Bodhichitta

Equalizing and Exchanging Self with Others We’ve been discussing the Seven Point Mind Training by the Kadam Geshe Chekawa who lived in the twelfth century. So far, we’ve covered the first two points: the preliminaries and the actual training in deepest bodhichitta. Now, we’re...

Generating a Bodhichitta Aim Earlier, we saw that once genuine, pure renunciation is generated in our mental continuum, that is the point when we are truly on the Dharma path. This is the start of the path. We may have heard about the Mahayana and Hinayana paths and might even...

Review This morning, we discussed the ground floor level of, or basis for, the seven-part cause and effect meditation for generating a bodhichitta aim. We saw that this is equanimity, the type of equanimity with which we are free of attachment or attraction to some, aversion...

(1) With pleasure, I rejoice in the positive actions that relieve the sufferings of the worse rebirth states for all limited beings and that place these, who suffer, in better rebirth states. (2) I rejoice in that build up of positive (force) that became the causes for the...

The Ceremony for Wishing Bodhichitta, Together with Advice  When we talk about developing bodhichitta, of course, this is a process that we need to work up to and that requires a great deal of work and effort to sincerely feel. There are stages of meditation for...

Review Having an Accurate Idea of Bodhichitta and Enlightenment We have seen that there is a relative and deepest bodhichitta, and it is aimed at enlightenment, and specifically our own individual enlightenment that has not yet happened, but which can be imputed on...

When You Have Parted from Clinging to Your Own Benefit, You Have Made the Pathway Minds Eliminate Confusion Concerning the third (parting), “When you have parted from clinging to your own benefit, you have made the pathway minds eliminate confusion,”  In general, when you...

Review  We’ve been discussing the three principal pathways of mind. The first is renunciation, with an added preliminary step helpful for us Westerners, which is turning away from the obsession with immediate gratification to taking interest in what’s going to happen to...

Verses 10 through 17 Brief Review After beginning with the homage and the promise to compose, Togme Zangpo goes through the graded stages of motivation, the lam-rim, starting with the precious human life and the circumstances that are most conducive to taking advantage of...

Review We have been discussing yesterday how we develop relative bodhichitta – sometimes that’s called conventional bodhichitta. We make a differentiation between relative and deepest truth: In the Gelug tradition, when we speak about deepest...