Sun Radiance: Thought Transformation, 10 April 1990, part 2

So in terms of the the fifth fifth section, beginning to reorientate ourselves away from other and to mainly concern ourselves with others and committing ourselves to practice in accordance with this. But having made this commitment, then what are we to do in actual fact? If we simply leave it at having that we make this determination, if we don’t do anything else, then this is of no benefit. What we mean by committing ourselves to concerning ourselves with others mainly is that we should begin to concern ourselves with bringing others happiness and eliminating their suffering. So in actually bringing about the happiness of others eliminating their suffering it’s necessary for us to develop the intention to do such that we have to in our practice cultivate the mind which seeks to eliminate others suffering, which seeks to bring others happiness and develop a very powerful intention.

Without this prerequisite of intention to eliminate others suffering, to bring them happiness, then there will be no actual action to follow on from that. There will be in fact no expression of that in activities in bringing about others happiness, eliminating them suffering. So first we have to develop a very powerful mind which is the intention to do these. An analogy would be simply if we had a very strong intention to drink orange juice, then we would, having that strong intention it would naturally follow that we would involve ourselves in the activity of drinking orange juice. Likewise, having the strong, powerful intention to eliminate other suffering then following from this we will engage in actual activities which eliminate other’s suffering.

Likewise, developing the powerful intention to bring others happiness following out, flowing from out of this is the actual activities which bring others happiness. Without these two minds seeking to eliminate suffering, to eliminate suffering, intending to bring happiness, there will be no actual activity to, we will never engage in actual activities that bring happiness and eliminating suffering. No minds, no act no action. So the development of these two powerful attitudes, the intention to eliminate suffering, we term compassion or caring. The intention to bring happiness, we are calling love.

And as the means for the development of our present slight love and compassion to increase its force, we engage in the practice of taking and giving. And as it says that we are to take in the root text that we are to take and give alternatively. So we begin the the alternative taking given by taking on ourselves. And this is taking on with caring or that is to say compassionately taking on. And this is the thought, may I take on the suffering and the causes of suffering of all sentient beings.

And we take on ourselves suffering in three steps. The first step, take on the sufferings of the sentient beings. In the second, we take on their causes of suffering, which are unskillful actions. And in the third step, we take on the root of suffering, which is the afflicted emotions and the knowledge obstructions. So having taken on all the undesired sufferings of others, then we give away all our desired happiness.

And this is in the form of sending. First we send our body, a complete healthy body. And then we give away, we send all our enjoyments which brings bring all our all our possessions bringing complete happiness, all our possessions. Thirdly, we send away all our skillful actions. Additionally, we send the lama, the spiritual teachers to teach them to provide those companions to assist the sentient beings in their practice, or we provide all the conducive conditions to carry on their practice.

And by these means they’re able to eliminate all their faults and achieve all their excellent qualities and thereby achieve Buddhahood. And we imagine that they have actually achieved Buddhahood. Then we, as it is said, this giving and taking is then mounted on the breath, and the practice is then done in association with the exhalation and inhalation. In the inhalation we take on the sufferings of the sentient beings, we take on their causes of their suffering, and we take on their afflictive emotions and knowledge obstructions. In exhaling we give away a complete healthy body, we give away a complete happiness of enjoyments and objects of enjoyments in our possessions and we give away a complete all skillful actions.

And then we not only bring this complete happiness to the sentient beings, we then go on to take on the polluted environment onto ourselves and sending by me giving away an environment which is a pure environment. And then now the environment and the sentient beings are completely pure and we then observing this, we abide joyfully having completed our work. So we have meditated in this way observing observing all sentient beings and in our imaginative practice placing them all in Buddhahood. But in fact, when we ceased our meditation we understand that we have not achieved our end. That this is simply was a matter of mind training.

It was merely imagination that in fact all sentient beings have not been separated from their suffering nor have they all been established in complete happiness. And developing the courageous mind of exceptional resolve which thinks which that I alone will bring all sentient beings happiness and eliminate all of this suffering. So this is the sixth section on the exceptional resolve. So, you know, we’ve we’ve developed this extremely courageous thought that I alone will establish all sentient beings and have complete happiness eliminate their suffering. But this is simply this is this is but we have to go on and actually investigate.

Do I or don’t I not have the ability to bring this about in fact? You know reflecting upon our actual situation. And in doing that we will see that I don’t even what to say of I don’t even have the ability of separating one sentient being from all their suffering and bringing them complete happiness. What to say of all sentient beings? Up to this point, we have simply developed an extremely kind heart.

But now we begin to look around. Our kindness we are seeking, we have developed the intention to bring others happiness and to eliminate their suffering completely. And looking about us, about if not only that we do not have the ability but questioning who in fact does. And we look at the hearers and the solitary realizers and even the Bodhisattvas and we question, can they bring about the complete welfare of sentient beings? Can they bring sentient beings their final ultimate happiness?

And we see even these great beings such as hearers, solitary realizers, and Bodhisattvas cannot even do this. And who can? Only a Buddha is able to bring the ultimate welfare of sentient beings. Bring about the ultimate welfare of sentient beings. And and how do they do this?

Would just to enumerate a few. Simply one word taught by a Buddha has the ability to liberate hundreds, thousands of sentient beings. Just one ray of the light shown from a Buddha’s body has the ability to liberate hundreds, thousands of sentient beings. And it is only a Buddha who has this capacity. So considering this, you know, what am I to do?

I I have this this kind hearted desire, this and not only that, this courageous made this courageous resolve. And therefore, understanding that it is only a Buddha who can bring about the complete happiness of sent sentient beings and to bring to eliminate all their suffering, one develops the courageous determination that I myself, for the sake of bringing complete happiness to sentient beings and eliminating their suffering, will achieve Buddhahood. That making this commitment, accepting this burden upon oneself, this is what we have to do first. And this thought, this courageous resolve to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings is the mind of the awakening heart. So in the text Ornament for Clear Realization, it gives a definition of mind generation, which is synonymous with awakening heart.

And it says mind generation, the wish to achieve perfect complete enlightenment for the welfare of sentient beings. And the welfare of sentient beings is in, it means the bringing of complete happiness and elimination of all their suffering. You know, through transforming our mind. The awakening heart is a transformation of our own mind. If we simply say the words, I will achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, coming from our mouth, we are never going to realize the awakening heart.

What has to be changed is the entity of our own minds. This is what is transformed. If we don’t transform our mind into the awakening heart, we will never realize the awakening heart. How are we to go about bringing this transformation? Bring how are we to go about bringing this transformation?

If we use an analogy that when we boil water, first the water is cold if you were to spill some of the water on your hand, it was all that’s it would feel cold to you. That’s it’s original nature, it’s cold. And then we have we plug in the kettle and it begins to heat up. Initially the heat and the cold water are two different entities. But slowly, they become an inseparable entity.

The the nature of the water is transformed. It becomes inseparable from the nature of the heat, and it begins to boil. Then the nature of the water is transformed and becomes in separable with the nature of the heat, and they become indivisibly one, boiling water. Likewise, with respect to our mind, that we have to transform the nature of our mind to make it inseparable from the awakening heart. If the awakening heart is simply words from our mouth, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings, we will attain and we will develop an awakening heart in our mouth only.

We will not develop it, the real awakening heart, which is an entity of our mind. So initially this is quite difficult. We have to make a lot of effort. We have to meditate again and again, try to transform the entity of our mind into the entity of the awakening heart. Merely sitting there on your cushion thinking, may I attain Buddhahood for the sake of all sentient beings is not going to change your mind.

It’s not going to develop the entity of the awakened heart in your mind. That we have to actually cultivate it through these methods to change the actual nature of our minds. So initially, it’s very difficult to develop the awakening heart. But if we begin and we begin today making that difficult effort, then in meditating, cultivating the awakening heart, and tomorrow we can see that perhaps our mind has changed just a little. That it won’t be quite so difficult.

Then the second day it’s maybe a little bit easier than it was the first day. And a month goes by and it’s getting easier. And two months goes by, one year goes by. Finally, maybe after two years, it’s not so difficult anymore that it’s coming quite easily now. It’s coming quickly.

Really getting, we can get to the place where merely seeing a sentient being, the thought arise, may I achieve Buddhahood for the sake of that sentient being? Or seeing an insect, may I achieve Buddhahood so that I might be able to eliminate the suffering of that insect and bring that insect complete happiness? That this becomes to begin this this type of mentality begins to rise automatically upon seeing sentient beings. Just as in our present case, when we see an enemy who we do not like, then immediately just by merely seeing that person, our mind becomes unhappy. Or on the other hand, when we see some desirable object, something really good that we like, merely upon seeing it, automatically attachment arises.

This is all due to the process of habituation. That, and likewise, we can habituate the mind to these positive states of the awakening heart. We can habituate it into degree, or accustom it to the degree that really seeing an insect one desires to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of separating that insect from its suffering to bring it complete happiness. That this is the real awakening heart. There is the awakening heart which is artificial.

That is to say it requires effort. This is termed, I think, cane sugar bark. Cane sugar bark. So there’s an analogy maybe between these two types of awakening heart. That which arises automatically and that which is artificial or that is to say requires effort.

And it’s likened to believe, the bark of cane sugar, or cane bark. Yeah. In which the because the the the artificial awakened heart, because it has is like the bark of cane sugar, because it has come in contact with the actual sugar itself. It has it has the sweet flavor in it, but it’s not really sugar. It it has just been because it’s come in contact.

And when some people eat this, eat cane sugar, they eat the bark, and they say what are you eating? Oh I’m eating sugar. Actually they’re only eating the bark. The essence of the sugar isn’t there. Likewise, it is just the form in which the sugar came.

Likewise, that type of awakening heart which requires effort, comes about through difficulty, though it is the awakening heart, it’s not really the essence of the awakening heart. It’s like it has the flavor of the awakening heart, but it’s merely the bark which surrounds it. The real essence is when it really upon seeing a sentient being, really upon seeing a sentient being, there instantaneously and automatically arises the thought, may I achieve Buddhahood for the sake of establishing this sentient being in complete happiness and eliminating their suffering. This is the essence of the awakening heart, and this is the actual awakening heart. So we’ve expended, we’ve worked hard, expended a lot, a great deal of energy on your part in listening to this one year of, this past year of mind training, and I myself in explaining it to you.

And you know what we we should try, we need some results from all this effort that we made for all this difficulty. And we should, you know, we all, we now we understand what the awakening heart is. And we have to put it into practice. That is we have to meditate on it. If you simply leave it aside, then none of this has been of any benefit.

It would simply be having merely planted some latencies in our mind. That, as Tsongkhapa said, that the purpose of hearing, that we listen in order for this, in order to practice. That you know coming to understand that there there there is that even if we aren’t able to generate the awakening heart, then still meditating on it is going to purify a great deal of negative karma and it’s going to create a great deal of positive potential. And that all happiness comes around, comes about in dependence upon the awakening heart and elimination of all our suffering. There there is nothing more precious than this one mind, the mind of the awakening heart.

There is no higher quality. And that, you know, tomorrow morning, you know, I ask you to please meditate on on the awakening heart. To to try, you know, if you try to gain a realization of the awakening heart, and this will be the greatest thanks that you could give me for doing this, that though even even just having listened, we have implanted some real solid latencies in our mind, will give us the ability to eventually generate the awakened heart easily. That that as as Śāntideva said, there is nothing which does not become easier upon cultivation or habituation, Habituation or accustoming. And as Geshe Chekawa said, this fault-ridden mind of ours has one great quality.

That is to say it will flow in whatever direction it is trained. And so we should have conviction in this. That however we train our mind it will flow in that direction. And that we can in this way, by training it in the awakening heart, there’s no question as to developing it within our mind. What do we mean by meditation?

It is it means to familiarize, to habituate. We take an object and we bring it again and again to the mind and we familiarize ourselves with it. We accustom ourselves with it. And it’s this way that the mind is empowered with respect to that object. So anyway, we’re going to stop there.

We won’t have any questions this evening. But these, we’ve gone through these seven sections for the generation of the Awakening Heart. And try to keep them straight. Don’t make any mistakes. Try not forget them.

That in which the order that they’re presented in, is the first order, which is the second section, which is the third section, etcetera.