The Advanced Scope and Questions about Buddhas and Mental Labeling

A Person of Advanced Spiritual Scope

Atisha continues:

(5) Anyone who fully wishes to eliminate completely all the sufferings of others as (he or she would) the sufferings included in his or her own mental continuum is someone of supreme motivation.

This introduces the topic of someone of the advanced or great level of motivation. The mind that wishes all beings to be liberated from suffering is what is defined as “compassion.” The mind with which we wish everybody to have happiness is defined as “love.” The attitude with which we say, “I myself am going to free everybody from suffering and bring them to a state of happiness,” is known as the “exceptional resolve.”  

We may have this exceptional resolve to do this extraordinary thing ourselves; nevertheless, we don’t have the ability to actually do it. Even the arhats of the shravaka and pratyekabuddha classes don’t have the ability to free everybody from their sufferings. If we ask, “Who does have this ability?” it’s no one except the Buddhas. Therefore, we should feel that we must attain this enlightened state of a Buddha. We aren’t wishing to do this for our own pleasure or happiness; we are wishing to be able to attain the enlightened state of a Buddha in order to be able to help free everybody from suffering. This is known as the “enlightening motive of bodhichitta.”  

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