Sun Radiance: Thought Transformation, 15 August 1989, part 1

So we should initially adjust our motivation such that we’re going to listen to this profound teaching on the great vehicle with the precious attitude of the awakening heart. That is to say that the aspiration to achieve highest perfect complete Buddhahood in order to establish all sentient beings equal to space and complete and perfect bliss and happiness. So from a text by Nāgārjuna entitled Precious Garland, there is a verse which goes, If oneself in the world wishes to attain peerless enlightenment, its foundation is the awakening heart, firm as Mount Meru, the king of mountains. So the meaning of this verse is that I refers to ourselves and the world refers to all other sentient beings. If in fact, that is to say whoever wishes to achieve the precious state of Buddhahood must generate the cause, and the cause of Buddhahood is the foundation of the precious awakening heart.

The root of Buddhahood is the awakening mind and the awakening heart. So in order to attain Buddhahood we have to have a method, we have to create the cause. Just as in the case of growing a sprout, we have to have the seed. And the seed, the cause, the method for attaining Buddhahood is the awakening heart. So the precious awakening heart, if we practice it, the results will only be Buddhahood.

It’s a unique uncommon cause of Buddhahood. By practicing the awakening heart we are not going to achieve other types of results such as the hearer’s enlightenment or the solitary realizer’s enlightenment, but in fact we will only achieve Buddhahood. It says in the case we’re traveling up a large great highway that we can’t go wrong. This path is very straight, it’s direct, it’s a firm path, and we cannot take any wrong turns by following this great vast highway. And this great vast highway of the awakened heart will take us directly to Buddhahood.

in dependence upon the development, the generation of the awakening heart, all the great qualities, the excellent qualities of the great vehicle will arise as if by themselves and all our very afflictive emotions, all our faults will be eliminated. If we were to put into practice the awakening heart, then there is nothing more that we can do within this life. There’s nothing greater. There’s no greater meaning that we can find in this life than to practice the awakening heart. That we are taking the essence of the Dharma, that we have broad meaning, fulfill the purpose of having attain a precious human life.

So we have finished the preliminary discussions which led up to the actual practice, and the actual practice is the generation of the awakening heart. There are two types of awakening heart and I’m just by way of There’s two types of awakening mind or bodhicitta, conventional and ultimate. And I’m going to translate the conventional awakening mind as awakening heart and the ultimate bodhicitta or awakening mind as awakening mind. Awakening mind is ultimate, awakening heart is conventional. That’s my translation.

So initially we are going to discuss the awakening heart and then following that explanation will come the explanation of the awakening mind. So for the time being we will not explain the awakening mind, but we’re going to presently explain the awakening heart. So the definition of awakening heart is presented in the Ornament for Clear Realization. The two lines of the verse literally say, The desire for perfect complete enlightenment mind generation. The first line is Okay, first I’ll translate the two lines literally, and then we’ll explain.

Mind generation, colon, for the benefit of others, perfect complete, the desire for perfect complete enlightenment. That’s the definition. What this means is that it is a special mind which seeks to separate all sentient beings from suffering by one’s own attainment of Buddhahood. The special mind which seeks to separate all sentient beings from suffering and to establish them in a peerless happiness by one’s own attainment of Buddhahood. You understand?

Yeah. So it’s an extremely special or powerful desire to attain for oneself to attain Buddhahood so as to separate all others from their suffering and to bring them to establish them in complete happiness. We’re seeking to develop this longing to establish all sentient beings in complete happiness and to separate them from their suffering. We understand that if we attain Buddhahood then we will be able to separate all sentient beings from their suffering and to establish them in Buddhahood, in complete happiness. If we attain Buddhahood then we’re going to develop this ability, this power.

So this longing, this aspiration to achieve Buddhahood in order to bring this about is an extremely powerful mind. No more sublime. There’s no more sublime mind than this, this aspiration to achieve Buddhahood in order to separate all sentient beings from their suffering and to establish them in complete happiness. Than this, above this there’s no other more sublime, greater, more excellent mind. If we develop again and again, generate again and again this kind heart, again and again generating this kind heart, we will eventually develop the awakening heart.

Having developed this awakening heart, we are a practitioner of the great vehicle. If we do not have the awakening heart, we are not a practitioner of the great vehicle. This awakening heart is the determinant as to whether one is a practitioner of the great vehicle or not. If one possesses the awakening heart, one is a practitioner of the great vehicle. If one possessed the awakening heart previously and does not presently possess it, one is not a practitioner of the great vehicle.

If one has never generated the awakening heart, one is not a practitioner of the great vehicle. The awakening heart is the entrance way into the great vehicle. Just as in the case of a Buddha House, the door in the front, there is a door seal. Do you call it a door seal? Door step?

Okay. A door step. There’s the door and then there’s a door step. If one is on this side of the door step, one is in Buddha House. If one is on that side of the door step, one is outside of Buddha House.

Likewise, the door step of the great vehicle is the awakening heart. If one has the great awakening heart, one is within the great vehicle. If one does not have the awakening heart, one is outside of the great vehicle. So the determinant as to whether one is a great vehicle practitioner or not is the presence or the absence of the awakening heart. Within the great vehicle there are the two vehicles of the perfection vehicle and the mantra vehicle, and the entranceway into both of these vehicles is the awakening heart.

So in order to enter into the great vehicle in general and within the two vehicles that are subsumed within the great vehicle, the perfection vehicle and the mantra vehicle, the only entrance way is the awakening heart. So a verse from the conqueror’s son Śāntideva, where he says, The instant one develops an awakening heart, those bound in the prison of cyclic existence are called the offspring of those gone to bliss. So any being can generate the awakening heart in all the various types of migrators, whether they’re hell beings, animals, gods, that any migrator can generate the awakening heart. The instant immediately following having generated an awakening heart, that is to say the second instant, one has become the offspring of the victor. That is, one has become the son or the daughter of the Buddha, yet they have become a bodhisattva, and they are worthy of prostration and offerings.

So we’re discussing now the benefits of developing an awakening heart. As the son of the Victor, Śāntideva, says that today I have been born into the family of the Buddhas and have become an offspring of them. By generating the awakening heart, developing the awakening heart, one is born into the family of the Buddhas. One becomes an offspring of the Buddhas, a son or daughter of the Buddhas, and one one is given the name of the bodhisattva. So the precious awakening heart is compared to a diamond.

That though gold may be very valuable, it’s extremely precious when crafted and made into various types of ornaments, still a diamond which is flawless is more valuable. And not only that, but even if we were to take a fragment of that diamond, just a fragment of that diamond, it still does not lose the name of being a diamond and its precious quality of being a diamond. That it’s still even a fragment of a diamond, we can make use of it for whatever purpose we like. We could, for example, if we desired we could purchase food, clothing and such things with it. It’s still even a fragment of a diamond still retains its name and value.

In this analogy of gold and diamond, the awakening heart is being compared to a diamond and the golden ornaments are being compared to such great realizations as the understanding of emptiness, compassion, understanding of selflessness, and such things as this. But it is as if the diamond beautifies any object to which it is added. A golden ornament which is encrusted with diamond becomes even supremely precious. The diamond has that ability, that power to be added to anything and beautify it, to enrich it. So, Vajrapāni, the great master of secret mantra, in discussing the qualities of secret mantra, it is by its very name secret.

It is not to be explained to many, it’s not to be explained to all the various types of people. But in fact it is to be only explained to those who have an awakening heart, that the source of the secret mantra itself, which is very precious, is the awakening heart and therefore those who have an awakening heart are suitable to receive the explanation of secret mantra. Also the awakening heart is compared to the earth. This is in the case of the ground, the earth, from which all crops can grow. It has that quality.

And likewise, the awakening heart, from the awakening heart acting as the ground from which all of the qualities of the great vehicle arise. Also, the ground is very stable and with the support of the awakening heart, it’s the awakening heart which supports, stabilizes all of the excellent qualities of the great vehicle. It is able to eliminate all the afflictive emotions. The benefits of the awakening heart are unimaginable. They are too vast even to be enumerated.

But if we were just to list them extremely briefly, If we have awakening heart then we have the source of all excellent qualities within us. It will eliminate all our negativities, that by its means we will attain Buddhahood and be able to bring about the welfare of all sentient beings. Within the world there are a variety of beings who have attained a human life, and the human life is extremely precious and valuable. And amongst the various types of human beings there is a great variety. There are those who are quite intelligent, those who have various types of clarity, various types of stability within their minds, are various qualities of minds within the various varieties and types of human beings.

Not only have we these qualities of the human mind, but we have come to understand the Dharma. Now within the world again there are a variety of types of Dharma of spiritual practices. But we have the great fortune to have come in contact with the Buddhadharma, and within the Buddhadharma there is the Dharma of Sūtra and of Tantra, whereby in the case of the latter that we can attain Buddhahood in this very single life, in this very life itself. And so this should understanding the golden opportunity which has been presented to us. We should in coming to an understanding of this generate a great joy, a great happiness in what we’ve found.

And that we must understand very deeply the preciousness of what we have in our human life. We have the opportunity to practice the Dharma, the spiritual path. We have a preponderance of conducive conditions and a lack, insignificant number of contradictory conditions to our practices. We have companions who can help us in our practice. We have the precious Dharma.

We have the teacher who can show us the Dharma, that is the lama. And we have the Buddhadharma of both sūtra and tantra. And so having these all together, all of these conditions aggregated, coming together like this, we should think it is as if all our prayers of previous lives have been answered in this one moment, in this one life, and we should generate a great joy at seeing the precious opportunity that we now have, that we now possess. There are, you know, extremely few people in the world who have this opportunity to practice, to generate an awakening heart. The awakening heart is the essence of all the teachings of the conquerors, that is the Buddhas.

You know this is the term is a golden age, precious opportunity. We have to cultivate an awakening heart. Is the method by which we can attain Buddhahood. However much we can use each day, each minute, we have to make that much use of our time. That we have to understand the changeable nature of our life, the impermanence, that all of these various factors, these conducive factors which allow us this opportunity are constantly changing moment by moment.

Sometimes the teaching isn’t present, sometimes we don’t have the time that we won’t have the opportunity, it’s not going to last forever. And so to make use while we have these conducive conditions to develop, to cultivate an awakening mind. We have to cultivate it in order to attain its benefit. No matter how precious an awakening heart is, if we don’t cultivate it it’s as if it doesn’t exist for us. We won’t achieve its result.

It’s as if we had this delicious food and we didn’t eat it and we die with an empty stomach. What was the use? So we have this precious opportunity, all the conducive conditions, and to realize this precious fruit by developing, cultivating an awakening heart. This precious awakening heart, which is the most excellent quality of the great vehicle, it is something that we simply cannot buy. In the world there’s nowhere we can purchase it.

Not only that, there’s no one who can give it to us. And not only that, no matter how wonderful we might think it is, simply thinking how wonderful it is will not generate it for us. We actually have to develop it. We actually have to cultivate it. We have to practice.

So gradually we can develop it within ourselves. We have to make effort, we have to cultivate it, we actually have to practice to bring it about, to actually develop it within ourselves. The awakening heart is the cause of Buddhahood. And what is the unique cause for the development of an awakening heart? An awakening heart depends upon the development of compassion.

So compassion is the preliminary or the prerequisite for the eventual development of the awakening heart. And what is the unique cause for developing compassion? It is the affectionate love or sometimes called pleasant love. Affectionate love is looking at all sentient beings as being pleasant, perhaps pleasant love. Sentient beings appear to you in a pleasant manner, very pleasing, affectionate, affection for all sentient beings.

How are we to develop affectionate love? There are two traditions by which we can develop affectionate love. There’s the tradition of Atisha and Candrakīrti, which is the sevenfold cause and effect instruction, in which we first recognize all sentient beings as our mother, remember their kindness, seek to repay their kindness as a prerequisite, as a preliminary to developing affectionate love. Then there is the tradition of