Introduction
We have precious
human lives with all the respites and enrichments that allow us to follow the
Dharma path. These freedoms and opportunities, however, are not going to last
forever. Therefore, we need to take full advantage of the opportunities that we
have.
The best way to take advantage of our precious human life is to use
it for developing a bodhichitta aim. A bodhichitta aim is a mind and heart focused
on the future enlightenment that we will attain later down the line on our mental
continuums. It is accompanied by two intentions: to achieve that enlightenment
as soon as possible and to benefit all beings by means of that.
When developing
bodhichitta, we develop the two intentions in the opposite order. First, we fully
intend to benefit all limited beings, and not just humans. This is brought on
by our love, compassion, and exceptional resolve, which we will discuss later
in this lecture. Then, in order to benefit them the most effectively, we fully
intend to gain enlightenment and become Buddhas. We need to gain enlightenment
in order to get rid of all of our limitations and shortcomings, because we see
that they prevent us from being able to help others. For instance, if get angry
with others, how can we help them at that time. Also, we need to gain enlightenment
in order to realize all our potentials. We need to realize them fully in order
to be able to use them to benefit others. So, when developing a bodhichitta aim,
it is not that first we want to become Buddhas because that is the highest state
and then, like some nasty tax that we have to pay, we need to help others.
There
are two main methods for developing a bodhichitta aim. One is through the seven-part
cause and effect guideline (rgyu-'bras man-ngag bdun), the other is by equalizing
and exchanging our attitudes about self and others (bdag-gzhan mnyam-brje). Here,
let us discuss the first of the two methods.
Developing Equanimity
The
seven-part cause and effect guideline has six steps that act as causes for the
seventh, the actual development of a bodhichitta aim. It begins with a preliminary
step, not included in the count of seven. It is the development of the equanimity
(btang-snyoms) with which we overcome being attracted to or attached to some beings,
repulsed from others, and indifferent to yet others. The point of this preliminary
step is to be equally open to everybody.
The understanding of everyone being
equal, which is required for being equally open to everyone, comes from realizing
that the mental continuum or mind-stream has no beginning and no end. Therefore,
everybody at some time has been our friend, everybody at some time has been our
enemy, everybody at some time has been a stranger, and the status is always changing.
In this sense, everybody is the same.
The main point that we need to understand
behind this way of thinking is beginningless mind. This is a basic assumption
in Buddhism. Rebirth concerns continuities of experience. Mind-streams are continuities
of experience. They are individual and do not have inherent identities as human,
animal, male or female. The life form and gender that a mind-stream manifests
in any particular rebirth is dependent on previous actions, on karma.
This
is a fundamental, necessary understanding for being able to develop bodhichitta,
because based on this understanding, it becomes possible to develop loving compassion
for absolutely everybody. We do not see other beings as merely a mosquito, for
example. Rather, we see this being as an infinitely long individual mental continuum
that in this lifetime happens to have the form of a mosquito because of its karma;
it is not inherently a mosquito. This allows our hearts be as open to the mosquito
as to a human being. The power of bodhichitta derives from the fact that with
it, we intend to benefit absolutely everybody. Of course, it is not easy.
Recognizing
Everyone as Having Been Our Mother
Once we are able, with equanimity, to see
all beings as individual mind-streams - which does not deny their forms in this
lifetime - we are ready to take the first step in the seven-part cause and effect
meditation. This is to recognize that each being, at some point, has been our
mother (mar-shes). The line of reasoning is that just as we have a mother in this
lifetime, likewise in every lifetime in which we have been born from a womb or
an egg, we have had a mother. From the logic of beginningless rebirth, everybody
has been our mother beginningless times as well - and we have been their mothers
too. They have also been our fathers, our closest friends, and so on.
In seeing
everybody as having been our mother, we need to be careful not to see being our
mother as anyone's inherent identity, because that can also become a bit problematic.
We must try never to lose sight of voidness, the lack of inherent identities.
Recognizing everybody as having been our mother radically changes our way
of relating to others. Here, we are going beyond just having equanimity toward
everybody. We are seeing that we have had - and still can have - a very close,
warm, loving relationship with everyone.
Remembering the Kindness of Motherly
Love
The second of the seven steps is to remember the kindness of motherly
love (drin-dran). For many Westerners, this is a problematic step in the meditation,
because the Indians and Tibetans always take the example of our mother in this
lifetime. In those societies, it seems as though most people have less neurotic
and less difficult relationships with their mothers than in Western societies.
Whether that is true or not, of course, varies in individual cases. But I would
say from my observation, having lived in Tibetan and Indian societies for twenty-nine
years, that the relationship between grown children and their mothers there does
seem to be far less neurotic than in the West.
This step in the meditation
is to remember how kind our mother is - or was, if she has passed away - going
all the way back to her having carried us in her womb. Then, we extend this to
thinking how everybody has shown us similar kindness in previous lives.
Many
people, when they teach this to Westerners, say okay, if you have problems with
your mother, you can think instead of your father, a close friend, or anybody
who has shown you great kindness. This way, you won't become stuck trying to do
this meditation. I think that this is a helpful approach. However, I think that
it is very important, if we have problems in our relationships with our mothers,
to deal with it and not just pass over it. If we can't have healthy relationships
with our mothers, it will be very difficult to have healthy loving relationships
with anybody else. There is always going to be a problem. Therefore, I think it
is very important to look at our actual relationships with our mothers and to
try to recognize her kindness, no matter how difficult that relationship might
have been or might presently be.
First, we need to look at ideal motherly
love. The classical texts are filled with descriptions of it: you see it in many
animals, for instance. A mother bird will sit on her eggs no matter how cold and
wet she becomes, and when the eggs hatch, she will catch and chew insects, but
not swallow them, and give the food to her chicks. This is really quite extraordinary.
Of course, there are examples from the animal and insect world in which mothers
eat their babies, but still they underwent the difficulties to give birth to them.
And whether it was our biological mother or a surrogate mother, somebody carried
us in her womb - unless we were born from a test tube. But even then, somebody
watched the test tube and kept it at the right temperature. Whether our mother
liked carrying us or not is irrelevant. It was an incredible kindness to carry
us around in her womb and not to abort us; it was not comfortable for her at all.
She underwent a lot of pain during our actual birth. Furthermore, when we were
infants, somebody had to get up in the middle of the night, feed us, and take
care of us; otherwise, we would not have survived. These sorts of things are emphasized
in the classical texts.
If we have had difficulties with our mothers, I think
we can take a clue as to how to proceed from the guru meditations in the Fifth
Dalai Lama's lam-rim text. Many earlier texts have said that it is almost impossible
to find a spiritual teacher who has only good qualities. No spiritual teacher
is going to be ideal; everyone is going to have a mixture of strong and weak points.
What we want to do in the meditation on the spiritual teacher is to focus on the
good qualities and the kindness of the teacher in order to develop tremendous
respect, inspiration, and appreciation. This will motivate us to develop these
good qualities and kindnesses ourselves.
The Fifth Dalai Lama explained that
in the process of doing this, we do not need to deny the shortcomings and faults
of the teacher. That would be naivety. We acknowledge the shortcomings, but put
them aside for the moment, because thinking about the teacher's faults will just
lead to complaining and to a negative attitude. That is not going to be inspiring
at all. It is only by focusing on the good qualities and kindness that we get
inspiration.
So first, we acknowledge the shortcomings. But, we need to examine
honestly whether these are true shortcomings or are only projections on our parts.
We also need to examine whether they are current shortcomings that the teacher
has or is it old history that we don't want to let go of. Once we are clear about
what the faults actually are, we say okay, those are his or her faults. Then,
we put them aside and focus on the good qualities.
I think that the same procedure
is appropriate and can work very well when looking at the kindness of our mothers.
Nobody's mother is ideal. If we ourselves are parents, we know that it is unbelievably
difficult to be an ideal parent, so we shouldn't expect that our parents were
ideal either. Then, we would look at the faults and shortcomings that our mothers
have or had, and try to understand the causes and conditions that brought these
shortcomings about. She is not inherently a bad person, just as no mind-stream
is inherently a mosquito (which is also not inherently annoying). We make sure
that we are not projecting shortcomings onto our mothers or just dwelling on ancient
history, and then we put that aside for the moment. We say okay, she has or had
her faults, but she is a person like everybody else: we all have faults. Then
we look at the good qualities and the kindness that she has shown us.
One
Western Dharma teacher - I forget who exactly it was - has suggested a method
of meditation that I think is very useful. At this point, having put aside the
negative qualities of our mothers, we go through our lives in five or ten year
units. We spend five minutes, a half hour, an hour, or however long we want, going
through and trying to remember all the kind things that our mothers did for us
in each five or ten year period. First, from the time we were in the womb until
we were five, we remember that she changed our dirty diapers, fed us, bathed us,
and did all these things. Then we recall from age five to ten, and so on. She
took us to school - maybe she didn't help us with homework, maybe she did, but
she probably cooked for us and washed our clothes. When we were teenagers, she
probably gave us spending money. No matter how terrible our mothers might have
been, there were undoubtedly many kindnesses that they showed us in each period
of our lives.
Then we can do the same thing with our fathers and with other
relatives, friends, and so on. It is very helpful for the meditation. It is an
especially strong antidote to the depression that we sometimes feel when we think,
"Nobody loves me." In this way, if we can see the kindness of our mothers
in this life, it helps us to recognize that everybody has been similarly kind
to us. Nobody has been an ideal mother - sure, she might have eaten us at some
point, but she has also shown us kindness.
Repaying the Kindness of Motherly
Love
The third step in the seven-part guideline is developing the wish to repay
the kindness of motherly love that we have received (drin-gso). For this, we can
make a further adaptation from the meditation we just outlined concerning remembering
the motherly kindness we've been shown. Again, we go through five or ten year
periods of our lives and examine in what ways have we shown kindness back to our
mothers. We do the same with our fathers, our friends, relatives, and so on.
If
we compare how much love and help we have received and how much we have given,
most of us will see that we have received far more than we have given. The point
of this is not then to feel guilty, which would be a typically neurotic Western
reaction. The point is to help us with the next step of the bodhichitta meditation,
which is, having recognizing the kindness we have received, to develop the wish
to repay that kindness.
I find that this adaptation to the meditation that
I just outlined is very helpful for actually moving our hearts so that we actually
feel something. I think it is very important. I have seen so many Western Buddhists
who do all these meditations of love and compassion and even who go out and help
others, but they have a terrible relationship with their parents and are stuck
in that. I think that it is really quite helpful to work on that relationship
and not to avoid it just because it is difficult.
Suggested Method to Apply
the Practice
An important thing in each of these steps is to open up and try
to extend the scope of our practice to all beings. At each step, we can of course
start small, but then we need gradually to expand our scope. We do this based
on equanimity, seeing everybody as individual mind-streams. An effective way to
do this, I've found, is not just to sit and meditate with our eyes closed, abstractly
thinking of "all sentient beings." More effective, I think, is to practice
similar to the way that I suggest in the sensitivity training.
In other words,
try to develop these positive attitudes first toward various people while focusing
on their photos - friends, people we don't like, and strangers. Then try to develop
them while looking at actual people sitting in a circle around us in a meditation
group. Then try it on the subway or bus with the people there. In this way, we
actually apply to others the positive attitudes we are trying to develop.
We
likewise try to apply it to animals, insects, and so on - and not just theoretically
in our minds, but when we actually see them. In doing that, we need to try to
avoid the extreme that sometimes we see among Tibetans for example - namely, that
it is easier to be kind to an insect than to a human being. If there is an ant
in the middle of the temple, everybody goes to such extremes to make sure it doesn't
get hurt. Yet, often, they don't show the same type of concern and kindness to
human beings, for instance Indians or foreigners who visit their temples and would
like to know something about what they see there. We have to keep a proper perspective
here.
Some people might say that it is easier to help an ant than it is to
help a human being. This is because the ant is not going to talk back to you and
give you a hard time, whereas people often do. An ant you can just pick up and
take outside, you can't quite do that with people if they become annoying. In
any case, my point is that a lot of people do these meditations in a very abstract
way - "all sentient beings" - and it is never applied to real people,
in "the real world." This creates a big problem in making any progress
along the path.
Great Love
When we have recognized everyone as having been
our mother, remembered the kindness of motherly love, and thought to repay that
kindness, we naturally have a feeling of heartwarming love (yid-'ong byams-pa).
This is an automatically arising feeling of closeness and warmth toward anyone
we meet. There is no need for a separate meditation step to develop this feeling.
It is also called cherishing concerned love (gcer-zhing pham-pa'i byams-pa), the
love with which we cherish someone, are concerned about his or her welfare, and
would feel very sad if anything bad happened to him or her.
Based on heartwarming
love, we go on to the fourth step, meditation on great love (byams-pa chen-po).
Great love is the wish for others to be happy and to have the causes for happiness.
It is really very important that it be both happiness and its causes. This means
that it is with our full understanding that happiness comes from causes, it is
not just the favor of the gods or good luck - and the cause is not me.
The
causes for happiness are given in the teachings on karma: if people act constructively,
without attachment, anger, and so on, they will experience happiness. Therefore,
we need to think here, "May you have happiness and the causes for happiness.
May you actually act in a constructive and healthy way, so that you will experience
happiness."
It is clear already from this step that in these bodhichitta
meditations we are striving to become Buddhas to help everybody, but without inflating
the role that we can play in helping them. We can show others the way, but they
need to build up the causes for happiness themselves.
Great Compassion
Then
comes the fifth step, great compassion (snying-rje): the wish for others to be
free of suffering and the causes for suffering. This is likewise with the full
understanding that their suffering comes from causes and they need to eliminate
those causes in order to eliminate their suffering. Again, it is a very realistic
view. Great love and great compassion are not merely emotional feelings like,
"I feel so sorry that everybody is suffering." Rather, they are accompanied
with the understanding of behavioral cause and effect.
Great compassion exceeds
ordinary compassion in many other ways. Firstly, it is aimed equally at all limited
beings, not just at some. Secondly, it is the wish for them to be free of the
all-pervasive suffering (khyab-par 'du-byed-kyi sdug-bsngal) of being repeatedly
and uncontrollably reborn with aggregates coming from confusion, mixed with confusion,
producing more confusion, and thus perpetuating suffering. Thus, it is not simply
the wish for others to be free of the suffering of pain or the suffering of change.
The suffering of change is ordinary worldly happiness which never lasts and never
satisfies. Great compassion is not the wish for beings to go to a paradise to
escape that problem. Thirdly, great compassion is based on firm conviction that
it is possible for all limited beings to gain liberation from their all-pervasive
suffering. It is not merely a nice wish.
Compassion is always described as
an attitude similar to renunciation. Renunciation is an attitude aimed at our
own suffering, its causes, and the wish for us to be free of them. Based on renunciation,
we can develop empathy for others. What we do is switch the same attitude and
direct it toward others, toward their suffering and the causes of their suffering,
and the wish for them to be free of it.
It is always said that it is difficult
for us to empathize and truly feel compassion for others unless we have thought
about our own suffering and wished ourselves to be free of it. We have to understand
that others really experience pain from their suffering and their suffering hurts
them just as much as our own suffering hurts us. Understanding this depends on
acknowledging that our own suffering hurts. Otherwise, we don't take others' suffering
seriously. Remember, we are wishing our mothers, who have been so kind to us,
to be happy and free of suffering. We start the meditation with our mothers and
so on, so that the meditation actually has some feeling to it.
Extending the
Method to Help Alleviate Low Self-esteem
Just as the texts say that compassion
only develops sincerely if we first wish ourselves to be free of suffering and
its causes, I think we can formulate the same principle concerning love. This
is particularly relevant for those of us who suffer from low self-esteem. Low
self-esteem is a particularly Western phenomenon, not so frequent among Tibetans,
or among Indians for that matter. Before we can sincerely wish others to be happy
and have the causes of happiness, we need sincerely to wish ourselves to be happy
and have the causes of happiness. If we feel that we don't deserve to be happy,
why should anybody else deserve to be happy?
Wishing ourselves to be happy,
then, is a step in the meditation that I think we can safely add if we suffer
from low self-esteem. I feel this is quite important. To get into this way of
thinking, that everybody deserves to be happy, it helps to remind ourselves of
Buddha-nature. We are not all bad; nobody is all bad. We all have the potentials
to become Buddhas, to benefit others, to be happy and so on.
Another point:
Love and compassion are also developed in the Theravada and other Hinayana schools.
There, however, the meditation methods don't follow graded steps, like these seven
here, that help us to build up feeling love and compassion based on reasons, such
as remembering motherly kindness. We shouldn't think, however, that love and compassion
meditation are missing in the Theravada tradition. The next steps in the bodhichitta
meditation, however, are not there.
Exceptional Resolve
Different translators
render the sixth next step in various ways. Some call it "the pure selfless
wish." His Holiness the Dalai Lama uses the term "universal responsibility."
Although I have translated it in several different ways myself, at the moment
I prefer "exceptional resolve" (lhag-bsam). This is taking the responsibility
ourselves actually to do something about others' suffering. If somebody is drowning
in a lake, we don't just stand on the shore and say, "Tsk tsk, I wish this
weren't happening." We need actually to jump in and try to help the person.
Likewise, here in the bodhichitta meditation, we think in terms of taking responsibility
to help as much as possible.
The Bodhichitta Aim
Based on this six-step
line of development as a cause, the seventh step is developing the bodhichitta
aim (sems-bskyed) as the result. When we examine how we can benefit others the
most, with our current limitations and disturbing emotions and attitudes, we realize
that we are really not going to be able to help very much. If I am selfish, and
impatient, get attracted to some people and angry with others and am lazy, if
I get tired all the time, if I can't really understand others, and if I can't
communicate properly, if I am afraid of others, afraid of being disliked or rejected
- all these things are really going to prevent me from helping as much as is possible.
So, because I really want to be of help, I really need to get rid of these things.
I really need to work on myself and get rid of these things so that I can actually
use my talents and abilities and Buddha-nature qualities to benefit others. We
always keep in mind, "as much as is possible" - we are not going to
become omnipotent gods. Based on this line of thinking, we set our minds and hearts
on becoming a Buddha to help everyone as fully as is possible. This is the development
of the bodhichitta aim.
Bodhisattva Conduct
Once we have developed bodhichitta,
we try to help others now as much as we can, despite our limitations. This is
because we have the exceptional resolve to take responsibility to help, built
up from the previous steps in the seven-part cause and effect bodhichitta meditation.
This means that whenever we encounter others and see that they are having
a problem, for instance being homeless, we don't just see them as homeless persons.
When we see them, we don't think in terms of them being inherently poor, lazy,
or whatever value judgments we might project. Rather, we realize that just in
this lifetime and at this particular point in this lifetime, they are like that.
However, their mind-streams are beginningless and, at some point, they have been
our mothers and have taken care of us with kindness. They have carried us in their
wombs, have changed our dirty diapers, and so on, and I would really like to repay
this kindness. We wish that they would be happy and have the causes of happiness,
and that they could be free of their problems and the causes of their problems.
We take responsibility to try to do something about it.
What do we need to
do? It is not that we need to go home and meditate in order to overcome our shortcomings,
and not actually do anything to help such people. Of course we need to meditate
more, however what this motivates us to do in the moment is to overcome our shyness,
hesitation, and stinginess, and actually give them something, at least smile at
them - at least do something.
In other words, we use our exceptional resolve
to move us right now to overcome our limitations as much as we can and to use
our potentials as much as we can now to help. Sure, when we go home we need to
work on ourselves more, but let's not forget about the homeless persons and only
go home and meditate. If our resolve is sincere, it keeps us mindful.
The
strongest motivation to work on ourselves in each moment comes when we encounter
other beings who need help. We see an old woman sitting on the cold ground in
winter begging by the subway station and we think what if that were my mother?
If she were our actual mother of this lifetime sitting there on the cold ground
and begging, would we just walk by? Or what about the young man on the subway
peddling the makeshift newspapers of the homeless, how would we feel if that were
our own son? This boy has parents. It is very important. In India, we see lepers
and other deformed people and usually we never think that these lepers have families.
They do have families. Make them human.
Question: What about discriminating
awareness to distinguish the conventional situation of these homeless people?
To what extent are they just on a scam, ripping people off? I have worked with
homeless people myself and I know there are people out on the streets hustling.
I need to deal with that on the conventional level and then on the Buddhist level.
Berzin: We need to employ what Buddhism calls "skillful means."
We have the wish to help, we have some idea of what the cause of their suffering
might be, and what the cause for their happiness would be. Then, we try to do
what would in fact be helpful for them. Maybe it's not at all helpful to give
them money, which they would use only to buy more drugs or alcohol, and so we
don't give them money. If we have some food, we can give them that. But, in any
case, we can give them our caring attitude and respect by not thinking of them
just as terrible, disgusting junkies or alcoholics. They are human beings, suffering
human beings.
It is not easy to decide what the best way of helping someone
might be. We see that we are limited now. We don't really know what is best. We
have to become Buddhas to really know, but we try our best now, realizing that
sometimes we are going to make mistakes. We at least try.