LPA7: Advanced Level Motivation

He says that if we look at ourselves, we have found an excellent working basis of human rebirth, that we have all the freedoms. Or actually it’s a respite, which means a short break from rebirth states in which we would have no opportunity to be able to further ourselves on the spiritual path. We’re not born as an animal. We’re not born even as a human in places where the teachings are not available or where it’s impossible to practice, or where the Buddhas have never taught, or where there’s nobody supporting the teachings, and so on. We’re very fortunate. We’re fortunate that we’re not severely mentally disabled, and so on. We have all these opportunities, and we have an open mind and a sincere attitude: we’re not closed to the teachings or negative to them. We have this excellent working basis. We have actually met with the teachings of the Buddha, and we’ve been cared for by superb spiritual masters. 

Tsongkhapa doesn’t go into this point too deeply here, but the spiritual master is very, very important, not just to give us information (because we can get information from books), and not just to explain the teachings, but to be able to answer our questions, guide us, correct us when we’re going in a false direction, but even more than that, to give us inspiration, to make the whole spiritual path into something which is a living thing. We can see with the spiritual teacher at least the direction that we want to go in. If we follow the proper teachings regarding the attitude toward a teacher, then we focus just on the good qualities of the teacher, since this is something that will inspire us even more. 

The more that we can focus on these good qualities and see these as Buddha qualities, then that helps us to stay focused not only in terms of the safe direction that we want to go in — of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha — but it helps us to stay focused on bodhichitta, our own individual enlightenments that we’re aiming to achieve but which have not occurred yet. With a spiritual teacher, although we don’t deny their negative aspects or shortcomings, we focus on these positive things. Complaining about shortcomings is not going to be of any help whatsoever or criticizing them just will depress us. Whereas if we can stay focused on the positive things, that helps us to gain more inspiration. 

He says we’ve been cared for by superb spiritual masters. Superb means that they’re fully qualified. We have the unique feature of human beings, which is the power of the mind to discern between what’s to be adopted and what’s to be rejected. In other words, we have the ability to discriminate between what course of action, what course of behavior, is going to be beneficial and therefore something to be adopted, and what is going to be negative and cause harm to both ourselves and others and therefore to be rejected, and we’re not just driven by overpowering animal type of instincts. We have this intelligence to discern. 

With these aspects, then, we definitely need to take advantage of this excellent working basis that we have, to further ourselves along the spiritual path in order to either benefit ourselves or, more extensively, to benefit others. In order to actually do this, we have to engage ourselves in the Buddha’s teachings, Tsongkhapa described. A very important point, he says, is that to have engaged ourselves merely by having kind thoughts is not enough. The Buddha’s teachings are not simply just “Be a nice person. Be kind. Don’t hurt anybody. Have love, compassion,” and so on. This is a teaching that we find in common in all world religions, all humanitarian philosophies, and so on, so there’s nothing special or unique about that in terms of it being a Buddhist practice. That’s not enough. 

To just practice Buddhism in terms of it being methods to be a nice person, that’s not really engaging in the teachings. Either we ourselves have to know how to engage in the teachings (in other words, how to really involve ourselves with them and take them to heart and make a personal transformation by means of them toward the goals that are explained in Buddhism) or Tsongkhapa says we definitely have to rely on guidance from someone who does know them (in other words, a spiritual master). 

The spiritual teacher needs to have many, many qualifications, but among them, the ones that Tsongkhapa points out, is that the teacher has to be learned in the essential nature of the pathway minds. We talk here about pathway minds, which are states of mind or attitudes that we need to develop that will act as a pathway for achieving the various spiritual goals. The teacher needs to be learned in the essential nature of these. In other words, which ones are actually the type of attitudes and understandings that we need to develop that will actually bring us to this goal and which ones are not. The teacher has to know which ones are part of the spiritual path and which are not. They also need to be learned in the definite count of them, which means to not add anything that is not there, that is superfluous or inappropriate, particularly here superfluous, and not to leave any out. The teacher has to be learned in the graded order of them and how to accord them with the disciple’s level of understanding. In other words, the stages for developing our minds and our attitudes are things which are gradual, step by step. Each step builds on a previous step, and the teacher needs to know the order of them and how to actually apply them to each individual student’s level of understanding, because if the teacher makes mistakes in this, it can be quite disastrous for the student. 

Then Tsongkhapa goes on to say that the teacher not only needs to be someone who’s skilled and learned in all these points, but they have to be someone who has actually gained this knowledge and experience — not just from reading it in books, but they themselves have to have been led along the spiritual path by their own spiritual teachers and actually have had the personal experience of developing themselves in this way. This study and practice that the teacher needs to have has to be on the basis of the great Buddhist classics. This is likewise the way that a teacher would need to teach us. In other words, not just making something up, but following the great scriptural texts that were written by — well, compiled from Buddha’s teachings themselves, and written with all the various Indian commentaries and the Tibetan commentaries after that. 

What is very important is to not make the mistake which many people made at Tsongkhapa’s time and continue to make, which is to differentiate the texts from the so-called practice and to think that these are separate things, that one studies the texts just for intellectual knowledge but then gets some special oral practices which are what one actually does when one does Buddhist practice. This is completely wrong, Tsongkhapa says, because everything in the texts is written specifically for the sake of practice and to be put into practice. We need to rely on authoritative texts. 

Then he goes on to say how do we begin our practice, and he quotes Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, the great Indian Buddhist masters, saying that the main thing is to tame our minds. Now, this is very much the Buddhist attitude here, that the mind is central, because our behavior in terms of how we act physically in our conduct, and how we speak to others and relate to others, are all determined by our mind and our attitudes. Although one could say that it’s very important to train the body as well as the mind — and in many, particularly the Western way of approaching things, we try to have a balance between physical exercise and mental exercise or physical training and mental training — Buddhism is not looking at things from that point of view. Obviously, we need to be in good health, and there are the Buddhist medical teachings for that, but there isn’t that emphasis on actual physical fitness in terms of exercise and building up muscles. When they talk about physical fitness, they’re talking about — in at least the Indian and Tibetan traditions — they’re talking about the subtle energy-systems of the body being fit to work with, which means that they need to be supple and flexible, and there are some yoga exercises for that. But there isn’t martial arts and this sort of thing in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. They did come in in China, and it’s a little bit uncertain whether they strictly came from a Buddhist background in India with Bodhidharma or whether it came from other sources. 

In any case, the main emphasis is on training the mind, the attitudes that we have. For doing this, we need to work on our motivating mental framework (bsam-pa). This is a technical term which refers to what goals we have in mind, various spiritual goals, having the intention to achieve them, and what the reason is for that, and the emotion behind that that drives us. Both an understanding — “This is the goal that I want to achieve” — and some emotion that leads us to strive in that direction. This is a motivating mental framework. 

This is something that we need to have properly worked ourselves up to, Tsongkhapa says, and not one that has come from mere words. Of course, it’s very easy to just recite verses, mere words: “Blah, blah, blah. I’m working for the benefit of all beings, all sentient beings,” and this type of thing. That’s very easy to say, but to mean that sincerely — that we are working for the benefit of every insect in the universe, for example — is something which is not at all easy to be sincere about. He says: don’t just talk about it, don’t just recite verses, but these are things we need to build ourselves up to. 

This is a very clear acknowledgment that the levels of motivation and aims that are discussed in Buddhism are not things that are going to, in most cases, just come automatically (unless we’ve done an unbelievable amount of training in previous lives and it just comes instinctively), but things that we really have to work up to, stage by stage by stage. This is, of course, something which is quite challenging and difficult, particularly in the West because we have so many materials available to us. Because we have all these materials available, it’s very easy to read very quickly through various books that describe the whole path, and to immediately think that we don’t have to work on the initial stages, and we can just jump to the advanced stages. Especially since they talk so much about love and compassion and being nice, and so on, helping others. It looks very attractive, so people jump immediately to that. But what happens is that this actual level — we’ll call it the bodhisattva level — of working for the benefit of everyone is something that then gets trivialized if we leave out the earlier stages and is not the real thing. It’s what I call Dharma-Lite, rather than The Real Thing Dharma. 

It’s very important to work through the stages. The most helpful scheme is to follow, Tsongkhapa says, the level of scopes of motivation according to scope of capacity, and these we found in Atisha’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. It was one of the early texts that were brought to Tibet several centuries before Tsongkhapa, and it speaks of initial, intermediate, and advanced levels of motivation. We have already discussed the initial and intermediate levels. 

The initial level was to turn away from keen interest in this life alone and have our interest be primarily for the happiness of future lives and beyond. We saw in our discussion that this is a very difficult level to actually achieve with any sincerity, because it implies… or what underlies it, of course, is total confidence in past and future rebirths, that the mental continuum, individual mental continuums, have no beginning and no end. We can go into a big, long discussion about that. 

We discussed that briefly, but basically what we saw is that what has continuity — like a movie, in which only one moment is playing at a time — is a continuity of moments of mental activity. That mental activity is the activity of the arising of a mental hologram, which after all, from a scientific point of view, is what is going on when various light rays and sound waves come through our physical apparatus, are translated into electrical impulses and various chemical processes, and as a result of that, subjectively we experience a mental hologram of a sight or a sound or a smell or whatever, a thought, etc., a physical sensation, taste. That process of the arising — or that phenomenon, let’s say — of the arising of a mental hologram is what it means to actually know something, to see something, to hear it, to smell it, to taste it, to physically feel it, or to think it, or emotionally feel it. It’s not that first there is a mental hologram… let’s say a thought arises and then we think it; the arising of the thought and the thinking of the thought is the same thing described from two points of view. There is a continuity of this, and it is an unending continuity. Because of the various laws of cause and effect, things can’t arise from no cause or a dissimilar cause, so it needs to arise from its own previous moment and will generate a next moment of its continuity. 

We saw that this continuity, although is supported on a physical body, on this present physical body, is ultimately, on the subtlest levels, supported by the subtlest life-supporting energy. There’s a very subtle energy which is the counterpart of this mental activity. That is what has unending continuity. Depending on the karma, which is the impulses that will arise based on previous behavior and the habits built up by that, then that continuity of mental activity, with the subtlest energy as its basis, will connect with some sort of grosser physical basis — sperm and egg of a parent or of a dog or of whatever — and then the body of one particular lifetime will evolve from that. But continuity of this mental activity goes on, and it will be limited, to a greater or lesser extent, based on the hardware of that physical body that it is associated with. The level of happiness and unhappiness, pleasure and pain will also be determined by the hardware of the physical apparatus of that particular life form. If we look at all the possible life forms, then, it is possible for the mental continuum to experience the absolute extremes of suffering and pain all the way to the absolute extremes of pleasure and happiness, and not just the limited range of that that can be supported on the basis of a human body and mind (which will go unconscious if it’s too painful, etc.). 

Looking at that continuity, our individual continuum of mental activity, it’s not that we all are one or anything like that — that’s more… certain Hindu ways of looking at it — but looking at the individual, subjective continuum of mental activity, then the first aim would be to want to have that be in happier situations in the future, not just in this lifetime but beyond as well, in future lifetimes. That’s the first spiritual aim. We’re aimed at that because we dread having more suffering and for things getting worse. We really dread that, which doesn’t mean that we are afraid, but we really don’t want that. We are confident that if we go in a positive direction in our life — as indicated by the Buddha and the Buddha’s teachings and accomplishments, and the community working toward that who have actually achieved, at least in part, what a Buddha has achieved — and we go in that direction, and refrain from destructive behavior and act in constructive ways, that that will bring happier experiences in the future. Just by mechanical laws of cause and effect — not as a reward, not as a punishment, but just mechanical laws of cause and effect. 

This is the initial level, and that requires a great deal of work to actually be convinced that this is so, that there is this individual, for each of us, an unending, no beginning continuum of mental activity that can experience all levels of either happiness or unhappiness, suffering or pain or happiness or pleasure, and that the amount of happiness or unhappiness or pleasure or pain that we experience is going to be directly related to the constructive or destructive behavior that we engage in. The constructive and destructive behavior — the destructive is behavior that is motivated by greed or desire, by anger, hatred, repulsion, and by naivety (naivety about cause and effect, or naivety about how we, others, and everything around us exists), and all of that ultimately is coming from our unawareness of how we exist and how everything else exists. 

That is the initial level. It requires a great deal of work for that to be really sincere. Our main emphasis is not just on this lifetime and the immediate little things that we have, because we realize that the working basis that we have is not going to last forever, death will come for sure, and there’s nothing that we can bring with us except the potentials that have been built up and the instincts that have been built up on this mental continuum. 

Then the intermediate level, what we discussed last time, is to continue to look at our individual mental continuum and to realize that even if we are in happier situations, still the happiness that we experience is something which is never going to be satisfying, never is going to be enough, and there’s no certainty about what will come next (happiness will continue or not continue), and it’s a completely insecure situation. This happiness is something also, if you think about it… the common examples that are used would be: If eating a certain food, our favorite food, were true happiness, the more we ate it, the happier we should become. But, obviously, after a certain quantity of that food, the more you eat, it’s going to make you sick or very uncomfortable. It’s not that this is a true source of happiness; it will eventually be a source of unhappiness. If we continue lying out in the sun, or whatever. All these things are not true happiness. 

We see that what is the cause of this unsatisfactory situation of either gross unhappiness or unsatisfying happiness is a continuum of a body and mind that is based on… is thrown by karma. In other words, by the impulses and the impulsive behavior that we engage in that is based on our unawareness of how we exist and how others exist and how everything exists. Based on that confusion, on that unawareness, we act in compulsive types of ways. Even if we’re trying to help others, still it is going to be based on some ego trip: we’re doing it for ourselves, or we’re doing it because we’ll feel needed and wanted, and these sorts of things. There’s some ego trip behind it. It’s going to just perpetuate the samsaric situation, uncontrollably recurring. 

What we want to do is to gain liberation from this. This is the intermediate scope. Liberation from this means liberation from the forces of biology and the instincts of biology, the various animal instincts, liberation from just the ordinary type of life that we have, which means to give up all hope that anything in our normal experience is going to be ultimately satisfying. Ultimate happiness, whether we’re talking about things of this particular lifetime — which could be relationships and a good job and a loving partner and fame, and all these things (we already turned away from that as our main focus with the initial level) — but even to think of that in terms of future lifetimes and so on, it’s never going to satisfy. We’re never going to find the perfect partner, the perfect situation, the perfect job, the perfect anything in terms of our ordinary way of dealing with things. 

You give up all hope of that, which is a very radical step and a very difficult step to take. Which doesn’t mean that you have to no longer do anything in the world and no longer have relationships, but you don’t put your hope that it’s going to be ultimately satisfying. You work for liberation, with the emotion behind it being what’s called renunciation, based on disgust — fed up with it: “Enough! Enough of relationships that don’t work out. Enough of all the ups and downs of ordinary life. I want to get liberation from that.” That liberation will be into a state in which, of course, there’s a continuum of the mental continuum, and depending on our inclination, it can be in some sort of more ethereal type of… not ethereal, but some sort of what’s called a mental form (yid-lus), or it can be in the actual physical form, but not driven by unawareness or ignorance, disturbing emotions, and the karmic impulses that are built up by that and activated by that. 

We are aiming for this liberation. It’s still looking in terms of this unending, no beginning mental continuum and seeing that, in its nature, it is not stained by that unawareness or by those disturbing emotions and karmic impulses that are built up by it, that in essence (called Buddha-nature) the mental continuum is free of this: these are fleeting stains (glo-bur-gyi dri-ma). That requires a great deal of thought and reflection and understanding, to be able to be convinced of that and not just — “Blah, blah, blah” — recite it, but to be convinced logically that this is the case. For that, one has to understand what an essential nature is. What does that mean in terms of Buddha-nature? Is there some situation in which… How to say this easily… Is there or is there not a situation in which there can be the opposite of a certain characteristic and still be a mental continuum? 

I have to explain that. That’s a terribly complicated sentence that I just said. 

If you look at unawareness — not knowing — unawareness is not knowing (or knowing incorrectly) how we and everything exist. There is an exact opposite of that, and the exact opposite of that would be knowing correctly how we exist and how everything exists. Now, the two of those cannot occur simultaneously in the same moment of mental activity: either you know, or you don’t know; either you get it correctly or you don’t get it correctly. Now, whether you have a correct understanding and know correctly, or you know it incorrectly, it’s still mental activity — mental activity goes on — that doesn’t prevent mental activity. Unawareness is not an integral part of mental activity; it can be removed and there still would be mental activity, and there are various meditative states in which we can experience that being the case. 

Now, if you look at the defining characteristics of mind — which is that it is the arising of a mental hologram and the cognition of that, knowing of that, in some way — it doesn’t have to be conscious. It would also include what we would in the West say is unconscious. In unconscious states, like deep sleep and coma, etc., there’s the arising of darkness, and the cognitive activity is to be completely sunk in that and not aware of anything else, but there is a subjective experience of that darkness. Now, what would be the exact opposite of that that would exclude this? The mutually exclusive state that’s opposite to that would be no arising of a mental hologram and no cognitive engagement. Now, could that still be mental activity? No, because those are the defining characteristics of mental activity. Because of that, these defining characteristics of the arising of a mental hologram and knowing are part of the essential nature — that’s what we call Buddha-nature — whereas unawareness is not, and that can be eliminated. 

Similarly, the voidness of the mind. Voidness of the mind is referring to its absence of existing in any sort of impossible way. What would be the exact opposite of that? It would be for it to exist in an impossible way. If it existed in an impossible way, could it still be mind? No, it couldn’t be mental activity. That voidness is part of Buddha-nature, part of the nature of the mind. 

One has to be convinced of this, that the unawareness or ignorance and the disturbing emotions that are based on it, that derive from it, are not an integral part of the essential nature of mind. If that’s the case, then one can aim toward achieving that state in which one is always in a situation of awareness, correct awareness, of how things exist, so the unawareness won’t be there. That’s a state of liberation. OK? We aim for that. 

That’s the intermediate level.

Now we go on today to the advanced level of motivation. I’ll read what Tsongkhapa has written about this. He says:

Then (progressing to an advanced level motivation), we need to have seen that just as we ourselves are benefited from being happy and harmed by suffering, so too are all limited beings. Through that, we need to have thoroughly familiarized ourselves with love, compassion, and a bodhichitta aim as preventive measures.

Preventive measures are a way of translating Dharma; it’s something that we do to prevent suffering or unwanted situations.

If (we’ve done that), we will have turned our motivating mental framework completely away from eagerly endeavoring for only our own aims, not caring at all about bringing happiness to limited beings and eliminating their suffering. 

Limited beings (sems-can) are beings who are not Buddhas, whose mental continuums are still limited.

From (having done that), we will have seen the aims of others as actually the (only) aims we strongly wish (to work for) and will have become certain that the supreme method for accomplishing these (aims) is in fact only if we become Buddhas ourselves and that alone. From (that), we need to enhance a very firm motivating mental framework of wishing to attain (the state of) a Buddha because of those (various reasons).

This is the advanced scope of motivation — the Mahayana level of motivation, it’s called — and what does this actually mean in the context of how I’ve been explaining? 

Individual mental continuums. We are not the only… Our mental continuum is not the only mental continuum. There are a countless number (finite but countless number) of other mental continuums. Now, all along in this, it is very important that we have a correct understanding of how the me (a person, the self, or the I, or however you want to translate it) exists. What is this me? There is nothing on the side of the mental continuum — this is what’s impossible — of a me which is... 

Let’s start again (I’m jumping ahead). 

There is no such thing as a me that is separate from the mental continuum and the body and mind, and so on, that is unchanging, partless, and separate and that goes on from one lifetime to another, whether having a quality of consciousness or not. There’s no such thing. That’s impossible. No such thing as that as the ruler or possessor of a body and mind that goes into a body and mind and presses the buttons and controls it and that’s the solid me. If there were such a solid me, then why should I be concerned with anybody else? Just me. 

Similarly, on a deeper level, there’s no me that could be known separately. Even if me is part of the aggregates of the body and mind, there’s no me that could be known separately from them which would still give it some sort of concrete essence, but we think that when we say, “I want somebody to love me for myself. Not for my money, not for my body, not for my personality, but love me for me,” as if there were a me that could be loved separate from all of this. There’s no such thing. This is a fantasy. But we think like that, and we feel like that, then we feel sorry for ourselves: “Poor me,” as if there’s a me that were separate from... I mean, what is the poor me? Is it my emotion? Is it what happened to me? Is it my body? What’s the poor me here? Anyway, there is no such thing. 

There’s no such thing as some unique little mark on the side, like a stamp, that makes me me and not you. What is me? Me is what the word or label or concept “me” refers to, on the basis of its imputation on the continuum, moment to moment to moment. Like the example of the movie Star Wars. Star Wars isn’t the name “Star Wars.” It isn’t one particular frame of Star Wars. Star Wars is — the movie — is what the title refers to on the basis of it being labeled on the whole continuum of all the frames. That’s what the movie is. Similarly, who am I? What is the me? It’s what the word “me” — which could have different names in different lifetimes (the conventional name doesn’t matter) — what the word “me” refers to on the basis of all of these moments of a continuum of mental activity. That being the case, then it’s exactly the same thing… 

That me, what it experiences of course is based on karma, based on the various impulses that have come up, and the behavior that has been based on that. It has its own individuality, an individuality of experience. But in terms of defining characteristics of a mental continuum, all mental continuums are the same — in terms of mental activity, in terms of the ability to experience all levels on the spectrum of happy to unhappy, on the basis of all possible physical life forms as a physical basis for this — all equally the same, although individual. Because there’s nothing unique that… Unique is a difficult word here. There’s nothing that, in a sense, separates in nature my mental continuum from anybody else’s mental continuum, or within everybody else that makes the mental continuum that at this moment is manifest in someone that I like or someone that I don’t like (or in a mosquito or in a human) any different. Exactly the same. What is also the same — just one more point — what’s also the same is that just as I want to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy, there’s a basic driving force of mental continuums. There’s a preference for happiness. That’s the same with everybody as well.

Participant: I just want to confirm if I have this right or wrong. Actually, the mental continuum would be a me? That is the me?

Dr. Berzin: He says, is the mental continuum… He wants to confirm. The mental continuum, that would be the me? No, the me is not the same as the mental continuum. It’s not the same. It’s the basis for a me. It’s not just the mental continuum but all the different factors of the mental continuum working together. That’s the basis. The me is what the word refers to, or the concept refers to, on that basis. 

If it were the basis — if the me were the same as the basis, if what was being labeled was the same as the basis — then everybody should label it the same. Everybody that observes you should think “me.” It’s not me, it’s you. It’s something which is different. It should be findable within the basis if it actually is there. It’s not there. 

A mental continuum is a continuum of ways of being aware of things. Me is not a way of being aware of something. They’re not the same, but they’re integrally related. Me is what is mentally labeled on that. 

Do you follow that at all? 

Participant: Half.

Dr. Berzin: Half. That’s not an easy point, but it is a very crucial point in the understanding of Madhyamaka philosophy, that what’s being labeled is not identical to the basis and can’t be found in the basis. Then it gets into this thing: either what’s being labeled and the basis have to be completely the same or they have to be totally different. The fact that we say, “My mind is not working well today,” indicates that, at least conventionally, I am not the same as the mind. Because we think in terms of...

Participant: Maybe that distinction is simply a concept that we have inherited in our cultural baggage in the West. “My mind is not working well today.” That may be simply the way that we are perceiving it because it’s a concept that we have endured since we were children.

Dr. Berzin: Right. That’s very good. He says that this way of saying that “My mind is not working well today,” in which it seems as though there’s a difference between the two, me and the mind, is something perhaps that we’ve learned culturally from childhood. Actually, maybe it’s something which has arisen instinctively. This we have to examine — whether it’s learned culturally or is instinctive. 

But in any case, if they really were different, how do you know that your mind is not working well today? There should be a me that’s separate from mind that can evaluate the mind, so how would it be able to evaluate the mind if it’s not aware? They can’t possibly be two separate things. But then again, are they the same thing? I’m walking. Is my mind walking? If I and the mind were the same, then the mind is walking.

Participant: Anyway, you can’t leave your mind behind when you’re walking. 

Dr. Berzin: You can’t leave your mind behind when you’re walking. Is me and the mind like me and my cow, or my dog, or my suitcase? We analyze like this, and the conclusion that one comes to, after a very long period of analysis and study, is that me is just simply what the word “me” refers to on the basis of that. It’s nothing which is findable. It’s not established in or from the basis. 

Participant: My mental continuum is not the same as your mental continuum.

Dr. Berzin: That’s right. 

Participant: As you said before, they all have the same nature, and they work in the same way. There’s no intrinsic distinction except for the fact that it is exactly that which makes them a number of beings. 

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes, still my mental continuum… What I experience is not the same as what you experience, and so they are individual. Why would you want to work to benefit others? 

Participant: Because they are feeling pain…

Dr. Berzin: They’re feeling pain, but so what? I don’t feel it. I don’t feel it, so why should I care that they’re feeling pain? Well, there are many lines of reasoning that we can use. 

First and foremost, in all of this is this… a leveling out, the equanimity. This is what I was trying to explain, that it’s equal, so there’s no attraction, repulsion, or indifference toward anyone. Now, that of course implies that we’ve already worked on at least minimizing these disturbing emotions with the intermediate level of work. But we see that… Each of these mental continuums go on forever, so sometimes good relations with a person, sometimes not such good relations, sometimes we know them, sometimes we don’t know them. Same, same. To be equally open to everyone, we can do that on the basis of overcoming the disturbing emotions of attraction, repulsion, and indifference. 

But on a deeper level, as Shantideva (what we studied some years ago in this class) said, that all the mental continuums are equal in terms of being a me. Just as a me doesn’t want to have suffering and wants to be happy, what’s the difference between a me that’s me and a me that’s you? In other words, we depersonalize the whole situation. Suffering should be eliminated because it has no owner. “There’s no owner to suffering,” Shantideva said. It’s not that it’s just mine or it’s just yours. This is a very delicate distinction that needs to be made here. There’s still individuality, but there isn’t this separation of utter walls. 

Now, we can go into one line of reasoning, which is: “In previous lifetimes, everybody at some point has been my mother or my closest friend and kind to me, and I appreciate that kindness and want to return that kindness.” Thinking of all this, we have this heart-warming love whenever we meet anybody, including the cockroach, the mosquito. Love: wanting them to be happy, have the causes for happiness. Compassion: to be free from suffering and the causes for suffering. On that basis, we equalize everybody. 

But we can also do it just on the basis of: “Everybody wants to be happy. Nobody wants to be unhappy. There’s no owner of happiness, and we are all totally interrelated.” Now, this is a very important point. We don’t exist in isolation. That also is going to be connected with our understanding of me. OK?

What is the me? The me is what the word “me” refers to on the basis of the stream of continuity of experience, basically, of individual experience. That individual experience — the mental activity, another way of referring to it — individual experience, that stream of continuity of it, did it arise all by itself, totally isolated from interaction with any other mental continuums? Or was it affected by interaction with others? You’d have to say absolutely yes, it has been affected by interaction with others: What others have done to us, what we have done to others, what we have observed with others. What we’ve heard and seen with others, not just what they’ve physically done to us or spoken to us and so on. It’s all interconnected. Therefore, there is already this connection. It’s not that there’s anybody who is unrelated to me, especially if we think in terms of beginningless time. There might be… in this particular lifetime, that mental continuum might have generated a mosquito rebirth, but that’s only one tiny little segment of time of this mental continuum. Previous lifetimes, who knows what they were, what that mental continuum generated, what it connected to and manifested with a physical form? 

There’s all this interaction with everybody, and so there aren’t these boundaries, a big wall around me, my mental continuum, and “I want to work for the liberation of that mental continuum.” That’s impossible, because there are no walls. Because there are no walls, then the scope of our aim for liberation is everybody — it’s the whole thing — despite the fact that individually, conventionally, there’s an individual me. 

This understanding of voidness, absence of impossible ways of existing, is very integral here to be able to really, sincerely open up on the basis of, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama says, not just emotion — “Oh, I love everybody. Everybody’s been so kind” — but in terms of logic and reason. Then it’s more stable. If you have the two together then it’s even more stable. We work in terms of that. 

Love and compassion. Everybody to be happy and to have causes of happiness, for everybody to be free of suffering — that’s compassion — and the causes for suffering, in absolutely everybody. This is what makes it Mahayana. This is what gets trivialized when you do Dharma-Lite; it’s just “Yeah, I want people to be happy not unhappy but forget about the mosquito or forget about this person that I don’t like,” and we’re just thinking in terms of very limited scope of happiness and suffering. 

Think long term: mental continuums, no beginning, no end, totally interrelated with each other. Now, how can we perceive that and deal with that, all the causal interactions and connections between everybody, from beginningless time, which will continue for endless time? For that, the mind needs to stop making appearances of what’s called true existence. 

When we talk about true existence here, it means something truly established from its own side. What does that mean? That means things existing the way that our mind makes them appear as if they were encapsulated in plastic, existing just by themselves, isolated from everything that has ever affected them and all the causal things, all the things that they will affect, and isolated from everything as if things existed with big lines around them. Our mind makes it appear like that — these are called the cognitive obscurations (shes-sgrib) — and when we believe in that, that’s unawareness: we think of that as referring to reality. Then based on that, we overreact to somebody — “You just said that to me, therefore you are a terrible person” — and I get angry with you, as if that moment existed totally isolated from everything else, all the forces that were causally related to the person acting like that. Our whole relationship with this person — we forget about that; it’s just this moment, as if it were encapsulated in plastic. We’re unaware that this is ridiculous. We therefore believe it. We identify you with that moment and that behavior and get angry. Those are the emotional obscurations (nyon-sgrib). 

We saw that the mind was free by nature of these emotional obscurations, this unawareness. Those obscurations prevent liberation. But we need to go further and see that the mind does not, as part of its nature… it can’t make appearances of things encapsulated in plastic, these appearances of so-called true existence. Because if we want to truly help everybody and benefit everybody, we have to be able to perceive the interconnectedness of everything, so that we know all the causes for any particular part of this huge nexus and what will be the effect on everything else in this nexus of everything. If we teach this person this or that, how will that affect their relationships with other people? How will this… all of that. We have to know all of that. We have to be able to perceive all of that. That is what a Buddha is able to do. That’s the enlightened state of a Buddha. It’s not just liberation of not being a mental continuum having disturbing emotions and unawareness but being able to perceive everything. That limitation, that type of appearance-making, is also not part of the essential nature of the mind, again because the mind can make things appear with the encapsulating plastic or it can make them not appear with encapsulating plastic, and it’s still mind, it’s still mental activity. 

There isn’t a mutually exclusive way of being aware of things and one can replace the other. It is possible to experience this absence of making these lines when one is totally absorbed in voidness, so in a certain meditative state. It’s possible. What one has to do is to get to that being always the case. Therefore, one becomes convinced that the essential underlying nature of the mind, of mental continuum, is free of these limitations. Those whose mental continuums are still under the influence of these are called limited beings. That’s why I call them limited beings. They’re usually called sentient beings; that means limited: not a Buddha. 

Mental activity is capable of perceiving everything, and that is its basic nature. When we have bodhichitta… Bodhichitta is a state of mind which is aimed at our own individual enlightened states, which have not yet happened, but which can happen on the basis of Buddha-nature. It is driven by this love and compassion, so there’s this strong wish to benefit others, absolutely everybody. It’s this totality, the interconnectedness of everybody and everything. With our basic drive: everybody wanting happiness and not wanting unhappiness. That’s instinctive. It’s now for this entire nexus, wanting happiness and not wanting unhappiness. Taking responsibility to actually bring that about and to bring everyone to a liberated state, the whole thing to a liberated state, or to the state of a Buddha. 

Bodhichitta, my own future enlightenment — so what is this referring to? This is referring to the third and fourth noble truths, it’s called, on our mental continuums. These are the true things that the Buddhas see — I mean that Aryas (those who see reality) see — non-conceptually.

1. True suffering, which is this uncontrollably recurring rebirth that just self-perpetuates on and on and on and on through unawareness. 
2. Cause of it is the unawareness. The second noble truth. 
3. The third noble truth, a stopping of that, that there is a situation in which this is stopped. 
4. True pathway mind, which is the true level of mind that will bring it about and that is the resultant state. 

We look at this on our own mental continuum. Own mental continuum. A true stopping of these obscurations — making these appearances of true existence and truly established existence and believing in them or not knowing that that’s false — well, in essence, mind is devoid of that. It’s not there — it never was there — in terms of the essence. That’s something which is fleeting (one has to be a little bit careful about this term: it never was there). This unawareness, and this ignorance, and this appearance-making of true existence — that had no beginning, but it never was part of the nature of the mind, is the point. It never was part of the nature of the mind, the essential nature of the mind. When one understands voidness, the absence of true existence, then one gets to that state of the true stopping. 

A true pathway mind is — so the future one, the one that has not yet happened — is that state in which there’s total stopping forever of these stains. We can focus on that in terms of the voidness of the mind now, which is responsible for the fact that it’s unstained. Of course, it doesn’t exist in impossible ways, this mental continuum, then if one understands that, it is unstained then. This is a very complicated point. I don’t want to go into it in great detail. But anyway, one focuses on the voidness of the mind to represent this true stopping that has not yet happened but can happen because it’s the basic nature of the mind — that in the basic nature there is a true stopping of these obscurations; they never were there in the essence. 

The true pathway mind, it would be that omniscient state of a Buddha which is aware of everything, and no disturbing emotions and so on. It hasn’t happened yet, but there is the Buddha-nature now, which can be mentally labeled now in this moment of mental continuum, which is the basic conventional nature of mental activity, this arising of mental holograms and knowing. It is because of that basic factor, that characteristic essential nature of mental activity, that will allow for the arising of absolutely everything interconnectedly without disturbing emotions and unawareness. 

This is what you focus on with bodhichitta. Bodhichitta’s not a simple thing. It’s not just “Oh, may everybody be happy.” It’s not just compassion. It’s not just love. It requires a tremendous amount of understanding to really know what in the world you’re focusing on. When you’re focusing on “This is my aim, this totally purified state of mind, as a Buddha, capable of reflecting everything, of knowing everything, all the interconnections. Driven by love and compassion, the wish for happiness and not to be unhappy, which extends to absolutely everybody without any discrimination” — then that will automatically drive us toward this goal with tremendous force. Because it is so vast — it is encompassing everybody and everything — and it is not hindered by the disturbing emotions of selfishness and anger and greed and disappointment. Of course, we’ve gotten rid of already all hope in that “I’m going to live happily ever after with Prince or Princess Charming.” We’re over that. Just driven like this.

Now, of course, it’s very rare that we will have become already a liberated being and then turn to the Mahayana path, although that can exist. For most of us, we’re going to work on this Mahayana path before becoming totally liberated, in getting rid of selfishness and disturbing emotions and so on. However, one needs to work with all the far-reaching attitudes (pha-rol-tu phyin-pa), the perfections, the so-called paramitas. You develop this bodhichitta aim and develop this engaged state of bodhichitta: “I’m actually going to do it, not just wish for it.” How am I going to do that? 

I’m going to do that through cultivating far-reaching generosity. Far-reaching meaning that it is encompassing everybody, without discrimination. Obviously, we just take care of whichever needs we are capable of taking care of right now and the ones that are in the most need, and we try to use our discrimination as best as we can. But in general, we don’t just help those that we like and ignore those that we dislike, or we don’t know. It is unaimed in that sense, and it’s just like the sun radiating out. Generous giving to others, obviously because you want to give happiness, so you give whatever. 

Discipline and patience to deal with the difficulties that arise and not get discouraged and not get angry. 

Perseverance. “I am going to continue, no matter what obstacles come up. I don’t care. Nothing is going to stop me.” No laziness. 

Stability of mind. Not only no mental wandering and no dullness and falling asleep, but not being this emotional up and down either. Stable. 

Discriminating awareness. We’re able to discriminate what is beneficial, what is not beneficial; how do things exist, how don’t they exist; what is my projection, what is actuality; what am I capable of doing now, what am I not capable of doing now, what actually is feasible to accomplish. You can suggest something to someone else, but they don’t necessarily take your advice. No hopes, no worries, etc. 

In our still-limited state as an aspiring bodhisattva, we work with this, accepting the reality that I’m not a Buddha yet. In Tantra we can imagine that we are a Buddha already, but we still know that we’re not a Buddha. We imagine it, so that in our imagination we build up the causes, at least in our imagination, imagining that we are actually benefiting everybody. The mind gets used to this scope without thinking of ourselves in terms of our ordinary body and “my knees hurt” and this sort of junk. 

We have this advanced scope of motivation, and we are convinced, we have this strong... I’ll read it again:

Then (progressing to an advanced level motivation), we need to have seen that just as we ourselves are benefited from being happy and harmed by suffering, so too are all limited beings. 

Everybody’s the same, and there are no boundaries separating us. It’s not that we’re all one. We maintain our conventional individuality, but everybody’s interacting. That basic “Nobody wants to be unhappy. Everybody wants to be happy,” that’s a basic… that is a general law, sort of an axiom, that’s accepted here in Buddhism. It doesn’t have to be proven. This is a common experience.

We’ve seen that just as we ourselves are benefited from being happy and harmed by suffering, so too are all limited beings.

Through that, we need to have thoroughly familiarized ourselves with love, compassion, and a bodhichitta aim as preventive measures.

To prevent us from being unable to help everybody.

If (we’ve done that), we will have turned our motivating mental framework completely away from eagerly endeavoring for only our own aims, not caring at all about bringing happiness to limited beings and eliminating their suffering. 

We’ve turned from that. “This is unfeasible, to work just for myself. It doesn’t make any sense, because I don’t exist all by myself.” 

“There’s nothing special about me. Nothing special.” That also is a very important insight to have, because also one could go on a bodhisattva ego trip: “Oh, I’m so special. I’m the bodhisattva.” It’s nothing special. We only get into this special trip when we think that there is some individual defining characteristic on the side of my mental continuum that makes me me and not you, so it makes me special. There is no such thing.

So:

From (having done that), we will have seen the aims of others as actually the (only) aims we strongly wish (to work for)

It’s the aims of others. Does that mean that we don’t aim for ourselves? No. What that means is that we don’t aim for ourselves as if we existed isolated from everybody else. Working for the aims of others doesn’t create a donut in which in the middle there’s a little plastic thing excluding us from others. It’s not like that. It’s for everybody. Of course, we’re included, because we’re not… just as we’re not the only one, we’re also not the only one excluded as well — the two extremes.

and will have become certain that the supreme method for accomplishing these (aims) is in fact only if we become Buddhas ourselves and that alone. 

Only if the mental continuum is capable of encompassing everything — which it is capable — so only if it does encompass everything and is not driven by disturbing emotions and ignorance but is driven by love and compassion, which is a natural part of the mind, of mental activity. That also is a part of Buddha-nature. They say love and compassion is part of Buddha-nature. Why? Because it is the wish to be happy and not to be unhappy, whether it’s directed at ourselves or others. It is a basic driving force for the energy and mental activity to continue. We’re striving for happiness and not unhappiness.

The supreme method for all of this is only if we become Buddhas ourselves and that alone.

From (that), we need to enhance 

Which means “make stronger.”

a very firm motivating mental framework of wishing to attain (the state of) a Buddha because of those (various reasons).

When we understand bodhichitta in this way, in this very vast way, then we can start to appreciate the first chapter of Shantideva’s Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior, which is this incredible praise for bodhichitta. That if we can have this compass of mind and aim sincerely (which is really difficult), then that does fulfill everything in terms of our own benefits, in terms of benefits of others (and something extremely rare). 

This is the advanced level of motivation. Something to work up, as Tsongkhapa says, to work ourselves up gradually, step by step. Don’t skip the earlier stages and trivialize this advanced level. You have to be convinced of individual mental continuum — no beginning, no end, capable of experiencing any type of happiness and unhappiness — and reaffirm the drive for happiness within my own individual mental continuum. Then be convinced that that mental continuum can be, and is by nature, free of ignorance, the unawareness, the disturbing emotions. Then encompass everybody’s mental continuum and the interconnectedness of that. That, by essence, the mental continuum is not limited in what it can perceive, because of making appearances of isolated true existence. 

Each level of motivation is built on the previous level on a very deep, profound level. Not just on a superficial level, which is also a level that one could understand it at, but on a very deep level. They are built one on the other. Don’t get discouraged because it will take a very long time to develop each level, each scope of motivation, sincerely so that you really feel it and not just say it: “Blah, blah, blah.” It needs to eventually become what is called unlabored (rtsol-med), which means you don’t have to work up to it through logical steps (which is what we’ll have to do in the beginning, if you think about it: “Well, blah, blah, blah. This and that and that and that.”), but it just comes automatically, unlabored — that’s what you want — and it becomes totally an integrated part of how we perceive the world. 

Let’s end here with a dedication.

We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.