So now we've reached the third part
of Parting from the Four Attachments.
Looking back on the first two,
we could say that that represents as if it were
the common level of teaching.
Common in the sense that it could be practised
by somebody who's simply following
the path to liberation for themselves,
the Śrāvaka path, as we've called it.
As Atisha calls them,
the person with the mediocre motivation,
of wanting, of seeing suffering in their own life,
of wanting to be liberated from it.
But Atisha says, in Lamp of the Path of Enlightenment,
that the great motivation is possessed by the person
who wishes to achieve Buddhahood
for the benefit of all beings.
Because they've seen suffering in their own life
and they understand it effects all beings.
So the two higher parts, the two last parts,
of Parting from the Four Attachments are aligned with that.
They are for the, so called, the greater person,
the person with this greater motivation.
So here, if your like begins at explicitly Mahayana part
of the Parting from the Four Attachments.
Because the third attachment remember,
that Manjusri refered to, in his original teaching
to Sachen Kunga Nyingpo, was expressed in this way:
'If you have attachment to your own benefit,
or your own welfare, you don't have Bodhicitta.
And Bodhicitta of course means that very resolve,
that very intention to achieve Buddhahood precisely
because you are motivated by the wish
to bring about, to finding means to
bring about the end of the suffering,
afflicting all beings.
Not just your own, but all beings.
Not just that you wish them to achieve this freedom for suffering
but you're going to assist in that
by fulfilling your potential to be a Buddha.
So Bodhicitta is two fold in that way:
it embraces the sufferings of others and concludes
that Buddhahood is the answer to the suffering of others.
Now if you are only thinking of your own welfare,
in a sense of, I suffer therefore I must follow the path
to end my own suffering, you don't have it,
there is no room in your mind for Bodhicitta.
So it's like this is the kind of decisive dividing point,
between the Śrāvaka system and the Mahayana system.
Now, this is not a sectarian point
because for many people, it's just a progress
from one stage to the other.
The Śrāvaka enters into the Mahayana,
whenever he or she generates this understanding,
'I must achieve the way, must achieve the level
from which I can benefit all beings', and that's Buddhahood.
But how do we overcome that attachment
to our own benefit, to our own welfare?
How do we break through that more subtle obscuration?
Because we've been through two traps of,
we've cut through two traps, attachment to this life,
attachment to a good rebirth.
Now we have a more subtle trap,
the privileging one's own spiritual liberation
above the liberation of others.
That's the trap.
How do we cut through that?
In short, the answer is Bodhicitta,
but it takes a lot for that sense
of universal responsibility to arise.
So generally the way it's taught
in the Parting from the Four Attachment system,
is that we cultivate it in three steps:
loving-kindness, compassion, and then, Bodhicitta itself.
Because loving-kindness and compassion are like
the catalysts that create the right,
as it were, opening in one's heart,
so that one realises that it's others who really matter,
other suffering that I must be concerned with.
If one starts as it were where one's normally at,
it's one's own sufferings, one's own happiness
which is preeminent, which is a driver for oneself.
But when meditating loving-kindness, something happens.
One begins to be aware of others.
What is loving-kindness in Buddhism?
Loving-kindness is the wish, 'May all beings have happiness
and the cause of happiness'. And notice it's all beings.
Because everybody has some love,
to at least a few favourite people,
but here we mean universal love.
So it's limitless, it involves all beings,
and it's not temporary, it's forever.
That's the meaning, that's the love we want to develop.
And how do we get to that?
Actually we get to it through gratitude.
Gratitude to others is the
as it were the key to having loving-kindness for them.
Well, I have gratitude for a few people,
but actually I should have gratitude for all people,
because everybody's done something for me.
Since Samsara is beginningless there is not one person,
who has not helped one in previous lives.
Most importantly in fact they've all been one's parents.
Of course I cannot remember that.
The stream of lives is beginningless
so how could I remember?
But nevertheless it's so.
So I have to take from my present parents,
to whom I do have sense of general of gratitude,
and do wish them to have happiness,
and the causes of happiness,
I take from that and apply it to all beings.
Until I feel with all beings,
'May they have happiness right now in their body and mind,
and may them have the causes of future happiness,'
in other words, may they practice virtue.
And that's very joyful.
And when that's happening in one's heart,
compassion is possible, because compassion is tougher.
Compassion demands one look at beings
when they're suffering, not when they are happy,
but when they are suffering.
And my sense of
self-clinging is strong enough
to make me fearful of that.
I fear I may be contaminated, I may catch the suffering.
So I have to be strong and positive and joyful
in my heart to engage with compassion.
And love will have made me that,
because love brings about joy.
So compassion proceeds the same way,
out of a sense of gratitude for others,
all that they've done for one,
beginning with one's parents, close people,
right to all beings.
They've all been a source of selfless support
at one time or another for oneself in previous lives.
So how, when I see them inflicted by sufferings now,
and the sufferings that will follow from there,
ignorant and non-virtuous actions,
how can I feel otherwise than that: 'May they be free
from that suffering, and causes of the suffering'.
Now, my life is...
different now, when I have
this loving-kindness and compassion,
because other beings have come alive to me in intensity,
I feel their presence.
Their wishes, their hopes, their fears are
colourful and vivid to me, impinge upon me.
And therefore, that drives me to think, to ask myself,
how can I place them in happiness,
how can I free them from suffering?
I am kind of pretty feeble, I'm ignorant,
I'm afflicted by my own prejudices, my own inabilities,
because of my disturbing emotions and ignorance and so on.
But there is a possibility:
I have the potential for true wisdom
that could respond accurately to the sufferings of others,
and diagnose a cure.
I have the potential for true compassion
which can embrace others impartially with concern.
And I have the potential for effective action,
for powerful action.
I have those potentials, they are Buddhahood.
I must therefore achieve that.
Similarly to somebody who as a child
cares for the physical sufferings of others,
it is often motivated to become a doctor.
Similarly, motivated by concern
for all the types of suffering that beings have,
one generates this resolve to become a buddha,
in a way to dispense the ultimate medicine of the Dharma,
to cure the sufferings of all beings.
So Bodhicitta arises in this way,
through the catalyst of love and compassion to Bodhicitta,
that very aspiration,
'I will become a Buddha to benefit all beings.'
As Santideva describes it,
that thought rise in one's mind is like
a flash of lightening in the dark night.
It's like, he says it's like an alchemy
that changes our human life into a wish-fulfilling gem.
Whoever this has arisen in,
this thought has arisen in, is transformed by it.
Even though they're still a beginner in everyway,
apart from this, they are different,
because that thought is now
the animating spirit of their life.
So Bodhicitta arises: aspiration to become a Buddha for others
and the application to practise the path.
How do I keep that alive?
So how do I keep that aspiration alive,
how do I forge forward in the Mahayana,
the great vehicle path to Buddhahood?
Because the habits of self-clinging, of fearfulness,
of self-protection, and so on, are so strong.
They can overwhelm that little flame
of Bodhicitta very easily, they can blow it out.
So I need to really train to preserve that space
for that flame to grow within me.
And therefore, in the Zhenpa Zhidral teachings,
we say the best way is to train in the equalising
and exchanging of oneself with others.
Most importantly, exchanging oneself for others.
What does this mean?
Well, Santideva says whoever wishes
to achieve Buddhahood has to practise
this supreme secret of exchanging oneself for anothers.
Essentially what it means is that, actually
the very thought, 'here am I with my happiness
and my fear of suffering,
and they are there', it's just a projection,
just an interpretation,
just a linguistic and conceptual designation.
What makes this self from the other?
A habit, I can undermine that habit,
I can weaken that habit,
and therefore create the space for real Bodhicitta
to grow, by thinking 'well, others are as important as me,
so why should I privilege this?'
Or even, to put the balance right,
to get until I really understand the equality of myself and others,
to train in taking others as myself,
and thinking firstly of their happiness
and firstly of how to free them from suffering,
and taking this as the other, this present self as other,
and the seeming others as myself.
To put it in a very simple terms,
to walk in the shoes of others, rather than one's own shoes,
to see things through their eyes,
and therefore, to privilege them above oneself.
And this is a really radical way
to dismantle self centeredness, and self-clinging.
Does it mean one should be a doormat to others?
No,
because to really embrace the needs of others,
doesn't mean to give them the space
to be continually abusing oneself or others,
but it means thinking what is best for others, truly best.
What is best for their real happiness
and their real freedom from suffering.
So if one understands that, then we'll always be equipped
with the most appropriate way to benefit others.
One can sum up this whole wonderful teaching
of exchanging self for others,
in the practice of sending and taking,
which means that one should train in meditation,
when one's mind is relaxed enough and wholesome enough
through loving-kindness and compassion,
to take imaginatively the sufferings
and causes of those sufferings that afflict others,
into one-self, and in return, give them one's own happiness,
send one's own happiness and causes of happiness.
One might think, 'oh, well I will be afflicted by their suffering,
I will become poisoned by their non-virtue'. Not at all,
because suffering can only arise through self-clinging,
and in this very practice of opening out to others
one is abolishing one's own self-clinging.
So only joy, only happiness will arise
through this practice of sending and taking.
And it is a supreme means
of guarding and strengthening one's Bodhicitta.
So that is the way we train in, and the antidote
to the self-centredness of being only concerned
with one's own benefit, the third of the four attachments.