We all have a soft spot, a tender heart, somewhere. That soft spot
is the door to our true essence, intrinsic awareness. It is this naked
tender heart that leads us to enlightenment. If we didn’t already
have it in us, we couldn’t activate it. If we don’t have the
seed we can’t grow the flower.
Mostly our compassion is partial. We have it for our own loved ones
and select groups, but not for every single being. When we generate
it for every being our hearts get huge, this is what is called ‘the
vast attitude’ impartial compassion. Then we have the same compassion
and tolerance for Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews and every other
tradition. We have compassion for spiders, rats, and mosquitoes as well
as our own pet gerbils, ferrets, dogs and cats.
When we have impartial compassion we have it for those who do us harm
and for those who love us, every being! When we generate loving kindness
we activate the tender heart that longs for the happiness of all beings.
The essence of the path to awakening could be summed up in one word
with two parts: ‘changchub’. ‘Chang’ means to clear
or purify the veils that obscure our true nature. These are the veils
that shroud our naturally liberated state, a limitless expanse of luminosity.
The veils are the conflicted emotions of anger, grasping, pride, jealousy,
and ignorance, as well as deluded beliefs about the nature of reality.
They are stains on a perfect mirror. These stains create and are created
by tendencies carried from life to life. The denser our accumulated
stains become, the harder it is to recognize the state of the perfect
mirror, but it is always there. ‘Chub’ means ‘to be endowed
with’ or ‘to develop’. What we develop is our potential,
all the enlightened qualities. We live in a state of trance. We are
conditioned by and addicted to our somnambulant state. Yet we always
have the possibility to develop our innate capacity. Again the perfect
mirror is under the habitual patterns of perceiving and feeling.
So ‘changchub’ is the two-fold process of first clearing,
and then developing our innate capacities. The beginning of the path
is clearing away and the end is discovering and stabilizing the enlightened
state. When all our defects have been cleared, and all enlightened qualities
developed, this is buddhahood.
At the beginning of any practice, we consciously generate the intention
to do our meditation practice in order to awaken for the benefit of
all beings. Setting our intention based on this is the key to awakening.
Without this intention we are operating as normal, confused people who
try to gain happiness for themselves. We utilize the spontaneous feeling
of gentleness as the ground of our lives. Once we can feel it in our
hearts, we can gradually extend it to others, even to challenging people.
Becoming deeply compassionate is the greatest fulfillment of human potential.
This is called Bodhicitta, literally, awakening mind.
Bodhicitta is, on the relative plane, the wish to attain buddhahood
for the sake of all sentient beings, together with the practices to
accomplish this. On the absolute level Bodhicitta is the ultimate nature
of mind, primordial wisdom, understanding the true state of all phenomena.
We can also develop the tender heart by remembering the kindness of
someone else. Appreciating the kindness of others opens our hearts.
Traditionally the example for selfless dedication is our mother. She
gave us her body during gestation, stayed up at night with us in infancy,
fed us when we were helpless, taught us to live and protected us. She
was thinking of our happiness above her own, and was always thinking
of our welfare.
Even if our mothers weren’t perfect, they almost always tried
their best to care for us. At the very least, they gave us the gift
of our body, which is very precious. If thinking of your mother really
doesn’t stimulate a feeling of open heartedness, there may be a
friend, loved one or someone else who opens our hearts. We can begin
by remembering them. Appreciation and gratitude are a key toward generating
the motivation to be like a mother to all beings, and to care for them
with motherly love. I remember one of my Tibetan teachers used to call
everyone he met ‘mother’ and look at everyone with the gaze
of a mother looking at her only child.
Because we have already been born so many infinite times we have had
all beings as our parent at some point. So we think about that and we
spread that gratitude to everyone. Sometimes I try, as a practice, to
treat each person I meet as though they were actually someone who had
been a dedicated mother for me, who gave birth to me and cared for me
lovingly. It’s amazing to see people in the grocery store, gas
station, bank, restaurants in this way. Suddenly they aren’t ‘other’
they are ‘us’. In this way Bodhicitta can spread from a single
access point and become huge, immeasurable, and our hearts can open
and encompass all beings with love.
When we are engaged in this process we make the effort to change our
motivation to serve others, to relieve the suffering of all beings everywhere.
Buddha, Christ, and all the enlightened ones arose from this intention.
If you look at their teachings you will find love and compassion at
the core. The turning away from self-orientation to compassionate response
is the key to turning from suffering to happiness. This deep inner turning
changes the motivation for everything we do and say, and even what we
think. Changing our intention from egocentricity to compassion is the
key to reversing cycles of suffering. We do this with compassion for
ourselves as well as for others. As Shantideva says in his Bodhicharyaavatara:
“Those who wish to overcome the sorrows of their lives,
And put to flight the pain and sufferings of beings,
Those who wish to win great beatitude,
Should never turn their backs on Bodhicitta.”
We are seduced by and addicted to suffering and perpetrate our own
suffering through our actions. Even if we could completely wake up at
this very moment, would we want to? Why do abused women when given the
opportunity to leave, go back to their abusive husbands? Why do abused
children become abusers even though they suffered so much from it? Why
do soldiers coming back from war kill their wives and children? Why
do smokers keep smoking? Why do we get so caught in our fears, our hopes,
our habitual thoughts and judgments, even when we know better? Because
there are karmic pathways, these are not so easy to change. Like the
gullies here at Tara Mandala where the water rushes after a rain storm,
causing more erosion, getting deeper with each storm, these pathways
are predetermined and take great efforts to change. This is grossly
obvious in the case of soldiers taught to kill in war and who are then
unable to stop when they get home. They have developed a pattern, a
habit. It’s subtler to see the patterns of our own selfish delusion
brought from childhood or ingrained tendencies from previous lives.
Whether gross or subtle, the root of all our obscurations is the egoistic
attitude.
To move out of selfishness toward working for the happiness of others
requires effort. We start with glimmers of open heartedness that we
already have. But not everyone can find it that way, because they may
have no reference point from childhood.
I remember a young man who came to Tara Mandala. He was damaged from
a terrible, loveless childhood. We were talking about compassion one
day and he said that he couldn’t conceive of love because he’d
never had it. It was difficult to find a way to begin to open his heart.
Then an occasion arose which provided him with an touchstone to develop
compassion. That summer we had a lot of little rabbits that were around
the land. They weren’t very afraid of people, so you could go right
up to them and watch them eat tender blades of grass under the gambol
oak trees. They were small, furry with little white tails and big soft
ears, terribly cute. One day I saw him looking at a baby bunny with
a soft smile on his face. So then when we met again, when he told me
he couldn’t remember the feeling of love, I suggested he remember
his feeling when looking at the baby rabbit. Then he could use that
as a way to generate compassion for himself and others. So even though
he had no memory of love, he still had the compassionate heart. Everybody
has it, even hardened criminals. We just have to want to begin, to make
that inner turning.
There are stories of great meditators in Tibet, who had such great
compassion they could change even the most ingrained karmic propensities.
For example Milarepa, the great yogi who was known for his melodious
songs of realization, was once meditating in his cave when he heard
a dog barking. He went outside to see what was happening and shortly
a badly frightened deer ran up to him.
Unbearable compassion arose within him and he sang to the deer:
“If escape is what you want,
Hide within mind essence.
If you want to run away,
Flee to the place of bodhi.
There is no other place of safe refuge.
Uprooting all confusion from your mind,
Stay with me here in rest and quiet.
At this very moment the fear of death is full upon you,
You are thinking ‘Safety lies on the far side of the hill;
If I stay here I shall be caught!’
This fear and hope is why you wander in Samsara.”
The deer understood Milarepa, because his compassion was so vast, came
near to him and lay down on his left side. Then a fierce red dog arrived.
Again Milarepa felt great pity, and sang to this dog with compassion.
The dog’s anger subsided and it began to wag its tail and make
whining noises. And then it lay down with the deer.
Before long the hunter appeared, looking haughty and violent. He ran
up carrying a bow and arrow in one hand and a lasso for catching game
in the other. He was furious when he saw his dog and the deer. Screaming
insults about the laziness and corruption of yogis, he shot an arrow
at Milarepa. But the arrow missed. He was shocked because he was a good
shot and was at close range.
Then Milarepa sang to him as well. The hunter’s expression changed,
but he wasn’t convinced. He rushed into the cave and found nothing
but inedible herbs. Suddenly his mind turned and great faith arose in
him.
So with his vast compassion Milarepa was able to change the minds of
all three of these beings who each had different kinds of ingrained
karmic patterns. This ability did not come from intellectual compassion,
but years and years of retreat in mountain caves where he worked on
clearing emotional obscurations and generating ‘the vast attitude.’
This is what is meant by the motivation to benefit all beings. If we
deeply change ourselves we can truly benefit the world.
Even if we only make small steps in the development of a compassionate
mind, it can be important. If before we do something we check our motivation
and then try to develop an altruistic intention drawing on our tender
heart, that will gradually increase it. If we focus on negativity, negativity
will grow. If we focus on the positive, that is what will develop. In
the same way we can develop Bodhicitta. This is the meaning of training
in Bodhicitta. This is called ‘lojyong’, or mind training,
and it is the essence of the Mahayana path.
The Tibetans have a saying, “if the intention is good, then all
levels of the path will be good. If the intention is bad, then all levels
will be bad.” So at every moment we should check up on ourselves,
asking “What is my intention?” Then we can know what the results
will be. We ourselves are the only ones who can know our deep inner
intention and we are the only ones who can generate a change.
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