Today you have asked me to give an explanation of the practice of The Three Essential Moments involved with the meditation deity of Avalokiteshvara or Chenrezig. The actual title of the text from which I will be teaching is called the Method of Practicing the Instructions for “The Three Essential Moments,” which is a revealing type of discourse concerning Avalokiteshvara, which is called the Stream of Stainless Water.
This tradition of the root text from which this derives was composed by the highly realized being from India, Maitriyogi, who was a practitioner of Avalokiteshvara. This was passed down to the Tibetan translator from the Tibetan area called Drogpu. There were many translators, and this particular one was called Drogpu Lotsawa, his actual name was Jampa Pel.
What are the three essential moments it is dealing with? It is dealing with practices for this lifetime, for death and for the bardo (the period in between death and rebirth). As for the actual root text from which this explanation derives, its first verse is:
In this life meditate on your personal meditation deity, at the time death meditate on the oral teachings of transference of consciousness, during the period in between rebirths meditate on blending appearances. Continual meditation is important for all of these.
This is the basic presentation in general of the material that will be covered. The next three stanzas give us material in greater extension, and the verses read:
Having remembered impermanence and suffering, strongly generate great compassion on the crown of your head, visualize your guru in your heart, the deity, meditate on the non-independent arising of your own mind.
The second verse is:
Having made an offering of your body and given it away, completely abandon all you rely on, making use of a shaft of light, hurl your mind into Tushita Buddha-field.
The third verse is:
Having understood this as the in-between state, make the outer, inner and secret transformations with the union of voidness and compassion, the wise makes connection with their next rebirth.
These are the three verses from the root text that explain The Three Essential Moments in more detail.
The last verse of the root text is:
The essential point of philosophy is to recognize whatever arises. The essential point of meditation is not to be distracted from this. The essential point of conduct is to remember that everything has an equal taste. These are the teachings of the great master practitioner.
This completes the instructions of The Three Essential Moments. The last verse of the root text is a concluding summary of the main points of the teaching in terms of correct view, meditation and way of conduct. In the lines of these five stanzas, there is a greater deal of practices which are all condensed.
Putting Effort into Spiritual Practices Rather than Worldly Concerns
All of us are the same in that everybody wishes to be happy, and nobody wishes to have any problems or suffering. As for the type of happiness we wish for, there is both physical happiness and mental happiness. The main thing we strive to obtain is physical happiness or comfort. The way in which we try to obtain physical comfort for ourselves is to get enough food, drink, clothing, and a nice house to live in; we engage in various types of work and effort to bring about these things that will give us physical comfort. There are many different ways in which to bring this about for ourselves. Some people go out and steal to get these things. Some people go out and hunt and kill a lot of creatures or slaughter creatures and sell them in order to make a living, and they do get a certain amount of physical comfort from the money and things they obtain in this way. Although they are trying to become happy by means of this way of making a living, in fact, it just creates more problems for themselves in the end.
It would be as if we had a very bad wound on our cheek, and it would be similar to cutting off our nose and pasting it on our cheek to fix that wound. There are other people who try to make a living in an honest way by means of engaging in business, agriculture or commerce. There are those who try to make an honest living, and they do succeed, they are able to fulfill their wishes in terms of getting money, wealth, possessions and material comfort. But there are others who likewise try to make an honest living but however hard they try they never succeed; they always fail, and nothing ever works out.
If we ask what counts for the difference, here we have two people who put in the same amount of work, and one succeeds and the other is a failure, and the only reason we can give for why there is this difference in people is in terms of the potentials they built up in previous lifetimes, or karma. Some people think that the success they experience in this life is only due to the amount of work they put in in this life and it has nothing to do with what we had done in previous lives, but that is not true. Because if success was only dependent on the amount of work we put in in this lifetime and had nothing to do with potentials built up in previous lifetimes, then there is no reason why we should have these differences – some people succeeding, others failing when they both put in equal amount of work and effort in the process of trying to make a living.
When we are planting crops in a field, for instance, rice, we need to have a seed as a cause for the rice. Just to have a seed is not enough, we also need to have water and fertilizer in the fields. If we have both of these together, then our crop will be very good. If we ignore to plant any seeds in our field, but we merely go out and water it and put fertilizer on it, we are not going to get a yield. Therefore, people who are not succeeding in this lifetime, they are people who are putting effort and hard work in this lifetime, but haven’t accumulated the causes for success in previous lifetimes, and they are similar to this person who has planted no seeds in their field, but just works very hard and frantically to water the field and put fertilizer on it.
There are, on the other hand, people who have planted the seeds of success through building up positive potentials in past lifetimes, and who, in addition, put in a great deal of hard work in this lifetime as well. They are successes and are able to enjoy great material comfort and wealth. However, no matter how much they have, they are never satisfied. They never feel they have enough; they always want more. This is a very big problem. They are very uneasy in terms of what they have.
If it were the case that we never have to die, then it would be all right just to be concerned with this much. If people as they got older and older and as they lived longer and longer, if they didn’t actually age and become old people, that would also be very nice, but that is not the case. It is true that, in fact, people do die, people do get sick, get old, and the older we get, no matter how much material possessions and wealth we might have, we just get more and more problems and unhappiness.
We work hard in our life. How does this process work? We can see this from examples. For instance, if we consider the lunar calendar that goes according to the phases of the moon, the first 15 days of that the moon is growing larger and larger until it becomes full, and we count 15 days for that. In the second half of the month, we count again, 15 days as the phases of the moon become smaller and smaller until we get the new moon.
The actual way in which the dates are referred to in a lunar calendar is that we have 15 days of the waxing moon when the moon is growing fuller and 15 days of the waning moon when the moon is growing shorter. There is a great deal that can be understood from this method of counting the dates in terms of the waxing and waning phases of the moon. For instance, when we have the full moon, in the middle of this period, the moon has grown full over the period of 15 days, and the way it is referred to is that it has full 16 parts, and the way 16 is derived is that from the 1st to the 15th of the month, there are 15 days, and its actual state of being full is considered the 16th part. So, the full moon has complete 16 parts.
In a similar way, as we grow up, we build up till we have our fullest potential, our fullest facilities in terms of our body, but then as life goes on, things start to break down, and we end in a state where our body and our life fail. This is something that all of us know and can see easily; these are facts of life. Things grow to a full phase, and then everything fades and passes. All situations are nonstatic, impermanent, they change. We can see this, for example, in the flowers; they start, they grow until they are full, then wither and die.
When we look at people who go and put all their energy into gaining a great deal of money and possessions, if we try to find one person who was truly happy and thought he had enough and was satisfied with the wealth that he or she had accumulated, I think it would be very difficult to find such a person. Because such people usually don’t have the comfort of mind, they are not mentally happy. As for bringing about the comfort of mind, mental happiness, except for the spiritual practices of Dharma, I think it is very difficult to bring this about merely through physical efforts, but if we put effort into spiritual practices, then we can gain comfort and happiness of mind.
The more effort we put into our spiritual practices, the more ease of mind we have. Because we have been aware of impermanence, that situations will not remain in our life, that things will change, therefore this will help us to refrain from destructive and negative actions. We will be motivated to be a positive person and do constructive things, and as a result, as we get older, as we have built up great positive potentials from being constructive, then as we face death, we will be able to die with peace of mind and comfort.
Three Methods of Spiritual Practice
As for the actual way to gain peace of mind and mental happiness, there are actually three main methods. Anyone who engages in one of these three methods to bring about happiness and peace of mind – whichever of the three methods it might be – would actually be considered a Dharma practitioner or a spiritual practitioner.
These three different ways of bringing about mental happiness are methods that we follow progressively. We go from the first to the second to the third in order. If we put effort into this process of training ourselves spiritually, although it is quite difficult in the beginning, nevertheless we will make gradual and steady progress; we will find that we will be able to get rid of various negative traits that we have, and we will be able to increase gradually and steadily all of our good qualities, talents and abilities. This will grow full like the growing of the waxing moon, that starts small but eventually becomes full and complete. In the same way, we realize our fullest potential and gain all the good qualities that there are to be had.
As we go through this process of spiritual training, we will find that if we go through this gradually and steadily with positive enthusiasm, the spiritual path and work involved in spiritual training is something that can and will come to an end. We can actually complete the task of developing ourselves spiritually. It’s not an endless task. It does have a point at which we finish doing it.
If we look at what everybody wants, everybody wants to be happy, and everybody wants happiness, which is the greatest possible happiness, which is long-lasting, stable and secure. When we reach the end of the spiritual path, when we are fully trained and developed spiritually, it ends in a state in which we accomplish and realize this most great, stable and everlasting type of happiness.
However, if we look at the type of work that is involved in terms of this life, the usual type of worldly jobs and effort that people put into this has no end; there is no end to the number of worldly tasks and work that can be done. We can understand this when we look at the example of agriculture. It’s an endless cycle of going through the four seasons, all the various tasks we have to do, planting and growing the crops, harvesting them, preparing the field and planting again and again. Working with the crops is just an endless cycle. The only time where we actually end the work we do for this lifetime is when our life comes to an end, and at that point, we end in a state of terrible problems and unhappiness. Whereas when we come to the end of our spiritual work and training, we end in a state of great happiness.
We are all people with great learning, talents and abilities, and we have the ability to bring about material comfort and happiness for ourselves for this lifetime. Although we have this ability to bring about material comfort for ourselves for this lifetime, we have seen that it doesn’t have any essence to it, that there is more to life. We’ve turned our interest and intention towards spiritual matters and have come in search of spiritual training, and this is something that I consider excellent.
Giving Up Our Obsession with Things of This Lifetime
If we really want to do this in the best fashion, we would follow the example of the great Milarepa, and in our mind, we would completely give up everything of this lifetime, go up to a cave and do intensive practice all the time. However, it is extremely difficult for all spiritual practitioners to engage in such an intensive type of practice. So, what can we do? We have to see and make a difference between a state where we completely give up everything in this lifetime, and there’s the other state in which we give up our obsession with all things of this lifetime. We give up our main concern being with things of this lifetime as opposed to the first one, which is totally giving everything up.
As for examples of those who have completely given up concern for everything in this lifetime, they would be examples like the great Milarepa and other practitioners who have gone to the caves and given everything up. These are people who gave up both. They have given up their obsession with things for their lifetime, but likewise, they have given up everything of this lifetime. For people like ourselves, it is very difficult to give up everything of this lifetime, but what we need to do is give up our obsession with things for this lifetime; give up having this being our total and only concern.
As for the way in which we give up our obsession with things for this lifetime, it is to see that no matter how much material wealth and possessions we have, these things don’t last and have no essence to them. Then, we look at whatever type of material things or wealth we have, they are the result of previous positive potentials that we built up in past lifetimes, and we use whatever we have to help others. We use these in terms of whatever benefit we can give others, and in this way, we practice in a manner in which we aren’t completely caught up in the things of this lifetime, but we put our main emphasis on helping our future lives and beyond and likewise, our main emphasis is on helping others. Such a person who does that, who puts the main emphasis on future lives and on helping others and isn’t totally involved just with things for just this lifetime, will be called someone who has given up their obsession with the things of this life.
If we don’t have this state of mind in which we have given up obsession with things of this lifetime, and we put all of our efforts into benefiting future lives and helping others, if we don’t have such a state of mind, it doesn’t matter how clever or intelligent we are, we will not have any success in any spiritual practices and pursuits.
The reason for why there are some people who are very learned in spiritual matters, who know a lot but don’t have any success in their spiritual practice, the reason is because they are still obsessed with things for this lifetime, they don’t really truly think about others and future lives. All the things they know about makes them feel that “I’m such a great learned person, I know so much.” It makes them very proud and arrogant people. It accounts for why they don’t have success in their spiritual practice. In addition, when they see anyone else who is well-learned and developed, they just feel jealous.
However, if we have given up our obsession with things of this lifetime, if we have seen that things of this lifetime have no essence at all, and we put the main emphasis on helping others and improving future lives, then when we meet someone who is very learned, we will not feel jealous at all, we will rejoice in their achievements. No matter how many good qualities we have, no matter how learned we are, we will feel humble, we will feel that we don’t know anything at all, rather than feeling proud and arrogant; we will always be respectful of others who have good qualities, we will praise them and feel humble ourselves rather than proud.
In addition, we won’t criticize others and say, “I know everything, and everyone else is stupid and doesn’t know anything.” We won’t have this type of mind that is always finding fault with others. If we are engaged in meditation, and if we haven’t given up our obsession with things for this lifetime, then when we meet other meditators, we will feel jealous. But if we have given up our obsession with things for this lifetime, then when we meet other people engaged in meditation, we will rejoice and feel very happy at meeting them rather than feeling any jealousy.
If we look at the example of the great triumphant master Dromtonpa from the Kadampa tradition, he was an emanation of Avalokiteshvara, and he was an extremely learned, great master, and all the various geshes and masters of the Kadampa tradition looked at him as their root spiritual master. He was always extremely humble rather than proud or taking the highest position as being someone who is very learned. He always took the lowest place and always was extremely humble and subdued.
Once he was walking and met on the road a Dharma practitioner. They walked together. This person had his boots off and was carrying them. He asked Dromtonpa to carry them for him, and Dromtonpa took them and put them on his shoulder, and they walked on together. When they arrived at the monastery, everybody went to greet Dromtonpa, prostrated and was extremely respectful to him. His travel companion was totally embarrassed because he had given his boots to Dromtonpa to carry. If like this, we give up all obsession with things of this lifetime, then like this great master, we will have no pride and no jealousy.
The way in which to develop this feeling of giving up the obsession with things in this lifetime is to think about death and impermanence, that no situation in life remains static. This comes about by first thinking about the precious human life that we have and feeling extremely happy to have such a precious human life with all its opportunities. If we think along all these lines of thought, then the result will be that we will be firm in our decision to give up being a destructive and negative person, we will give up various types of destructive actions.
Having given up this obsession with this life, if we want to be happy in future lives, where this happiness comes about is from building up positive potentials now. The way this is done is by engaging in the ten types of positive or constructive actions that will build up a positive potential that will allow us to be happy in future lives. This as well will come about from this realization.
In addition, what will happen is that we will have fears or dread at the time of death. Being concerned with benefiting future lives and practicing various types of constructive actions to build up a positive potential so that we will not have to have any fears or dread at the time of death and we can ensure having a happy future rebirth to be involved in such a type of action, and this is the first of these three spiritual levels of practice that we were discussing before. Having this type of practice is the first level of spiritual practice.
To be satisfied with just this much is not enough. It is really just having a small type of spiritual aim. It is possible to accomplish much more, much greater things. The way we proceed is to think about and consider how even if we are reborn as a very affluent human being or god, still no matter how much splendor we might have, it will only involve further problems and suffering because any of these wealthier situations are still involved in uncontrollably recurring situations of samsara and have problems.
Attaining Higher Levels of Mental Constancy in the Various God Realms
There are various types of disturbing attitudes that we have. There are five disturbing attitudes not associated with our outlook on life, and there are five further ones that are associated with our outlook on life. It is possible to block the manifest level of these various types of disturbing attitudes and attain various higher levels of mental constancy.
There are four levels of constancy of mind that can be attained, in which we don’t have a manifest form of these disturbing attitudes, and it is actually possible to attain them. For instance, this would be in the realms of various types of gods. The gods fall into three categories. There are gods who are involved in the dimension of the various sensory desires, the desire realm. There are gods in the dimension of ethereal forms, the form realm gods, and there is the dimension of formless beings in the formless realm.
In the realm of the gods in the dimension of sensory desires, the gods fall into six types of classes: the category of Directional Gods, gods in the Realm of the Thirty-three, the gods in the Tushita Heaven of Great Joy, those who are Free from Battle and Strife, those Involved with Emanations for Themselves and those Involved with Emanations of Others. There are six types of classes. This would be like in Europe, you have many different countries, and likewise, in the desire realm of gods, we have these different states.
If we reach the realm of the first level of the gods, those in the Realm of the Great Four Directional Protectors, even there the various houses and the area and the place is extremely beautiful, made out of precious gems. In comparison to that, the wealthiest and splendid house on this earth will look in comparison like a mud and straw hut that we would find in India.
The next type of god realm or heaven is the Realm of the Thirty-three classes of gods; this is the highest realm of gods that actually relies on a solid or earthly foundation for its area. When we reach the summit of this class of gods and their realm, when they look down at the realm of gods beneath them, the four great directional protectors, likewise, their own type of splendor is as great above the lower class as that lower class was above what we have on this earth.
The next god realm is called the Heaven Free from Battles. It is one that is not situated on a solid or earthly base but is situated in the sky. This is called the realm of no battles because unlike the lower heavens, the gods there do not have to engage in battles with the demigods (asuras), and when they look down at the heaven of Thirty-three classes of gods, likewise everything there looks poor and shabby compared to what they enjoy.
When we go to the next higher dimension of ethereal forms, the form realm, there are four classes of gods in this dimension. These are gods in the realms of the four levels of mental constancy. The first, second, third and fourth levels of mental constancy are the names given to these four general realms in this dimension of ethereal forms.
If we look at the divisions here, the level of the different states of mental constancy, then this is likewise divided into various subdivisions. There are four subdivisions. The first level has three further subdivisions. The second likewise has three, the third has three and the fourth has eight. That eight is divided into two groups. First, there are three, which are the realm of ordinary beings. The last five are the gods who have achieved the state of an arya being, those who have beheld reality. This is the classification in general of the 17 divisions of the first level of mental constancy, which is the first level of gods of the form realm.
[Correction noted by translator: These divisions of three-three-three-eight aren’t subdivisions of the first level, but they are subdivisions of four in general. The first is divided into three, the second level of constancy into three, the third level into three and the fourth level of mental constancy into eight, which is divided into three of ordinary beings and five of arya beings, and the highest of those five realms of arya beings is called the Akanishta Heaven, which is, literally, the Heaven That is Below Nothing Else.]
Even in this realm of Akanishta Heaven, which is beneath nothing else, there is still an uncontrollably recurring situation of samsara. Just as on the earth, we have villages and isolated areas where monasteries are situated, likewise we have the heaven called Akanishta, which is an actual heaven, and that is a samsaric situation, but located outside it – like a monastery located outside a village or town – we have the pure realm of Akanishta. When we have the presentation of the method of becoming enlightened according to the first two classes of tantra (kriya and charya tantras, the ritual and behavior types of deity practices), they present the way to become enlightened in this pure realm of Akanishta, this pure land realm, which is beneath nothing else.
The way in which the method of enlightenment is described in these first two classes of deity practice is that, at the time when Prince Siddhartha was undergoing his various difficulties and ascetic practices, this was an emanation on the earth here, in the southern continent, and there was another emanation at the same time, which was in the Akanishta pure land realm; it was there that the actual enlightenment was manifested and took place, and not here on the earth, in the southern continent.
This place where enlightenment was manifested should not be understood or confused with being in the Akanishta Heaven, which is an actual heaven realm with the same name, but which is still in an uncontrollably recurring situation of samsara, being the highest state within the dimension of ethereal forms. Because this pure land realm is something different from that, in a completely different type of state on the outskirts of that heaven, like how a monastery would be on the outskirts of a town or village.
Likewise, in a similar fashion, we had in the realm of the dimension of the gods involved with sensory desires, the third of the heavens there was called Tushita Heaven, the Heaven of Great Joy. This as well has a pure land field also called Tushita, and this is on the outskirts of that heaven in the same way as the other example given in terms of Akanishta Heaven in pure land realm, and again it is according to the analogy of a monastery on the outskirts of a town or village.
The Tushita is a heaven in one of the six realms of gods of the desire realm. This is actually an impure field, whereas the same pure land fields, which have the same name, the Tushita pure land realm, is a situation which is a Tushita Buddha-field, and that is a pure realm.
The actual place in which Maitreya is residing is both types of Tushita realms – both in the impure heaven called Tushita as well as in the pure land realm of Tushita. The fact of Maitreya being a resident in the pure land realm of Tushita Buddha-field is well known to us, but there is a reason for the assertion that Maitreya is likewise in the impure field in the Tushita Heaven itself. Each of the gods has a certain type of pride and arrogance. For all the gods in common, they have natural radiance or light coming from their bodies. They don’t need to rely on the sun, the moon or electric lights in order to have light, but they have natural light from their bodies, and this is a source of great pride for them.
The Buddhas come to the god realms in a form that has such a tremendous amount of more light than the body of gods. This is a method of humbling their pride because the light and radiance that comes from the Buddha outshines the light of the gods and makes them insignificant, like a powerful fluorescent light makes the amount of light given by a little candle very insignificant. If these gods stay in their state of great pride, there is no way for them to develop a dedicated heart of bodhicitta, and there is no way to dedicate their hearts to others and to achieving enlightenment if they are very proud and arrogant of the natural light of their bodies. The method to lead these gods to get these higher realizations is that the Buddhas manifest in these types of forms in the heavens to humble the pride of the gods, so they can then be led onto spiritual paths.
When we consider the heaven called the Heaven Free from Battles, these gods, as we said, are right above the realms of the heavens that rely on the earth, such as the Realm of the Thirty-three classes of gods. Unlike the lower gods, who have to engage in battles and fights with the asuras or demigods, they are free from having to fight, and this is the reason for them to have a further type of pride, the pride from being free of battles. Above this, we have Tushita Heaven, the Heaven of Great Joy, and the gods there have the pride that Maitreya is actually with them. This is a great source of pride for them. All of this is the reason why we also have Maitreya in the Tushita Heaven itself.
When Master Asanga went up to the heavenly realm where Maitreya was, he stayed there for three hours of the gods. When he came back down to earth, he discovered that 50 human years had passed. All the people who had been children at the time when he left were now old men and women with white hair. When Asanga went up to Tushita, he was probably in his 30s. When he came back down to earth, he lived a very long life, and during the rest of his life, his physical form remained the same, and his appearance did not grow old. When we have very skilled artists who draw the various masters and paint a portrait of Asanga, he is always painted as being very young looking, and this was the reason.
If we ask the question which Tushita did Asanga go to meet Maitreya, was it Tushita Heaven or the pure land Buddha realm of Tushita, this is a good type of question. This type of question is beneficial. If we are born in any of these four levels of mental constancy in the realm of ethereal forms, then we are still involved with uncontrollably recurring problems, we are still within samsara. If we are born in Tushita Heaven, three hours there are 50 human years, even if we live a tremendously long life, we still have problems and face suffering. Even if we go to any of the higher heavens and dimensions, we find magnificent splendors, various lands made of lapis lazuli and so forth, still, it is only like going to the Eiffel Tower in Paris or going up to the CN Tower in Toronto in Canada; once we get on top, there is nothing to do but to come down.
Therefore, it is necessary to see that no matter what type of uncontrollably recurring situation of samara we find ourselves in, it still involves problems, and therefore it is necessary to try to get out of this syndrome, this whole cycle altogether. This is something that can actually be done. We can achieve liberation from all troubles, all problems. This can be done on the basis of a precious human life that we all have. It is possible to do all these various actions and achieve the state of becoming liberated from all problems on the basis of the human life that we all have. When we become liberated from the uncontrollably recurring situations of samsara, and we do become free of all problems, this type of happiness that we have all been striving for, it’s from this point on that we actually have it.
Out of the three levels of spiritual aim that we can follow and achieve, to do this much is the second or middle one out of the three. However, it is no good to be satisfied with just achieving the middle best thing that can be done; we have to go on to achieve the greatest spiritual aim. Because on this basis of the human life we have, we can go further and achieve the enlightened state of a Buddha. If we can become totally clear-minded and fully evolved, which is the meaning of being a fully enlightened Buddha, this is the greatest thing we can accomplish. We cannot achieve this just on the basis of wishing to accomplish what is of benefit to ourselves alone, but it has to be done in terms of thinking of others and working for the sake of others.
Great Compassion: Determination for Everyone to Be Free of Suffering
When we look at others and see all the various problems and sufferings they have, the wish for everybody to be free of their problems is known as compassion. The way it develops is that first we look at our own problems and see how we don’t like our problems and want to get out of them and that is called the determination to be free, sometimes translated as the renunciation. When we have this feeling of the determination to be free of our own problems, we turn it around and see that just as we don’t like to be unhappy, everybody feels exactly the same, and then we transfer this determination to be free from problems into thinking in terms of others, and then we have compassion, which is the feeling that others need to be free of their problems as well.
There are two types of the determination to be free: there is the determination to be free with which we turn away from our obsession with things of this lifetime, and there is the determination to be free in which we turn away from our obsession with things going well in future lives. When we take this feeling of determination to be from our own problems and turn it around into consideration of other people’s problems and suffering as well, then we have compassion, the wish for everybody to be free of problems, unhappiness and suffering.
Once we developed on our own mind-stream this great compassion, this wish for everybody to be free from their problems, then the attainment of Buddhahood is not something far away. Compassion is extremely important at the beginning, middle and end. This is illustrated by examples. Compassion is important at the beginning, like a seed. A seed is necessary to get any type of crop or fruit. If we don’t have the great compassion as the seed, we won’t be able to gain any of the vast minded or Mahayana accomplishment of the dedicated heart of bodhicitta and good qualities, various attainments that follow from a dedicated heart. None of these things will come about unless we have great compassion as a seed.
Great compassion is important in the middle because, like the example of water and fertilizer, to just plant a seed, but never water the field or put fertilizer on it, will not bring any crop or fruit, so likewise, the waters of compassion is something that is a motivation that helps us in the process of whatever type of spiritual process we might be into.
It is also important at the end, just like the ripening of a fruit. When the fruit actually ripens, then we can eat it and enjoy it; likewise, compassion is like what ripens the fruit. The way in which it brings about the ripening of the fruit or the resultant stage is like when someone becomes a fully enlightened Buddha; it is because of great compassion that he or she teaches others, whereas if they didn’t have this compassion, they would just stay in a state of great bliss and not do anything. It is great compassion that is important at the end because it is what causes the Buddhas to teach and be involved with helping everyone, like the example of what ripens the fruit.