Advice on Developing Bodhicitta

In the morning, do your practice. If possible, your morning motivation should be: “I am working, sitting, sleeping, eating, doing my job, everything, to become Dharma.” From that motivation, everything becomes Dharma.

Everything should be done with Dharma, especially with bodhicitta. With bodhicitta then all your work becomes Dharma, the cause for enlightenment.

Even if there’s no actual bodhicitta, with the meditation on bodhicitta, your life becomes oneness with Dharma. So no matter how difficult life is, you enjoy.

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling one,
Thank you very much for the news that you are going to Lawudo and Kopan. You asked for advice for your life and practice, so this is the best way to collect merit.

In the mornings, if you are not doing it already, you must start doing the bodhicitta motivation practice that I put together, How to Make My Lives Wish-Fulfilling: The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness. This is for your whole life, blessing your speech and mala. If you are not doing it already, then start now.

This is the most important thing. Basically it’s how to live our life with bodhicitta, to transform our life into the cause of enlightenment, the Mahayana path. We need to achieve buddhahood, so we can free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to full enlightenment, buddhahood. This is the most important thing in our life. There is nothing more than this. This is the happiest life.

We can get the idea from that how to live the life with bodhicitta. Even if we don’t have realizations now, we can live with bodhicitta as much as possible, not only when we are listening [to teachings], or reflecting, doing meditation, but even when we are eating, walking, sleeping, doing our job. We should do it all on the basis of bodhicitta as much as possible.

Think, “The purpose of my life is not just to achieve happiness for myself, even ultimate happiness, liberation from samsara. The purpose of my life is to help others, to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering, and not only that, to bring them to peerless happiness, the total cessation of all the obscurations and completion of all the realizations. To do that perfectly, I need to achieve omniscience, therefore I need to actualize the path, therefore I need to purify my defilements and negative karma, and I need to create merit. Therefore, I am going to listen to the teachings, do reflecting meditation, make prostrations, offerings and so forth.”

We can offer our food to Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha before we eat. Also while we are eating, think it is an offering. We can change whatever activity we are doing, like washing, sleeping, going to work, when we begin with bodhicitta motivation like this. Also sleeping yoga, things like that, we can do every activity with bodhicitta.

If you like, there is the book called Bodhisattva Attitude, which is about doing all the actions in daily life with a bodhicitta motivation. You can follow that as much as possible. Do everything in this way as much as possible, then all your different actions become the cause of enlightenment for sentient beings. This is unbelievable. Your life becomes most beneficial for sentient beings and it becomes the happiest life, the most meaningful life, not only for you but for sentient beings.

I am sending you a whole lifetime’s practice, so after finishing the preliminaries you can try to actualize bodhicitta, then you can do generation and completion stage in tantra. Mainly practice generation stage but also completion stage, just to leave an imprint.

Welcome to enlightenment. Pleasure, hardship, everything, is to achieve enlightenment for sentient beings, to free numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsara.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious, wish-fulfilling, including bringing enlightenment, one,
I’m very happy to receive your kind letter, so I want to express something now.

I want to talk about the kindness of sentient beings—not only animals or human beings, but even the tiniest insects, very tiny flies, very, very tiny ones in the water. When I inquired, I found out they are sentient beings, but we can’t see them, we can only see them with machines (microscopes), so even the tiniest ones.

You may have heard this from me in the past, I’m not sure, but I recently told one student about the three ways of thinking about the kindness of sentient beings, which embraces all their kindness. I think for you it is very good to meditate on this and to actualize this, and to explain this to people.

Reflect on the kindness of mother sentient beings, their extensive kindness, how all our happiness from beginningless rebirths up to now and in the future, all that, including enlightenment, everything comes from sentient beings—from every hell being, every hungry ghost, every animal, every human being, every sura being, every asura being, every intermediate state being, so that means every ant, every mosquito and so forth. You know, Western scientists have discovered 13,000 different types of ants. They too have been our mother and most kind.

Meditate on the five outlines and remember the kindness of numberless sentient beings. For us to enjoy the protection of life, freedom from cold or heat, having a house, having comfort, being able to enjoy this long life, the protection of life, this is from the kindness of numberless sentient beings, who are so many. This includes the ants who get killed when we are digging the land, while creating the basis for building the house. So many insects have to be killed; other people who are working have to kill so many of them and they create so much negative karma.

So many different insects and animals get killed for our happiness and comfort, so then the workers create negative karma and have to suffer. All the people have to work hard in the very hot sun during the day, so even human beings have to suffer for our comfort. Then there are the mice and many insects who are harmed, such as in the fields when the foundation for a house is laid. There are many, so much, so much.

There are so many sentient beings—even in a glass of water there are tiny sentient beings in the water and when the water is boiled, they have to die or they suffer so much. Wow, wow, wow. Or people put chemicals in the water to kill the insects for people’s health. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

For vegetables, people spray chemicals to kill all the insects, the many different insects that live in the vegetables, but this is their food and this is their place to live. So all the things like that. Wow, wow, wow, wow. The people who spray the chemicals are creating much negative karma by harming the insects, because so many have to die. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. This is without going through the whole evolution; this is just one part of the process.

If we go through the whole evolution, the whole process—wow, wow, wow, wow—for one grain of rice or a plate of rice, so many human beings work for that, in the rain and the heat and all that. They have to kill so many beings and they have to suffer even this for one rice grain.  I know in India and Nepal there are people who have to work so hard in the rice paddies, planting at different times. I don’t know the exact details.

And then we can think that this one rice grain came from another rice grain and from another rice grain. How many suffered for this? So many, wow, wow. So many insects and animals and even humans died for this, and so many suffered for this one rice grain and the one before, the previous rice grain. This rice came from another lineage, another generation, and so many sentient beings suffered or died, were killed. So it goes on and on—that comes from another rice, that comes from another rice, and so forth. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

This has been going on for thousands of years, numberless sentient beings have suffered or died for this, have been killed or created negative karma for this—wow, wow, wow—so then the very last thing is that it goes into our mouth and we eat it.

After thinking like this, it is impossible, there’s no way to just take it with the self-cherishing thought, only thinking of our happiness, without thinking of the happiness of all the sentient beings, all those people, all those animals, all those insects who died, suffered or were killed. There is no way.

So then we have to eat for their happiness, for the sentient beings, there’s no choice. Even though we may not accept reincarnation and karma, we have to be a good human being, a kindhearted human being, so then we have to eat the rice for the benefit of all the numberless sentient beings who have suffered and died from generation to generation. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. There is no way to eat just for oneself, thinking only with the self-cherishing, thinking only of our happiness—that’s impossible. That is just cheating oneself.

Anyway, here it is Mahayana teaching. Also, it is the same for our clothing—we need to think of the kindness of others who worked or suffered for our clothing.

This is how we survive each day, each hour, each minute, each second, how we survive in our life as human beings. Then that gives us an opportunity to practice Dharma, to meet Dharma and to practice Dharma and to learn Dharma.

So then we can be free—not only free from the lower realms, but free from samsara, and not only that, we become free from lower nirvana [liberation] and we achieve great nirvana, enlightenment—the total cessation of obscurations and completion of realizations. We achieve not only the cessation of gross defilements, but also the cessation of subtle defilements, those defilements which interfere with achieving the state of omniscience—wow, wow, wow, wow, wow—and we achieve the completion of realizations.

After that we are able to free the numberless sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring everyone to the peerless happiness, buddhahood, by ourselves. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

So this opportunity, all this, we received from the kindness of numberless hell beings, numberless hungry ghosts, numberless animals, numberless human beings, numberless suras, numberless asuras, numberless intermediate state beings. Wow, wow, wow. There are three ways to think about their kindness. Wow, wow, wow.

Now you can see that every sentient being from the six realms is most kind, most precious, most dear, wish-fulfilling. They are fulfilling all our wishes, including enlightenment. So that’s very nice to repeat over and over.

This also includes the first extensive kindness, that all the buddhas came from sentient beings.

The Buddha, to whom we go for refuge all the time, and especially when we begin our practice, we go for refuge first, so the Buddha frees us from the lower realms, frees us from samsara, frees us from lower nirvana and brings us to full enlightenment—free from all the gross and subtle obscurations and having achieved all the realizations. So the Buddha reveals the Dharma and then the Sangha actualize the Dharma, so all that comes from every hell being, hungry ghost, animal, human being, sura, asura and intermediate state being.

So now you can see how every single sentient being is most precious, just as money is viewed as very precious. If we have money we can get what you want, so that is why money is seen as very important.

The fields are very precious because if we have land we can build whatever we want or we can plant crops, so then we can live from that, and also other people can live there.

So like this, now you can see the kindness of sentient beings, that they are most precious, not from their qualities, but because of their kindness. They are even kinder than the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, because Buddha, Dharma and Sangha came from sentient beings. Without sentient beings there is no way to go for refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and no way to become a buddha by actualizing the Dharma, by becoming Sangha, there is no way.

Please, I want to tell you this. One insect is cherished most by one bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is trying to actualize the path for this insect and for all the sentient beings—that means for this one insect which bites us, like  an ant, bee or tick, any being that bites us.

The bodhisattva actualizes the path by doing purification, so all the different levels of obscurations are purified, and by actualizing the five paths, the ten bhumis, in order to achieve enlightenment. That is done in order to bring this one sentient being, this tiny insect, this ant or whatever, to enlightenment, so that one bodhisattva cherishes them the most.

Therefore, numberless bodhisattvas cherish this ant or this tiny insect, this snake or this tiger or whatever, this tiny insect. Numberless bodhisattvas cherish them the most; they renounce themselves and cherish them the most. So if we harm this insect, that means we are harming all the bodhisattvas. We are harming this one bodhisattva, and not only that, we are also harming all the bodhisattvas, who cherish this insect the most. If we are harming the insect, it is most displeasing to the bodhisattvas.

Any service we do, even offering a small help, like to the ants on the road, not only should we stop stepping over them, but also we should protect them, so we can put them on the side of the road so that other people don’t step on them. Even that is the best offering to one bodhisattva and to all the bodhisattvas; this is the best offering and is most pleasing.

Anything that we can do to help, even offering a small service, such as helping a child with the thought of loving kindness, compassion, bodhicitta, thinking of the kindness of this being, how precious they are, then helping the child or helping an old person, for example, trying to carry their heavy luggage. If we see an old person carrying something heavy, then trying to make it lighter or trying to help, whatever we can do. Even a small thing, like giving up our seat on the bus or train to an older person who is standing or who has no seat, so we offer our seat, or whatever. That is the best, and is most, most pleasing to the numberless bodhisattvas and buddhas. We always have to be aware of this.

Even a small harm is most displeasing, and it is causing great harm to numberless bodhisattvas. It’s like a mother who cherishes her daughter or son so much, then when they see somebody praise their child it makes the mother so happy, unbelievably happy. If somebody criticizes or causes even a little harm to her child, then the mother is so, so sad. This is an example I use.

Here I’m just talking about bodhisattvas. Now, this small insect which bites us is cherished most by one buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha. Of course, bodhisattvas do not have self-cherishing thoughts, but here the Buddha cherishes the insect the most. Therefore, it is the same as what I explained about bodhisattvas, that even causing a small harm to a sentient being causes great harm to bodhisattvas; it displeases them. And offering a small service, a small pleasure, to a sentient being is a great offering and most pleasing to the bodhisattvas.

Similarly, there are numberless buddhas, so offering a small service is most pleasing to one buddha and to the numberless buddhas. Causing even a small harm to a sentient being is causing a great harm to the buddhas; it is displeasing to them.

So, being mindful of this, with mindfulness, we take care of the sentient beings with this unconditional love, without attachment. This is how it should be in the family, how we take care of our children, without attachment, with a totally pure mind.

There is the extensive kindness of having been our mother and then there are three other ways they are kind. That is how we take care of our parents, that is how we take care of our family, our children, that is the correct way.

Shakyamuni Buddha, for example, made charity of his limbs, hands, legs, eyes, blood and skin to all the sentient beings for three countless great eons. Even during his whole life, for example, there is a story of when he was a tigress in Nepal and he gave up his life for others, but there’s not only that story, he did this numberless times for three countless great eons, for numberless sentient beings.

Having the thought cherishing the numberless sentient beings, wishing to free them from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment, that’s incredible, that’s the happiest thing to do in the life, the happiest thing. So please take care of the dogs.

I see on the iPad that there are so many animals that are drowning in the mud or drowning in the water and only their head is kept out. Then some strong people try to pull them out, to liberate them, so these people are so kind, so good. They’re born as human beings and it fulfills the purpose of being born as a human being by offering this help, by rescuing even one sentient being. So I rejoice.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

With much love and prayers ...

My most dear, most kind, most precious wish-fulfilling one,

I’m very happy to hear that your favorite practice is bodhicitta and the Eight Verses. This is so great. Please continue to make your life most beneficial, as much as possible, with bodhicitta.

Eating, sleeping, even working to get money, motivate so that it is for numberless sentient beings, to benefit them. That means you are living your life for others. Eating, sleeping, taking medicine for others. Even taking medicine, you can say this prayer, “May my life be most beneficial for sentient beings,” and then with that intention take the medicine.

With much love and prayers ...

P.S. I am going to India soon. First I will go to Nepal for the annual one-month course, then I will go to India. I have to give some lungs that were written by the Fifth Dalai Lama and Kalka Jetsun Dorje, a very, very highly realized being. After that I will attend His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s teachings.

Please read the letter I wrote to another student who was doing retreat. During the retreat she came across a dead possum that had been hit by a car and she went up to look at it, even though it was very disgusting and there was blood everywhere. She saw that four babies had survived. The other people on the retreat told her to leave it, but she was compelled to pick up the babies and then she cared for them for the rest of the retreat, feeding them every two to three hours. She arranged for them to be cared for until they could be released back to the wild. I thought this letter would be good for you to read.

Regarding the verse from The Method to Transform a Suffering Life into Happiness (Including Enlightenment) [see p.13]:  

As I have already given this body, an impure aggregate,
To all beings to use for their pleasure,
Even if they kill me, criticize me, beat me and so forth,
I will let them do whatever they like.

Here you have to know the whole point is to dedicate from your side totally to sentient beings, like water, earth, fire, wind, and like the sky, as it is said in the Bodhicaryavatara [A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life]. This is what to practice, to become enlightened, as well as tonglen or the bodhisattva attitude. But remember bodhicitta is secret, for the lower intelligent bodhisattvas.

Of course for beginners, there’s no question that they can’t practice this immediately, they can’t accept it immediately. Even if it is explained, it takes time. Some people who don’t have much merit have to wait for a long time, and for them it’s not possible to practice this brave heart, bodhicitta, in this life. In order to do this we need unbelievable merits, like fuel or oil for a plane to fly. Those who can practice this are unbelievably lucky, most unbelievably lucky, to be able to practice bodhicitta.

You have to know that Western life, in particular, is dedicated to developing the selfish mind. Of course, that is the door to suffering, that is the enemy of the root of full enlightenment, bodhicitta. If there is no bodhicitta, there is no enlightenment for sentient beings. Then you will be in samsara and experience the oceans of suffering again and again, the endless sufferings of samsara. 

For ordinary beings, the main thing is to dedicate and to serve others. That is what we need to be habituated in, and that is totally against the self-cherishing thought, the great demon of ours.

The ant or mosquito or anyone who created the negative karma to be born in the lower realms numberless times, the karma did not get purified before, so then they are reborn as an ant or mosquito and so forth. No matter how much suffering, if it is materialized, then it is like the sky, the karma ripened already.

We have been born as a human being many times before, and we have been born as a mosquito and an ant numberless times and have had to suffer numberless times. [We need] to understand karma and to have compassion to them, and see this as a reminder of how important it is to practice holy Dharma, to purify.

When we experience harm from others we have to accept it and feel happy. Like Geshe Lama Konchog, when he fell, his first thought was that he was so happy because he received my life obstacle on him.

That is what should happen, to be so happy that the other sentient being got what they wanted.

What makes our life most meaningful, most happy, most beneficial for every sentient being—with real happiness, inner peace—is living life with bodhicitta, with compassion for others.

Then we will have no regrets now, no regrets in the future, no regrets at the time of death; especially no regrets in the future, only the greatest rejoicing and merits more than the sky.

Thank you very much.