~By Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Bodhichitta, the seed of enlightenment, grows where it’s
cultivated. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche explains six traditional contemplations for
developing awakened heart.
The Sanskrit term bodhichitta means “mind of enlightenment,”
“seed of enlightenment,” or “awakened heart.” Fundamentally, bodhichitta is the
aspiration for others to be happy, to be free from suffering. Absolute
bodhichitta is the realization of emptiness, which happens fully at the first
bhumi, the path of seeing. Relative or conventional bodhichitta is more
immediate. Relative bodhichitta has two aspects: aspiration and entering.
Aspiration is positioning ourselves to do something. Before we do something,
there’s a thought process involved: we contemplate it. In aspiration, we
contemplate all sentient beings having been our mothers, we vow to repay their
kindness, and so on. Such thoughts are the heart of contemplative meditation.
We begin by doing sitting meditation until we experience
some peace. Out of that we conjure up an intention: “Today I will try to be
kind to others.” Then we actually enter, engage in the practice.
Traditionally, we are offered six quintessential
instructions on how to generate bodhichitta, all rooted in the ground of
equanimity. The point of first cultivating an attitude of equanimity is to open
up our view. We tend to have fixed ideas of friends and enemies, and based on
that view, we see the world through the lens of good and bad: sharks are bad
and bunny rabbits are good; democracy is great and communism is bad.
Equanimity is a spacious, vast, and even state of mind; it
does not take sides. It’s not about being untouched by the world, but letting
go of fixed ideas. How else are we to develop compassion and loving-kindness
for everyone and everything? Equanimity levels the playing field—we are not
excluding anyone from our practice. It’s like dealing with two fighting
children. Since we’re more experienced with all kinds of trials and
tribulations, we know that what they’re arguing about is not really important. We
enter with an unbiased view, which is equanimity.
Most of the time we’re trying to figure out a problem based
on our attachment. We all believe that if it were not for that one particular
person who really irritates us, we’d already be compassionate and
understanding. If only that one person weren’t in our way! But she has our
number and calls it a lot. Generating bodhichitta helps us deal with problems
involving helping others. There are six ways in which we can cultivate this
attitude.
The first way is to consider that all sentient beings have
been our mothers. Basically, it is our mother who gives us unconditional love.
She nurtures and supports us and takes care of us when we are weak.
Traditionally, it is said that genuine courage is like that of a mother
protecting her child from danger. Regarding all sentient beings as having been
our mothers means that at some point, everyone has shown us love and care. The
Buddha said that we have all experienced endless lifetimes. If we take this to
be true, then every being we encounter has been our mother, father, brother,
sister, enemy, friend—everything. If we don’t believe in life after death or
rebirth, we can understand this in the context of our present life. From the
moment we were born, we’ve had friends who have become our enemies. We’ve been
in good situations that have turned bad. We’ve been in bad ones that have
turned good. The point of this first instruction is to help support our
equanimity by reducing our attachment to relative notions of good and bad.
The second way to generate bodhichitta is to think of the
kindness of others. We can contemplate what others have done for us in great
and small ways. If all sentient beings have been our mothers, they have, of
course, all been kind to us at some point. Even that person who’s got our
number has done something good for us—maybe just by passing the salt.
Contemplating the kindness of others helps us see the positive aspects of any
situation. These are often hard to see—sometimes we just want to stick with our
negativity—but this instruction begins to loosen us up. With the budding view
of bodhichitta, we begin to look at life and see what is good, even in a bad or
chaotic situation. Trying to see things in a more positive light by thinking of
the kindness of others churns up our mind and lets the bodhichitta come out.
The third instruction on generating bodhichitta is to repay
the kindness of others. This is almost like taking a vow. If we have the view
that those who have helped us includes everyone—that even animals have cared
for us in some previous lifetime—every encounter becomes an opportunity for us
to practice repaying their kindness. This contemplation is part of the aspect
of the Mahayana school of Buddhism called the “great activity.” It’s called
“great” because this attitude is so vast that it’s difficult to imagine. If we
had this attitude even for a moment, we’d begin to see that everyone we meet
has helped us, directly or indirectly, and we would want to repay his or her
kindness. By taking this attitude in working with others, we could experience
our lives in a completely different way.
The fourth way to generate bodhichitta is to develop
loving-kindness by contemplating the delightful qualities of others. If we care
for someone, we naturally find something delightful in him; that’s what draws
us in. In the middle of a meadow, if we saw a mound of dirt with a single
flower growing out of it, we would still be able to see the beauty of the
flower. We wouldn’t think, “The flowers are beautiful except for that one,
because it grew from that pile of dirt.”
So rather than contemplating the shortcomings of others, we
see their good qualities and generate loving-kindness towards them.
Loving-kindness is associated with wanting others to enjoy happiness. What
generally hinders our wanting other people to be happy are heavy emotions such
as anger, jealousy, and pride, which obscure our mind. Developing kindness
towards others takes the energy out of this emotional confusion.
The next instruction is to generate bodhichitta by
contemplating compassion, which is the desire that everyone be free from
suffering. Compassion does not mean taking pity on others or having sympathy:
“Oh, you poor thing!” Compassion is empathy based on understanding what suffering
is. Not only do we see the suffering of others, but we also feel it directly.
If we love and care for others, we do not want them to have a hard time. Seeing
the suffering of someone who’s very close to us heightens our sense of
compassion. We think, “This could happen to me.”
The final instruction on how to generate bodhichitta is to
commit ourselves without question to following these instructions. Even though
in post-meditation we may not be able to do the bodhichitta practice
continuously, we keep our determination strong. We will be kind and
compassionate and we will take delight in all beings, with the knowledge that
they have helped us. Even if we are the only person in the entire world
practicing in this way, we will not stop doing it. Such an adamantine
commitment gives us the steadfastness and conviction of the Buddha sitting
underneath the Bodhi tree.
Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is spiritual director of Shambhala,
an international network of meditation and retreat centers. He is the author of
Turning Your Mind into an Ally and Ruling Your World.
From Seed to Bloom, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche Shambhala Sun,
January 2007.
