Title: Bodhisattva's Way of Life
Teaching Date: 1996-07-16
Teacher Name: Gelek Rimpoche
Teaching Type: Series of Talks
File Key: 19960507GRAABWL/19960716GRBWOL9.mp3
Location: Ann Arbor
Level 3: Advanced
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1996060716GRAABWL
Tape 9 side A 07/16/96
For those who want to constantly come and have an effect for themselves, I recommend to read the Bodhisattvacharyavatara. We do about two or three verses at a time. It is good to have a book and re-read the verses. Then you will remember the explanation. Otherwise it will not build up. Therefore I suggest for you to have a copy. On top of that, there are two commentaries on that, one called ‘Meaningful to Behold’ by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and the other by the Dalai Lama called ‘Flash of Lightning in the Dark of Night’. If you can have both, that is fine, but if you have to choose, I suggest you take ‘Meaningful to Behold’, because that is much more detailed and has more elaborate explanations. Probably that guy had nothing much else to do at the time and kept on talking, while His Holiness has a busy schedule, so he jumped through the verses.
Lets talk some more about verse sixteen. The ultimate love and compassion, the bodhimind, the precious mind, is ultimate, unlimited, unlimited love and compassion. Technically, it is called bodhimind. That is Buddhist terminology. If that mind is divided, there will be two categories. One is called mun sem, aspiring bodhimind, the other jug sem, actually going mind. Before I go into that division, let me ask, what really is that bodhimind? Traditionally, teachers would be satisfied that it is known, perhaps they would explain what bodhi means, that is comes from Buddha. But that does not mean anything. Unlimited love and compassion - how does that feel? What is the aspiration of that? On whom is it focussed? What does it want? How do we get it? These are the questions people have to think about. First we have to know what we are talking about. If we say it is unlimited, unconditioned love and compassion, you get some idea. Maitreya Buddha has given a description. He had given five different teachings to Asanga. One of them is the prajnaparamita, the transcendental wisdom. In one verse of the prajnaparamita Maitreya describes that for the benefit of others one seeks the ultimate development. In that way a two-pronged mind is developed. One aspect is totally dedicated to the benefit of others. The other prong is the desire to become fully enlightened, whatever the highest possible level of development is. Why? Because you are totally dedicated to helping all beings. In short, bodhimind seeks total enlightenment not for the person who is seeking, but for the sake of all beings.
The Buddhas of all times have been saying all over the world that this mind is so precious because it cuts down the narrow, selfish interest by developing total dedication for others. Then, in order to fulfil this wish to help others, one also needs to have the best tools available. If one wants to do something, one needs tools. It would be easy for me to say to Dan and Supa to go and make a table, but if they don’t have tools, how can they make one? For that they need all the materials, wood, tools, etc. Without these they cannot produce a table. When you desire to help all beings you not only want to help a little bit, but give them the ultimate help, the best possible help, the ultimate service, try to fulfil the absolute desire of every living being. What they really want is, they would like to have joy. They don’t want suffering. When you commit yourself to helping them, that is what you have to give them. In order to fulfil that commitment, you need a tremendous amount of skills and capabilities. If you don’t have that, it is going to be difficult. So basically that is the idea of bodhimind.
Now we have the division of the two bodhiminds. The first is just the wish. ‘Yes, I would like to have that. I would like to become fully enlightened for the benefit of all.’ That is just developing the aspiration. You are not really doing much. Then the second one is that you are ready to actually do it. ‘It is serious and I am not joking. I am getting seriously into it.’ The next verse should make it even more clear.
Verse seventeen
Although great fruits occur in cyclic existence
From the mind that aspires to awaken,
An uninterrupted flow of merit does not ensue
As it does with the venturing mind.
There seems to be a verse missing. One verse between verse sixteen and seventeen has not been translated. Or perhaps two of the Tibetan verses have been made into one in English. I will have to talk to you on the basis of the Tibetan. Actually, it seems to be missing.
So the division between the two types of bodhimind is like two groups of people wanting to go somewhere. There are those people who are saying, ‘Oh, that is a very attractive tour you have. That place is beautiful and I am really inspired. I would like to go.’ That is one group. The other is where you are really, actually going. You have bought the ticket, you paid for the tour and everything. You are actually becoming members of the tour group, you are joining in. So there is a division between those who actually bought their ticket and are really becoming members, have paid their downpayment and are going to take the trip. The other group is looking at the tourist information, is very excited and is saying, ‘Yes, it is wonderful, it is great, I would like to go, but maybe I will go next year, not this year.’ So they don’t actually take the trip, whereas the other one is actually going.
In terms of the bodhimind, both are actually counted. Why? Even just simply aspiring, that you want to do it is itself of tremendous benefit according to the Buddha and according to this text. Not only is it of benefit, but it influences every activity that you do. Every good work that you do gains an extremely perfect pure quality. That is just because of the influence of this mind. That is why we are always saying that it is so important to have a perfect motivation. This mind, by just sitting there, having that aspiration, liking it, that itself will tremendously uplift the individual in their spiritual journey. That is why even just the aspiration is counted in there and the mind is divided into two categories, the aspiring and the venturing.
The first one is where you would like to go and it is like looking at the areas, at the pictures, the scenery, the picnic spots. That is all. But even that is counted, because it is of tremendous value in the spiritual path. The lack, the ignorance that we have is that we don’t know those little techniques, those sensitive buttons which may be very simple, but make a hell of a difference. We don’t recognize those. That is basically our problem.
This here is one of those techniques. You get very excited about the qualities of enlightenment. Unless you know something about enlightenment, however, you are not going to be excited. Every advertising person knows that. You have to give the people punch lines and punchy pictures. A picture speaks more than a hundred words. These are really the points.
Our problem is that this material is not commercially geared. The problem is that there is no excitement about enlightenment, because it is not being advertised. It is really a problem. Also it is difficult to speak, because the qualities of enlightenment are very different from our usual level of understanding. At the total spiritually fully developed level, the individual becomes all-knowing. Every single damn thing, whether it is good or bad, you know it. Your knowledge, your understanding is immeasurable. You don’t have to think, you don’t have to analyze, you just do it and you are right. You know everything. That is the quality - awakedness, there is no defilement, there is no delusion, there is no anger, no attachment, no hatred. There is no crying, you are not too high, neither is your experience luke-warm. It is stable and wonderful. These are the qualities. If you see those qualities and imagine, if you only had half of that, how much you could do! How much difference you could make for the individual whom you really want to help! It is like opening the door completely.
We all have problems. We all would like to do something for ourselves and for the persons we care about. But we are very much handicapped, because we really do not know what to do. Anybody whoever works on the spiritual path will have the question, ‘What is next? How can I do it?’ Don’t we have that? This is because we have limitations. If you become enlightened, that limitation will be lifted. You know exactly what to do. You know exactly how to turn the person right, whether it be your son, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your mom, or whoever it maybe. You know how to turn the person perfectly, for the good of that person and for the good of all society. That quality lies at the enlightened level. That is why you have the mind that thinks, ‘I have to get to that position, because then I will know how to turn it around, how to put things in the proper way.’ Putting it into the proper way is meant in the sense that people will buy it.
So the need to attain enlightenment is not only for the benefit of others, but for yourself as well. We never know what to do next. We may learn how to say OM MANI PADME HUNG, but we find out that this is not enough and then we ask, ‘What is next?’ We do that. These are our limitations and this is called ‘ignorance’ in Buddhism, because we don’t know. If we do know something, we know it the wrong way. Enlightenment means that all this ignorance is lifted. The big, heavy lid of ignorance is removed. That is what enlightenment is. So if you get excited about enlightenment, you begin to see that this is something that you really want to have, not only for yourself, but for everybody. That becomes the mind of aspiration. Even if you don’t do anything, it helps tremendously. It helps all beings tremendously, all beings and yourself. That is the mind which changes all the metals into gold. Remember, we talked about that earlier. If you have that mind, you are called ‘Child of the Buddhas’. The moment you have that mind, you get yourself free from the suffering. We have shared the story of Buddha’s previous life, when he developed tremendous compassion for his companion who could not pull the horse cart. Buddha was thinking, ‘Oh, my God, I wish I could pull his side too. How wonderful that would be!’ Then the terrible horse cart driver hit him on the head with a hammer, saying, ‘How dare you think that way!’ That hit with the hammer made him die from the hell realms and he was reborn into a life in which he became a Buddha, an enlightened one. That is how he got free, even from the hell realm.
I am recalling verse 14:
Just like the fire at the end of an age,
it instantly consumes all great evil
So that aspiration alone, that mind, can burn all your negativities. It is one of the best purifications. It is better than sitting tight, without eating. That is why Buddha, when he spent six years in meditation and depended on his survival on minimal fool, learnt that the extreme of such rigidness is also not the answer. These are the points. A lot of people think that to depend on extreme hardship for purification, either physical or mentally or emotionally or even financially, is the answer. Buddhism does not agree. In Buddhism you don’t take a vow of property either. [ perhaps Rinpoche means that you don’t take a vow of poverty, like some Christian orders do? ] The simple reason is that you have tremendous ways of purifying. Purification does not depend on making it hard for yourself, neither physically, mentally, emotionally, nor even financially. That is why this very mind can burn, can consume all the great evils. As verse 14 continues:
Its unfathomable advantages were taught
To the disciple Sudhana by the wise Lord Maitreya.
There are zillions of pages in the sutras on that. I tried to read about it this afternoon. It is so difficult. But the most interesting point was this: There was a lady called Mangata Samo. She was travelling to some kind of funny place. There are a lot of hell realm places available in the human land. People forget that these places are there. You cannot forget that. She happened to be travelling through one of them and found some kind of funny machine running over somebody’s head with fire burning from it. It was one of those karmic hell realm machines giving off tremendous heat to that person’s head. She could not think straight away what to do, because the machine was moving and also giving off tremendous amounts of heat and she had no alternative but thinking how best one could cool that. She could not think anything else.
According to the Buddha there are the nye ste and the nye kor, two small hell realms which exist on the human land. What the sutra tells us may just be a description. However, in my personal opinion it is about those people who have tremendous pressure on their heads. With that I mean mental pressure, like thinking, having financial pressures, physical pressures, health pressure, time pressure. All these pressures that we take is overburdening the individual completely and heat rises. So that is the kind of pressure you can get. In the Hindu-Buddhist mythological terms you learn that there are these huge machines running over your head with fire coming from them. In actuality there is these tremendous pressures that people take. That is one of the hell realms over here - not over there.
This lady observing that, felt tremendous compassion. She was herself also in the same condition but she thought, ‘How could I best help that person?’ Because of that, she died and took rebirth in some kind of pure land as an angel-type of person.
This is what ‘the wise Lord Maitreya explained to his disciple Sudhana.’ There were actually zillions of things, but that one example caught my attention.
So these pressures, the mental, physical and also financial pressures, etc, are what we experience. It is suffering, it is problems. Compassion can cool it down, can settle it down and even if you cannot stop it, your life will change from worse to better. It is true that there are hell realms, it is true that there are heavens. But at the same time we also have to acknowledge that even in our lives there are sufferings and the relief from these. These experiences corresponding to hell and to heaven exist in our human lives as well. That is why the human life is much more valuable and important than even the angels’ life, according to the Buddha. Remember, in the lam rim teachings we are told that the human life is much more precious than any other life. These are the reasons. Here the precious human life can correspond with all this - heaven and hell - within our life time. That is why we can feel the pains and the joy and can understand far better than anybody else. There are certain lives where you can only feel pain, nothing else. There are certain lives where you can only feel joy, nothing else. We are beyond that level. That is the quality. This makes it possible for us to develop compassion - even the aspiration alone.
Not only do you aspire, but you start putting your energy and your efforts in, and then you not only work on the level of the aspiration, but it is goes into the action period. Last time the question came up to give a very clear definition that shows the difference between the aspirational bodhimind and the action bodhimind, and also what level it follows. This is a very important, complicated and difficult one. It is going to be a little bit more philosophical and boring.
There are two different theoretical viewpoints.
end of side A of tape 9
Tape 9 side B - 07/16/96
For the second, it is said that once one has received the vows, thereafter all one’s activities will become actual going. That is one view. Maybe I should give you just that. That is actually the correct view of Buddhapalita.
The second view will say that the aspirational bodhimind is only up to the first Bhumi level, and thereafter it is mostly the action level, but still, the aspiration mind is also available, because the practitioner may not be straight away totally dedicated, so at certain periods you could say yes, and at certain periods it would be no.
So these are those two viewpoints. There are more, but the most accepted are these two.
Aud1: Is the lhak sam [ extraordinary thought - within the 7 cause and effect method of developing bodhimind according to Asanga, it is the last one prior to the actual bodhimind.] something separate from this process?
Rinpoche: Yes, that is separate from this context. Don’t bring that up here, I will go into it later.
Aud2: So, in order to have what according to this text is the aspiring bodhimind, one already has to be on the first path, one has to have attained some realization of the determination to be free.
Rinpoche: The determination to be free is even before the bodhimind. Here we are talking on the level of the bodhimind. The first principle is the determination to be free. That is Buddhism 101. Here we are on Buddhism 102.
Aud2: But it seems that people can have that aspiration in their mind, even though they don’t have the realization of the determination to be free.
Rinpoche: No, that is not possible.
Aud2: So if somebody [without realization of determination to be free] thinks that they would like to help other beings the best way possible, do they just have a hallucination in their mind?
Rinpoche: Well, is that the only thing one needs for the aspirational bodhimind? Did I not give the definition of the aspirational bodhimind? First I gave the definition according to Maitreya, then I divided that mind into the aspirational and the action bodhimind.
Aud3: But the way you presented it before was such that even some person who does not have any other spiritual practice and hears about the qualities of bodhimind could find it attractive.
Rinpoche: But it is understood that actual bodhimind can only occur on the basis of the very strong foundation of the other paths. On the basis of that you have to function. I have been talking about the aspirational bodhimind. That aspiration itself is bodhimind. Therefore all of the foundations for the bodhimind have to be there in the first place. For sure.
To continue, you do not have to be on the level of the bhumis in order to attain the action bodhimind. But you have to have taken the vows of the action bodhimind and thereafter actually working within the influence of the vows. Whatever you do then, becomes action bodhimind.
Aud2: But Rinpoche, in the story that you told before, the person in the hell realm developed compassion for the other hell being and was killed and reborn as a human. There was no mention of determination to be free.
Rinpoche: Do I have to talk everything right from the beginning for everything I say? You build your base and then you go on. That should be understood. Here we are talking in the context of Buddhism 102. Remember that.
Audience: Why do we have to know about these two different views?
Rinpoche: It is because of the question of what a vow is. That is the point.
Audience: It is frustrating for me. I know I don’t have bodhicitta, but I am sure interested and not just that, I have bought the fucking ticket and made the reservation and yet, it is not happening. Also you told us in another teaching that we are really not yet even on the path of accumulation. So what is the issue of even talking about the bhumis at all - why even bother?
Rinpoche: Good point. But the theoretical distinction actually does make a difference. According to Bhavaviveka, the vow is only mind. It is the mind of protecting the vow. So the protecting mind, according to him, is actually the vow. That is why any action without that mind does not become an action of bodhimind.
But according to Buddhapalita, a vow is physical form which grows within the individual, in their psychic life or spiritual life. When you have a physical form that grows with you, whether you are mentally aware or not does not matter. That is the difference. That makes a hell of a difference in the individual’s life. If it is only the mind of awareness, then you have to have a constant mind of awareness, all the time. If you miss a minute or so, then whatever your action is, even if it is the same category, that same moment you drop down. If it is physical, even if you don’t have awareness, it does not matter. It continues to go, whether you are sleeping, eating or talking, or walking, or shitting, or bathing, or bullshitting, whatever you do, will be within that action bodhimind. A few verses further down it will be explained. So the difference is that every vow is actually physical form. The conclusion drawn by all the great masters, by Tsong Khapa and everybody thereafter, is that it is a physical point, because once you have it, you have it. Whatever action you are undertaking, you are making headway. The vows are not only a mental faculty that thinks of protecting [the vows].
When you reach the level of the path of accumulation, you will reach the accumulation path itself. The amount of efforts, redoubling your efforts, that is not the key to get to that point. The key is this: the aspirational bodhimind, even on an artificial level. What I have been saying all along, whether you heard it or not, is that if we try to put in the time to say mantras and prayers and to meditate, we are not going to be able to do that at all. We may be able to do half an hour, forty-five minutes or two hours a day and that is a hell of a job. We only have twenty-four hours. If you take out quite a number of them for various purposes, two to three hours is a hell of a job. You will never be able to get there. So we have to make use of every single movement we are making: walking, talking, and every single thing, every part of our daily life has to be positive and has to be building towards that. All of your twenty-four hours per day can be going towards that. Buddhism has that possibility. I just read in the afternoon that one of the reasons why Buddha attracted all these kings and queens and all these people got involved is that Buddha said that for them mind and motivation is the key. He told them to keep that as the principle in their lives and thereafter to carry on with their ruler’s work, their jobs within the royal family, so that the people would also be benefited and that the kingdom’s power would not go down but remain continuously. The key that Buddha had given to them in order to achieve that, is this mind. What we need is the techniques and keys. We don’t have time. So redoubling efforts and doing Vajrasattva and so forth, all of that is great, no doubt. But with that key, whatever we do, even if it is just walking around in downtown Ann Arbor in the middle o the art fair will also be perfect spiritual work. What makes that possible is the motivation of this mind. This is the key. The key is based on Buddhism 101 and is itself Buddhism 102. That is the key. It is not how much time you put in, how many mantras you say, whether you run here or run there, do this or do that, shave your head or not.
Our aspiration right now will not be the true aspirational bodhimind, but some kind of artificial one. Even that artificial one serves the purpose. Not only does it serve the purpose, but it has great purpose, it is tremendous. There is an example for that. The texts talk about the broken diamond. Even if you have a broken diamond, it is still a diamond and it is better than any other jewel you have. It has more value. It is in another category. An ornament made by that is a diamond ornament and not turquoise or glass. So people on our level who have not reached to the first path, not even to the preliminary of the first path, even then this artificial mind is better and more powerful than a huge turquoise jewel that would make one’s neck bend down.
Another example is that the Bodhisattvas are called ‘Sons of the Enlightened Ones’. If you are a prince, by virtue of your birth you will be more respected than a mature senior minister, like for example in the case of the Prince of Wales. So even if you have not reached the first bhumi or the first path, it does not matter, because you are wealthy with this aspirational mind. That serves the purpose. Purification will be done by it, accumulation of merit will be done by it, negativities will be consumed by it. When it comes, it comes from the sky, when it dissolves, it dissolves to the ground. That is on the point. Even if you have not reached to the first ground or bhumi, it is far better than being an arhat who has gone beyond samsara. That is the diamond ornament example.
Aud3: With regard to the bodhisattva vow, does that only come into effect once you have reached the first path or first bhumi? You cannot really observe the vow before the bodhimind has really developed, can you?
Rinpoche: No, I believe that vow has grown with you. You do take the vows every day, don’t you? Many of us do that. Those of us who say the long six session yoga, there is a passage where you take the bodhisattva vows.
Generating aspiring bodhicitta
From this moment on, until I am a Buddha,
May I never give up, though my life be at stake,
The attitude wishing to gain full enlightenment
In order to free from the fears of samsara
And nirvana’s complacency all sentient beings.
Taking the action bodhisattva vow
O Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and Gurus, please listen
To what I now say from the depths of my heart.
Just as all Buddhas of the past have developed
The thought of enlightenment, true bodhicitta,
Then practised its stages of graded development
Following the trainings for all Buddhas’ sons,
So may I too, for the sake of all beings,
Develop bodhicitta and follow the trainings
Exactly as all Bodhisattvas have done.
The first two lines in there are taking the aspirational bodhimind vows and the second two lines are about taking the vows of the action bodhimind. You don’t have to take them every day from a person, but you can do so from an image or a mentally created supreme field of merit. We do that all the time. So even if you don’t have the bodhimind, you do have the vows. These are physical form in your spiritual life. It is making a difference.
Aud3: It is hard for me to believe that this works right now and how it benefits anybody. May be in the future it is beneficial but right now it is like a joke, it is like the aspiration of the aspiration. It is not the real thing in any sense of the word. When you say that because of the vow every one of our actions becomes positive, I have to say that for me that is not happening. So is it happening in some kind of deluded form right now and ultimately it will become focussed and real?
Rinpoche: It does not have to be focussed on or concentrated on. Aren’t you getting it?
Aud3: But is what I am doing right now beneficial because of taking that vow and is that fifty per cent or hundred per cent? Is everything we are doing right now better because we have taken these vows? Is that the case?
Rinpoche: It is the case, because a vow grows within the individual not only as mental awareness, but it is a physical thing. Therefore it functions. It is too materialistic to think that you have to really do something and that you have to push it and get it. Chögyam Trungpa, in his book ‘Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism’ referred to that. We are looking at spiritual materialism. So let it loose and it goes within that. Many of us think we are nowhere. But you should really realize that you are somewhere. When you look back you will know it. That is the point. We are not fully satisfied where we reached, because we want to go to the fully enlightened level. We are not there. You have to go in a non-materialistic, relaxed manner. It is a very sensitive subject to many people. But I have to bring in the theoretical viewpoints, because that makes a difference. Why two different theoretical points? Because of their viewpoints. One says that the aspirational bodhimind is [still] available even after the first bhumi. The other one says no. That is the reason why.
Ever since you have taken the vow, that vow grows within the individual and that makes the difference. It looks like you have better horse power. You are qualitatively changing. If you look back you will see it. That itself is a development. You don’t sort of drive yourself crazy, thinking, ‘I want to have that materialized right now!’ You can’t do that. We have heard it: ‘I bought the fucking ticket, I have made the reservation, but I am not getting there.’ I am not blaming you, that is fine, but when you are driving yourself too strongly towards that, you feel that you are getting nowhere. It is like when you waiting for somebody to come and pick you up. The waiting time is so long. You look at every other car that comes up the airport ramp, wondering whether that is the one that is coming to pick you up. You will go, ‘This is not the one, that is not the one’, etc. But if you forget about it and go and get a cup of coffee inside somewhere, then by the time you get back [the person will be there, saying] ‘Has your plane been late or something?’
Audience: I thought that the growing of realizations within us is not just a matter of waiting passively for the development, but that through practising the six perfections in our everyday lives there will be improvement.
Rinpoche: You are absolutely right. But the impression I got is that for some people, even though all of that is happening, on top of that they want to get results quicker and get frustrated because they are not getting that.
Audience: But you cannot just sit there, you have to do some work also.
Rinpoche: But even if you don’t do it - we pointed that out. We have the division into two categories. Doing work and not doing work. We have to draw a conclusion here. In traditional old Tibet or Asia in general you hear the subject day after day and then you can understand. In America, if you don’t draw certain conclusions [before too long], it does not work. So if you put in certain efforts and work, it will definitely work perfectly. But even if you don’t do that, it is having benefit. So if you do put efforts in, there is no doubt at all that it will work.
Audience: With this bodhimind, in some ways we are like actors in a play called ‘bodhimind’. We are taking the bodhisattva vows which is like getting a part in that play and then we rehearse and rehearse, until we finally get good enough to open up the play to the public and when the curtain comes up, it is like the path of accumulation. Is that how it works?
Rinpoche: Good thinking. You said the bodhimind is the play, the vows is getting parts in the play. But lets put it in another way. The path itself is the play, developing the bodhimind is getting a part in it, the vow will help to practise, and then you keep on practising until you are perfect. Then, on the path of seeing, not the path of accumulation, you open the curtain. Then you can entertain people. That means you can lead the people on the path as you are practising it. They can go home, copy it and get there too. Entertainment is showing the path, the audience will copy it in their own home, because they like it. If they did not like it they would not buy the ticket to the show. They will not make the ‘fucking reservation’. I am overdoing it - sorry about that.
Audience: Once you have taken the vows, is it over time easier to keep them, not to break them or forget them?
Rinpoche: You don’t want to lose the vows. That is the point.
Audience: What about if someone does not want those vows any more?
Rinpoche: They won’t go away. That is the point. If it is only the mind protecting them, then they can get away. But it is said that vows are physical form and then they cannot get away. They influence and have effects, unless you totally break them. Read verse 17 about this:
From that time hence,
Even while asleep or unconcerned,
A force of merit equal to the sky
Will perpetually ensue.
This is because the vows are physical form. That makes the difference. The spiritual development is both, psychological and physiological.
Audience: So what happens to these physical aspects when you die?
Rinpoche: Your spiritual values don’t die. Your spiritual-physical body does not die. Even the bardo beings have bodies. You do not keep this very gross, human flesh and bones body. It will be separated from the mind. But your psychic-spiritual body is not dead.
Audience: Rilbur Rinpoche mentioned last week end that the conventional bodhicitta is the basis for the Buddha’s form body.
Rinpoche: Yes, maybe. But that is altogether a different subject, I believe.
Aud2: When you say that we have artificial aspiration, are you saying that, because there is always some self-projections?
Rinpoche: No, I am saying that, because we are doing copy-cat.
Aud2: Is that not all self-projections also?
Rinpoche: I don’t know, maybe, but there is nothing wrong here. We don’t really have the true mind of bodhicitta yet. If you watch yourself, how much selfish interest you have.
Aud2: But that is because of the self-projection, isn’t it?
Rinpoche: Let me say what I understand when you say self-projection. It is when you mentally project some kind of thought and follow that.
Aud2: Sometimes the only way to understand someone else’s suffering and connect with it is by partly relating it to yourself. So there is some part of your own ego attached to that connection. That is what seems to happen.
Rinpoche: Maybe, maybe not. You know, ego-attraction is very simple. You may be thinking, ‘I want to do something good and beneficial’. Then suddenly you get a mind that is saying, ‘I should be doing it. That is Me who should be doing it.’ Then it may even go beyond that: ‘How will people know that I did it? How will so and so know that I was involved in that?’ This is the ego jumping in. Some people have more, some have less of that. As long as we have that, whether it is more or less, we have really no perfect selfish-free thoughts. That is why at that level, whatever we do, I call that artificial. We try to project something and follow that. But even then that is great.
Aud2: I think that is what I meant. But even relating other people’s suffering to one’s own experience is part of that.
Rinpoche: I hesitate to put that in the same category. Reacting to somebody else’s feeling can be sometimes be the feeling of pain. In that case this is not ego-boosting. Ego-boosting is when the ego wants to take the credit. The ego would like to be noticed, it would like to be entertained. Such thoughts come up very often. This is not foreign to us. In the midst of doing something good very few people will say, ‘I don’t want my name in that’. Everybody will like to say, ‘How will people know that I was involved?’ Even those who claim to have no ego will also say, ‘Well, I had the opportunity to contribute a little bit’. This is still the ego pushing. As long as we have that, the bodhimind is not real. Until then, it is artificial. By practicing the artificial bodhimind alone, on the basis of the seven stage development or the exchange stage development, it will change.
end of side B of tape 9 - 07/16/96
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