How to Develop the Unparalleled Levels of Love & Compassion of the Bodhisattva (Part 1 of 3 teaching)

All sentient beings are caught in the trap of suffering in the realms of existence. Bodhichitta is a mind that wishes to free beings from suffering and bring them to the state of enlightenment. A bodhisattva is a person who has that bodhichitta mind, is a practitioner of the enlightenment thought which is the aspiration to achieve complete enlightenment as a perfect Buddha for the benefit of oneself and all other sentient beings. Love and compassion are the forces that motivate all activities of Bodhisattvas. Love is a strong wish that aspires to attain happiness for all sentient beings and compassion is the state of mind that wishes each being to be freed from all sufferings or sorrows, great compassion is the root wisdom.

These next three weeks we’re going to be talking about compassion. We’ve got the wisdom wing and the compassion wing. It’s a wonderful analogy, it works brilliantly, it covers all the Buddha’s teachings, and it’s also very personal. The point of the entire path is to become this Buddha.

So what is a Buddha? Buddha is a person who has completely rid their mind of all the rubbish, all the fears, all the dramas, all the suffering, which we all have got so much of. And they’ve only got what’s left, which is this incredible wisdom, clarity, power, confidence, compassion and empathy.

The Buddha’s whole point, from the big picture point of view, is that’s the nature, the potential of every one of us. It’s quite an outrageous idea really! It sounds mystical. But this is one of the things that can really help us when we’re having problems and dramas, when we’re overwhelmed by the negativity, just to try and remember that we’ve got this marvellous potential. This negativity is true, it’s right now, but it’s not intrinsic to us. This is something that can be very powerful for our mind.

The compassion wing, of this bird that needs two wings, is this enormous empathy with others, this connection with others, the seeing of others suffering, and this wish that they be happy which is love, and the wish they don’t suffer and that’s compassion. But that’s contingent upon the wisdom wing. If you’re overwhelmed by your own pain and suffering, you can’t think of anybody else. It’s not possible, your own suffering is so enormous. This is why we should have compassion for ourselves for a start. But certainly have compassion for others.

It’s obvious that to prepare yourself to be able to benefit others, you’ve got to know how to benefit yourself. It’s really logical. We have enormously big hearts, we think what can I do to help, but we don’t actually have methods to know that first I’ve got to put myself together. If you want to help other people with their problems, you can have incredible compassion for them, but what good is that compassion if you don’t know how to help them. That’s the wisdom wing. If you want to help other people with their problems, you’ve got to know your own. You’ve got to help yourself first, and that qualifies you to then help others. That’s the logic of the whole path.

So what’s this wisdom? Learning about your own mind, and the way your mind works, the way the delusions work, the way we create karma. This qualifies us to help put ourselves together, then it qualifies us to go - oh my god, look at all this, everybody is in the same boat. We’re all suffering.

Questions include - how can we know that everybody wants to be happy, understanding that others want to be happy but some people don’t deserve to be happy, is pity a low form of compassion or is it a sophisticated way of self cherishing, how to deal with bullying, how to transform aggression towards ourself and others into compassion, how can we overcome feeling overwhelmed by seeing all the suffering around, and only with shamatha and vipasana meditation can we find answers to all the questions?

Centrul Budist White Mahakala, Romania, 1st September 2021.

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