Cultivating Aspiration Bodhicitta: Part 1 – Generating Great Kindness

I would like to begin by first saying a few things about bodhicitta practice, the practice of developing a good heart. Bodhicitta is the practice of all buddhas of the past, the present, and the future, and it has two aspects.

The first aspect, aspiration bodhicitta, is defined as a genuine wish to cultivate enlightenment in ourselves, in our own mind. On the Mahayana path, the wish to be enlightened has only one aim: to serve others. Enlightenment is not just for ourselves to be free from suffering, but for all beings to be free from suffering, so that everyone can enjoy the enlightened qualities. We only generate the motivation to be enlightened first so that we can bring others to enlightenment, because when we are not enlightened, we lack the means to bring others to enlightenment.

In order to cultivate this intention to be of benefit to all sentient beings, we must have an immense amount of loving-kindness and compassion toward them. When we wish for the happiness of beings, we are not talking about just wishing them mundane happiness, although that is not excluded, but here we want to deliver the potential to be enlightened to possess the enlightened mind with all of its qualities single-handedly, through our own effort. It takes a tremendous kindness to think of all beings’ happiness in this profound way. It takes immense compassion to think this way.

We are not simply thinking about saving beings from one or another small mundane suffering, but of eliminating all the suffering in their lives, and delivering perfect freedom. All through our own effort, if need be. That is how grand this wish is, and to begin such an effort, the preliminary practice of generating the intention to be enlightened for the benefit all sentient beings must be based on our practice of loving-kindness and compassion.

The practice of loving-kindness begins with a contemplation on happiness and its causes, and after contemplating deeply, we wish for others to have that happiness, with all its causes and conditions. The practice of compassion focuses on suffering and its causes and conditions, and, after deeply contemplating suffering, we wish for others to be free from suffering. One could say that loving-kindness and compassion are two sides of the same coin. We can focus on the happiness and the causes and conditions of happiness and wish happiness to be in others’ lives, or we can focus on the causes and conditions of suffering, and wish beings to be free of it.

Instinctually as a sentient being, we move towards happiness. We would never want to knowingly deprive ourselves of happiness. When we practice loving-kindness and compassion for others with that same attitude, and depth of emotion that we have about gaining happiness for ourselves, then that is the perfection of loving-kindness.

SOURCE: Lotus Garden, June 2, 2006
Commentary on the Bodhisattvacaryavatara
Talk 1