith is believing faith.  Believing faith is faith based on a valid reason.  Valid reasons generally are either logical reasons, believing the words of somebody such as a spiritual guide who we know to be reliable, seeing examples in the world or personal experience of the truth of the instructions.  These reasons enable us to believe some aspect of Dharma.  Believing faith is distinct from wisdom in that wisdom knows its object to be true, whereas believing faith believes it to be true but doesn’t know for sure.  In the context of Shantideva’s Guide we can believe that it presents a flawless explanation for how to enter, progress along and complete the Bodhisattva’s path.

In dependence upon believing faith, we then develop admiring faith.  Admiring faith admires the good qualities we believe in.  If we did not believe the good qualities were true, we couldn’t admire them, but if we do believe them to be true, we cannot help but admire them.  The qualities of a bodhisattva and a Buddha are truly extraordinary, and the Guide presents to us how to acquire these qualities for ourself.  It is as if we have found a book of magical spells that function to transform us into a holy being.  This Guide is beyond priceless.  If we truly understood its value, we would gladly offer everything we had in exchange for receiving it.

In dependence upon admiring faith, we naturally develop wishing faith.  Wishing faith is a mind that wishes to attain ourselves the good qualities we admire.  It is not enough to simply admire the good qualities of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, we need to develop these qualities ourselves.  Only then can we enjoy eternal happiness and be in a position to help others.  Wishing faith is a pure spiritual desire.  Desire is not a problem if what we desire is good.  Attachment is uncontrolled desire for those things which ultimately harm and deceive us.  Wishing faith is controlled, pure desire for those things which ultimately help and free us.  We want to develop all-consuming desire for spiritual attainments.  Such desire will never deceive us.

Having a wish to develop these good qualities ourself, we then prostrate.  We humbly recognize that we ourselves do not possess such qualities, and we quite literally throw ourselves at the feet of those who do requesting them to take us into their care, to remove all of the obstacles that prevent us from acquiring these good qualities, to guide us on how to develop these qualities for ourself and to ultimately bestow them upon us through their blessings.

Modern people sometimes really struggle with the idea of throwing ourselves at the feet of somebody else, especially some spiritual master.  The reason for this is two-fold:  first, we are incredibly arrogant thinking we know it all and insecure about admitting we have something to learn.  Second, we live in degenerate times when there are many charlatans out there who pretend to be some great spiritual master, but are actually nothing more than megalomaniac cult leaders.  But we need not have such fear with Shantideva.  He is universally revered, and all those who have put his instructions into practice attest to his reliability.  He will likewise shatter our arrogance and complacency.  Shantideva at times can be quite wrathful, but we need this.  Samsara will not coddle us, so it is actually a disservice to us to be treated with kid’s gloves.  Shantideva tells it like it is.  Sometimes, this can make us very uncomfortable, but we need this.  More than our life is at stake.  All of our future lives and all of the future lives of all we love are at stake.

Shantideva begins his Guide by prostrating to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.  We should begin our contemplation of his Guide by prostrating to him.  Essentially, Shantideva took all of Buddha’s instructions and organized them in a special presentation for Bodhisattvas.  So the origin of these instructions is Buddha, which means they are totally reliable.  These instructions are all we need to know about being a bodhisattva.  Nothing is missing, so we don’t need to look elsewhere.  We have all we need.  Our job now is to gain deep experience.

When Shantideva’s Guide was studied at the International Teacher Training Program, Geshe-la gave some special advice for how to get the most out of our study.  Before we get to this advice, I want to first provide some basic background on the nature of our samsaric existence.

The real source of all our problems is we are trapped in contaminated aggregates.  We have human problems because we are trapped in human aggregates.  We identify with a human body and we can’t stop doing so.  So when our body experiences pain or our mind experiences delusions, “we” experiece pain and “we” have delusions.  Samsara is the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth into contaminated aggregates.  If we identified with the pure aggregates of a Buddha, we wouldn’t have samsaric problems, but experience only bliss.  The same is true of everyone else.  A Bodhisattva is somebody who understands that the root cause of everyone’s problems is their identification with contaminated aggregates, so they learn how to identify with a Buddha’s aggregates to be able to help everybody else do the same.

So what makes our aggregates “contaminated?”  Our delusions.  In particular, self-cherishing and self-grasping ignorance are the two root delusions from which all other delusions arise.  Self-grasping ignorance thinks that we exist inherently, independently; and self-cherishing then cherishes this I as supremely important.  In reality, the “I” of self-grasping ignorance doesn’t exist, so the object of of our self-cherishing doesn’t exist at all.  Understanding this, it is quite silly to think our “I” is supremely important.  Self-grasping ignorance and self-chershing are like the generators of the uncontrolled nightmare of samsara.  They project uncontrolledly contaminated appearances which we then assent to as true.  From these two delusions arise all our other delusions of attachment, aversion, jealousy, etc.  Shantideva’s Guide takes these two delusions as the primary targets to be destroyed.  If we destroy these, we pull the plug on all our other delusions.

With this background in mind, what was Geshe-la’s special advice for studying this book?

“You should mainly try to concentrate on, understand the meaning of the text Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Through contemplating, try to find a very meaningful practice and keep it in your heart.  … This text is a real emanation. When I escaped Tibet I took only Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, texts by Je Tsongkhapa, and some money.  My first teaching in England was on Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life. Kadampa teachings are mainly training the mind. Training the mind comes from Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.  Never waste this good opportunity. Wonderful that you’re memorizing.  When I was at Sera I made my own determination to memorize it.”

There are a few points I want to highlight about this advice.  First, Geshe-la says we need to understand the meaning and then put it into practice in our heart.  The meaning of this was discussed extensively in the last post.  Second, this text is a real emanation.  We should view Shantideva’s Guide as like a magical telephone through which we can communicate directly with the Spiritual Guide.  We can meditate on the verses requesting that their meaning be revealed to us.  Everytime we do so, we will discover a new layer of meaning.  Third, we should not waste this good opportunity.  We very often take for granted that we have found the Dharma in this life, but we don’t understand how many causes we had to create to have this opportunity.  If we don’t use this opportunity to the fullest, we will burn up the karma that created it and never get it again.  Finally, he advises us that it is useful to memorize the verses.  We don’t do this for memory’s sake, but rather because it is a powerful way of internalizing deeply the verses into our mind.  Essentially, by memorizing the verses, we plant patterns, like a kalideoscope, on our very subtle mind which then reflect up pure spiritual meanings.   In short, whatever we mix our mind with, we will become.  If we mix our mind with the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, we will become a Bodhisattva, and eventually even a Buddha.

The main point of studying Shantideva’s Guide is we need to change our way of life with the instructions.  Our intention determines what kind of life we have.  A selfish, worldly intention will cause us to have a worldly way of life, and a bodhichitta intention will enable us to have a Bodhisattva’s way of life.  As was said earlier, we have arrived at the crossroads and we need to decide what kind of life we are going to have.

The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life is divided into ten chapters.  The first three chapters prepare us to take the bodhisattva vows.  The first chapter, the benefits of Bodhichitta, helps us develop a strong desire to generate bodhichitta and begin the Bodhisattva’s path.  The second chapter on purification helps us purify all of the negative karma obstructing us from travelling this path, and then the third chapter explains taking the Bodhisattva’s vows.  The next two chapters, chapters four and five, primarily explain the specific mental qualities we need to actually train in the Bodhisattva’s path, namely the minds of conscientiousness and alertness. These chapters primarily explain the practice of the perfection of moral discipline.  The following four chapters explain in turn the practices of the perfection of patience, effort, concentration and wisdom.  Finally, the last chapter directly is a dedication for the guide, but indirectly it teaches us the practice of the perfection of giving.  In this way, Shantideva explains how we enter the Bodhisattva path by first aspiring to become a Bodhisattva and then making the formal decision to travel the path.  He then explains how we actually engage in the Bodhisattva’s path by training in the six perfections.

The Guide begins with an explanation of the benefits of bodhichitta.  If we do not want bodhichitta, we will not put in the effort necessarily to cultivate it.  Since such an exalted mind will never arise on its own, if we don’t consider the benefits of bodhichitta we will never start the Bodhisattva’s path.  It is said that we are desire realm beings, meaning we have no choice but to work towards whatever we desire.  If we desire samsaric pleasures, this is what we will direct our efforts at attaining.  If we want bodhichitta, we will work to attain it.