What is Bodhicitta and how to cultivate it? Love is the universal language.

We see this in our daily speech, in our action, in our celebration, in our concerns. To express our love towards someone, other beings cannot be left alone. This shows there is a strong interrelationship between oneself and others. Nonetheless, having one part of us understood the importance of love, we have usually at the other part focused on issues that we have exaggerated in their values such that at the large scale, we have even harmed those we loved. As the result of materialistic layers of distraction, we have usually lost touched with our inner sensibility. Terrorist brutalism, taut of power, political tenses, fame fussiness as well as pains of growing new diseases and illnesses are fused by the imbalance occurring between our external development and our inner voice. Understanding our inner world is the lost piece of our zig-saw puzzle in contributing peace of mind for this century and years to come. Why this universal education of love is critical? Simply, it is because everyone wants happiness and no one wants unhappiness. Materialism alone is not sufficient in meeting happiness. Knowing perfectly the needs of this, Buddha has propounded what needs to be taken up and what needs to be abandoned by each and every individual to attain perfect happiness. By actualizing this within our mind, our inner world, at a small degree of love and compassion individual attain own liberation by escaping from the iron cage of samsara. Buddha teachings on building this quality of love and compassion are extensive and, the Mahayanic practitioners motivated by the goal of benefiting every sentient being as their core practice, aims to develop this quality further to achieve bodhicitta, the enlightenment mind, the quality of a buddha. Bodhicitta is the quality a Mahayanic practitioner for the welfare of our sentient beings in this world and samsara. Entering this path of compassion and seeking benefits only others leads us to the full enlightenment and this is how one trains oneself in the bodhisattva practices. Bodhicitta is the quality of mind that one wishes and engages to install the ultimate perfect happiness into others and with an attitude to do this by oneself alone without a second of delay. When one has established oneself with this practice of generating bodhicitta, one has entered the Mahayana path which is more supreme than the other two vehicles practiced by Listeners and Solitary Realisers. The Mahayanic practitioners will be called a buddhas son because they have been planted with the seed of this bodhicitta. Motivated with the pure attitude to benefit sentient beings, they become the supreme field to which offerings are to be made, purify efficiently their bad karma and mental obscurations, accumulate extensive merits in every virtuous deeds and thus are

able to achieve whatever goals they seek for and quickly complete all the paths and stages in the training for enlightenment. Finally they become a field that only produces every form of well-being and happiness for sentient beings. Therefore, bodhicitta is so called the enlightenment mind. Practising bodhicitta is not an easy start at the beginning. The Buddha teachings however teach us on how to generate it have two lineages: by Manjushri via Nagajurna and later expounded by Shantideva on the mind training called tonglen or exchange of self and others, and by Maitreya via Asanga and gurus such as Chandrakirti, Chandragomi and Shantarakshita on the sevenfold instructions of six causes and one effect. Later on, from Lama Atisha, Lama Tsongkhapa combined these two lineages to form an unique system to practice in developing the bodhicitta. Lama Atisha practiced on developing bodhicitta for twelve years and regarded his guru, Lama Serlingpa from whom he received the lineages on this practice as the kindest among his fifty-seven gurus. This impression revealed the importance of generation bodhicitta on the path of enlightenment. Past examples also showed that if one lacks of this enlightenment mind, efforts to practice generation and completion stages of tantric path will be fruitless. Some lamas advised that some of these practitioners even got reborn as a harmful spirit or in a hell as a result of lacking bodhicitta while practicing wrathful yidam in their tantric practices. When motivated by this enlightenment mind, everything we do represents true dharma, all such actions turned into Mahayana dharma, enabling us to achieve enlightenment. Similarly without this, even chanting mantra it may mean not a dharma practice. The sevenfold instruction sets the context of equanimity at the outset, on this basis, one will build up their enlightenment mind by stages from kindness, love, compassion, great compassion, altruistic mind to bodhicitta at the final stage. The seven instructions are: (1) recognizing all sentient beings as our mothers (2) recalling their kindness (3) repaying their kindness (4) developing loving kindness in regarding all as equal (5) generating great compassion (6) culminating altruistic mind to benefit all beings as ones sole responsibility (7) generating bodhicitta. Among the seven, the first is the most difficult realization to achieve. With the help of unwavered faith in reincarnation and beginningless rebirths as our mind has no beginning, every sentient being at one time is bound to have been our mother before. Then by reflecting our own mother when we were young, we could recall kindness of mother. Without our mother, we cant take care of ourselves when young would not be able to survive by now. Since everyone is our mother in the past, we are all inter-related. With this thought we should be able to transform blame, criticism, suffering, hatred, jealousy and any other afflictions. We should be more kind towards them in

recognizing this as for returning helps to those who helped us or taking care of our parents when they are old. As all sentient beings are blinded by ignorance, we should guide them as the blind in return of they kindness. As for our enemies now who are here for us to practice patient, who were our mother in the past, but due to ignorance and karma, we cant recognize each other, they are just afflicted with their wanting of own happiness. There is no difference between myself and them in wanting own happiness. Since all sentient beings are equally suffering and desiring only happiness, we cant be bias in our kindness but regards everyone as equal and dear. Contemplating our own suffering and the potency of karma created, and the sufferings in the lower realms, and our continuous sufferings bounded within this iron cage of cyclic existence, we should generate the thought not only we want our mother beings happy, but they are also out of sufferings and the causes of suffering. With a step further, we also resolve to do whatever we can with an attitude of our sole responsibility. Reflected the unparallel buddhas activities and our current incapability, we generate bodhicitta: either aspirational or engaging manner to achieve perfect enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings. Exchanging self and other based on the training by Shantideva have four parts: (1) meditating on equanimity between oneself and others (2) reflect on the faults of cherishing oneself (3) reflect on benefits of cherishing others (4) cultivate the main practice of exchanging oneself and others. Equality of all beings, likewise, sets the context of this practice at the start. Over infinite times all beings helped us equally. We could not differentiate them between friends and enemies, as there are no true enemies over these countless lives. Due to our ignorance, we perceive our grasping self as truly existent, under the spotlight of our own welfare being utmost important, we cherish ourselves more than others by committing non-virtuous actions. As a result this self-cherishing keeps us from attaining liberation, bodhicitta and thus enlightenment. On the other hand, if we cherish others, we avoid the non-virtuous actions. Similarly we are moved to practice virtuous such as generosity instead of stealing, treasures lives instead of killing, practice patience instead of anger. Cherishing others brings us enlightenment. Thus we should conclude by cherishing others more than ourselves as this creates the causes of our temporal and ultimate happiness. Since beginningless life times the thought of self-cherishing has only brought us problems, and having concluded our temporal and ultimate happiness depend on cherishing others, we shall now practice our mind with the thought of wishing to take all their suffering upon ourselves and to give others all our happiness. This is taking the difficulties and sufferings on the path of enlightenment. By taking other sufferings we are practicing compassion towards others; by giving of our body, possessions and merit we are practicing loving kindness towards them.

By practicing this profound method, we can see human value from an individual to family, from community to country, from region to the world, and equanimity from this human realm to the whole samsara. As for accumulating merits and purifying karma, the three jewels and all samsaric beings are the two objects of our practice. Recognising this as a result of their kindness, all beings represent the object toward them whom we practice generosity, ethics, patience, enthusiastic perserverance, concentration and wisdom. Through practicing these six paramitas, we are engaging the training of bodhicitta, treading the path of bodhisattva, and finally, overcome our ignorance of self grasping, achieving the ultimate bodhicitta to reach the full enlightenment. Understood the benefit of this profound method of practicing bodhicitta, we shall be motivated daily with this four immeasurable prayer: May all beings have equanimity, with no hatred or attachment May all beings have happiness and its cause May all beings out of suffering and its cause May all beings have higher rebirth and never separated from bliss. I will cause all this by myself alone. Word counts 1630.