Initial Level Motivation

Initial level motivation

The Three Levels of Motivation for Real Thing Dharma

The lam-rim presents three levels of motivation:

  • Initial level – we think in terms of ensuring that we have one of the better types of rebirths, not just in our next lifetime, but in all future lifetimes.
  • Intermediate level – our motivation is to gain total liberation from uncontrollably recurring rebirth; we want to become liberated.
  • Advanced level – we aim to reach the state of a fully enlightened Buddha, in order to help everyone else also become free of uncontrollably recurring rebirth.

It’s quite obvious that each of the levels is based on the assumption of rebirth. Still, as we discussed earlier, each of the methods that’s presented in the material for these three levels can be applied on the Dharma-Lite level as well. These motivations are not something we should trivialize, because they’re really quite remarkable if we can develop them in a sincere way.

Top