Entering the Middle Way, 28 February 1991, part 2

So it is it is limited in the sense that it is lesser. It is lesser in the sense that it seeks only one’s own individual happiness, the elimination of one’s own suffering, and the attainment of one’s own liberation for oneself alone. This is its intention, and this is what it’s striving for. It does not regard the sufferings of others, and therefore its intentions are very limited, and the practices to achieve this are limited, and therefore this result is said to be limited, and is thereby therefore referred to as a lesser vehicle. Vehicle or the Mahāyāna has extremely vast intention, and because of this, the practitioner engages in vast actions or activities, and out of this arises vast results.

So, why is the intention seen to be so vast? The intention is the motivation of the awakening heart. That is, that that one seeks to free from suffering all sentient beings including oneself. Sentient beings equal in number to space, and one actually holds others more dear than oneself. One wishes to free all sentient beings, there is not one sentient being which is excluded from this intention, to free them from all of their suffering and to lead them to complete happiness.

And in order to achieve that I must attain Buddhahood. And this intention is said to be equal to space. Why? Because its intention is to free beings which are equal to space, and therefore the vastness of the intention is measured by the object to which it is intended to be free. It is that the intention is vast as and there’s there’s no more vast intention which one can develop.

So because the intention is to bring about the welfare of all sentient beings, and therefore the intention is so vast, then the activities which arise out of this intention are also vast. And these intentions include the practice of the six perfections, the four ways of cultivating the minds of disciples, and gaining the realizations of emptiness, cultivating the 10 grounds and the five paths. One collects three, collects positive potential over three countless eons to achieve this end so that the activities are extremely vast. So, you know, for those who speaking of the vastness of the activities, for those who studied the ornament clear realization, there was the training in the aspect of complete training in which there were 173 aspects which are to be trained in, and these included, for example, the four of four close placements of mindfulness, etcetera. And this is a very extremely vast area of training to go through, and extremely vast positive potential to be gained.

And since out of this great vastness of activities that it’s engaged in arises a vast result, and that is the having one brings about the ultimate welfare of both oneself and others. One brings about the elimination of all of one’s own faults and the bringing and the gaining all of qualities. So the great vehicle or the Mahāyāna is great because it has it possesses a vast intention, vast activities, and vast result. Even even in term in worldly terms, there are those who have extremely small vision and small scope. And of this, of this scope, mental scope of this they engage in minor types of activities and they achieve minor results.

But there are those who have middling types of scopes and out of this they engage in middling types of work and achieve middling types of results. But there are those who have extensive visions, very vast vision, and out of this they engage in vast activities around the world. They span the continents including Russia, and America, and Australia building up vast results out of all of this. And then there are those with no intention whatsoever. And they there’s no activity nor no result.

So the great vehicle is an extremely, the practitioner of the great vehicle has an extremely vast intention. This is the intention of the awakening heart. You know if we were to question, well how do we determine whether there exists the great vehicle or not? It’s not in terms of whether it’s a particular monastery, whether it’s a particular place, they have particular kinds of special articles, it’s whether or not there is an awakening heart. This is the determining factor.

So, from where does the awakening heart arise? For those of high intelligence it arises out of wisdom realizing emptiness. And, and this has arisen as a result of the compassion of exceptional resolve. If there is, therefore, if there is compassion then out of this will come the awakening heart. So, you know, we’ve discussed the importance of compassion and the mode of meditation as set forth in entering into the middle way.

And this is an excellent method for this development. Cultivate compassion, and if we don’t meditate compassion, will not, awakening heart will not arise. There’s no other way than the cultivation of compassion to bring about the awakening heart no matter what else we might do, whether we meditate on various meditation deities or some recite mantras, there is no other way than to cultivate compassion in order to develop a awakening heart. If we were to say, well, you know, to become a great vehicle practitioner, all I have to do is develop the awakening heart. Isn’t that sufficient?

I just meditate on the awakening heart. Well, that’s not sufficient because we are seeking to attain Buddhahood, and the obstacle to the attainment of Buddhahood is the abandonment of grasping at true existence. The awakening heart by itself cannot abandon, cannot rid us of the obstacle to Buddhahood, which is the grasping of true existence. Only the wisdom realizing emptiness can remove the obstacle to Buddhahood when it’s assisted by the awakening heart. So it’s necessary to cultivate these two together, the awakening heart and the wisdom realizing emptiness.

So, the, in progressing along the path, the, the one carries out the meditation motivated by the awakening heart, and then the actual subject of meditation is the gaining realization of emptiness. So, So within the the lesser vehicle, the practitioners meditate on emptiness. One cannot attain liberation without gaining the realization of emptiness. So it’s necessary that they meditate on emptiness, but the motivation for their meditation on emptiness lacks the awakening heart, and therefore out of their meditation cannot arise Buddhahood. It is only by the power of the motivation of the awakening heart that the realization of emptiness can serve as a means to attain Buddhahood.

The vehicle practitioner uses the motivation of the great vehicle and in combination with his realization of emptiness to achieve Buddhahood. Those of a lesser vehicle without this motivation, though they realize emptiness, can achieve liberation. So from from where is the bodhisattva born? The bodhisattva is born from the compassion of exceptional resolve and the wisdom realizing emptiness. Out of these two factors arises the nominal awakening heart.

Is a nominal awakening heart exists before one actually enters into the great vehicle path, before one enters into it. Out of this nominal awakened heart arises the fully qualified awakened heart, and simultaneous with the development of fully qualified awakened heart, one enters into the path and becomes a Bodhisattva. This is one is a simultaneous. When we were discussing the ornament the teaching on the Ornament for Clear Realization, as as we were taught then, there are five paths within the great vehicle. There’s the path of accumulation, path of preparation, the path of seeing, the path of meditation, and the path of no more learning. Having developed a fully qualified awakening heart, one enters into the first of these five paths, the path of accumulation.

And what is cultivated cultivated at at the the level of the path of accumulation is the awakening heart, compassion, and the wisdom realizing emptiness, these three factors. And again, on the second path, these three factors are again cultivated. During this period, one is simply what is called an ordinary bodhisattva. Also, the during the paths of accumulation and preparation, the bodhisattva is practicing the perfections of ethics, generosity, ethics, tolerance, joyous effort, meditative stabilization, and wisdom. So the main practices of the bodhisattva on the path of accumulation and preparation are these three factors of the awakening heart, compassion, and the realization of emptiness, and in addition to the six perfections.

So during during this this training of along the paths of accumulation and preparation, the bodhisattva gains a realization of emptiness, but it is not a direct realization of emptiness. When he or she finally gains a direct realization of emptiness, they attain the third of the five paths of path of seeing. So we’re going to stop there for today if you have any questions. It’s not necessary that you have questions. So, this procedure of development of becoming a bodhisattva was in accordance with the procedure of the individual practitioner of sharp intelligence or high intelligence.

First, developing the compassion of exceptional resolve, then moving on to the wisdom realizing emptiness, and out of this developing the awakening heart, or a nominal awakening heart, and becoming a nominal bodhisattva, and then going on to become a fully qualified bodhisattva. This is procedure of those of high intelligence. But there is a second type of practitioner who isn’t quite so sharp. Middling intelligence.. And the procedure for such a type of practitioner is again, they would develop compassion just as in the other, in the first type.

But here there is a difference. They would go on to in dependence upon compassion to develop a nominal awakening heart. And then they would meditate, they would meditate on gaining the wisdom realizing emptiness. And then after that they would become a bodhisattva. So there a changing of placement of the practice of the development of the nominal awakening heart and wisdom, understanding, emptiness.

These are exchanged places. There’s analogy in differentiating these two types of practitioners. Analogy would be that people go about working in different ways. One individual when they realize, they understand well I have to do this work. They come to this conclusion.

This job needs to be done. But then they would go on and say, well, know, it needs to be done but can I actually do it? Can I actually, if I begin it, can I complete the job? Do I have that ability? And so then they examine as to whether they have the ability to complete the job or not.

And then when they come to understand, you know, I can. I have that ability to complete the job. Then they determine I will do the job. The second type of person who isn’t quite as intelligent. He hears about this wonderful work that all this profit can be gained out of it if you do this job.

It’s really wonderful what’s gonna come out of this job if you do it. And without even bothering to examine whether he can do it or not, he just goes right ahead and starts out. So So this individual doesn’t bother to examine before he starts whether he’s actually able to do the job or not. He’s just so enthusiastic he just dives right in. And if it turns out he actually can’t do the work necessary, then he’s going to have a lot of troubles, a lot of difficulties.

And this is why this is the procedure of a person of lesser intelligence. Second type of worker over into the context, you know, the analogy, then this practitioner has first developed compassion, and then they understand, someone explains to them the great benefits of developing an awakening heart. How wonderful it would be if they were to develop an awakening heart, and they get very enthusiastic about it. And so they dive right in to trying to develop an awakening heart. Such an individual, they be though they have a vast intention when they begin to understand the vast activities necessary to achieve, they think, oh, I’ve made a big mistake.

I I shouldn’t have done this. Persevering nonetheless, they finally do develop an awakening heart, and then having developed awakening heart then they have to examine, well I want to attain Buddha, now what do I have to do to attain Buddhahood? And then they have to examine as to what are the obstacles to Buddhahood and whether they actually have the ability to remove these obstacles, and then they see that they do and they see what the wisdom that understanding emptiness is that which removes the obstacles to Buddhahood, and then they go on to meditate the wisdom, understanding, and emptiness. So we’ll stop there. Today, there was brought about a ceasefire in the Gulf War.

And in the course of this war, there’s been many problems, many troubles. Many people have been hurt, many people have been killed. There’s been a great deal of suffering and so we should make prayers that those individuals who died may be reborn and have a human life. Those who are hurt you know may they get better and the suffering countries, may they have peace.