On a normal day, we just let you sneak your seat. No, it's not a normal day. You're on Christmas Day. Happy birthday to you. [...] Thank you very much. It's a big party. I haven't had a big party. So, good morning. Good morning, bodhisattvas. This is the way that one of the earliest Japanese teachers in America always addressed. whoever came to see him.

[01:03]

And I think it's very accurate. You know, a bodhisattva is someone who has seen that they're suffering in the world and develops a great yearning to relieve the suffering of the world. No, but I think that for most people that's a pretty accurate description of the way we've got here. How can I, limited as I am, somehow relieve the suffering that I see living in people? And the sort of of bodhisattva is this bodhicitta, this thought of enlightenment, the altruistic thought of enlightenment, the thought that if I were wise enough, perhaps I could see.

[02:19]

I want to be awakened so that I can be actually instrumental in alleviating suffering in the world. This is what's called bodhicitta and the altruistic wish for enlightenment. Let's see. In the... Where's the other one? All right, I lost the one I wanted to read to you. Oh, here it is. In the Shambhala Dictionary, of Buddhist terms, where they spend a lot of time trying to find out how to put a description of a bodhisattva and bodhicitta into accurate but limited vocabulary. I'll take there. They put a lot of work into this. I don't have to try to do it over again.

[03:23]

Bodhicitta is from the Sanskrit literally awakened mind, the mind of enlightenment. one of the central notions of Mahayana Buddhism. In the Tibetan tradition, it is seen as having two aspects, relative and absolute. The relative mind of enlightenment is divided again into two phases, the intention and wish nurtured by limitless compassion to attain liberation for the sake of the welfare of all beings and two, the actual entry into meditation, the purpose of which is the acquisition of the appropriate means to realize this wish. The absolute mind of enlightenment is viewed as the vision of the true nature, that is, the emptiness of own being, the emptiness of any separateness of all phenomena.

[04:27]

So this wish for enlightenment in order to know what actually could benefit beings, what actually could liberate beings, what actually could do something to truly alleviate suffering in the world. This is the motivation, the altruistic motivation for entering into practice of the Buddha way. And this compassionate response to the suffering in the world is in each one of us. It's in children. My husband, when he was a small boy, one of the things he remembers most vividly is... He was by that time living in a very nice house with a big yard and some pear trees growing.

[05:44]

And his grandmother, who had been a peasant in Germany as a child, and the reason they had this big house was so they could have a big garden. And so they had... quite a substantial garden and fruit trees and so forth. And this older man came by, someone he had seen around who was a watchman on some construction sites nearby, came with a wheelbarrow one day and said to him, he was a little boy, and said to him, the pears on the pear tree are falling on the ground. Would you ask your grandmother if I can have them? And so he went in to ask his grandmother, and she, with her still peasant mind, said, no, those are our pears. And he had to go out and tell the man, no, my grandmother says you can't have them, those are our pears.

[06:53]

They were falling on the ground. I also remember that shortly after we were married, we had canned pears for dessert. Anyhow. There were five halves left, and so I gave him three, and I took two. And I served him, and he looked at them, and he said, two is a portion. And I said, but there's three left over. And he said, two is a portion. A lot of energy. And it turns out, when he was growing up, they canned those pears, and he had canned pears. a lot more than he wanted them. So it was not a treat for him. It was kind of a treat for me, actually. So there was no shortage of pairs in the household.

[07:53]

But for his grandmother, having grown up in narrow circumstances, she's pretty... And this is suffering. This is suffering as much for her as it is for the man who wants it. But at that time, my husband said, he made a vow that he was going to do something so that people like the man who asked for the tears, that he was going to do something about that inequity that he had. saw there as a child. And I think that all children have this intrinsic, as a matter of fact, you know, it's said in the Abha Kamsaka Sutra that what the Buddha said at the moment of his great enlightenment was, ah, I now see that all beings without exception have the wisdom and compassion of the awakened

[09:06]

But because of their delusions and self-cleaning, they don't realize it. So each one of us, each one of us is of the intrinsic nature of awakening. It's not something outside that we need to get to add to ourselves. It's something that is our birthright. It is who we are. We are by nature, in fact. And I think the fact that you're here this morning, even if you just came out of curiosity for what they do over there in that place, or, oh, I just think I have a brother and instructor to see what it is. Even if it's out of curiosity, I think it is also out of what is the most joyful way to live my life.

[10:23]

It's said that the true joy, the greatest happiness comes from seeking the happiness of others. The greatest happiness doesn't come from our seeking happiness. Then we think through something new. When our effort, our energy, our intention, our longing is to make others happy, when we can do that, that really is where our happiness comes from. That is the greatest goal. So there are a group of people here, not a large group of people actually, sitting all day in meditation.

[11:25]

And we are sitting to open a practice period with three things per day. which is focused on the compassionate mind, the compassionate mind which is inherent in each one of us here. And one of the things that is recommended by the Dalai Lama is what he says is that he, every morning when he wakes up, his motivation. He sort of remused his vow. So there's one version of this aspirational vow that we use this morning. Each morning as I wait, I think today I am fortunately woken up.

[12:32]

I'm alive. I have a precious human life. going to waste it. I'm going to use all of my energy to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others, to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts with it. I'm not going to get angry or think badly about it. I'm going to benefit others much. So each one of us can use the Dalai or we can devise our own aspirational vow or prayer or intention with which to begin the day so that we continually

[13:41]

alert, awake, aware of this inherent impassionation of the future that envowed from the beginning. The great teacher Nagarjuna had a poem about Bodhicitta, this thought of enlightenment, this mind which turns to enlightenment as the most the way to understand sufficiently how to help you. What's actually about you? He says, May bodhicitta, precious and sublime, arise where it has not yet come to be. And where it has arisen, may it not decline to grow and flourish evermore. So, We can't start each day just renewing our thinking.

[14:50]

Wake up. Lighten it and start by this. Simply seeing what it is. To see clearly what is and is not. And in that way, to be able to act wisely. To be able to act in a way that actually has the result that we intend. It's said that the mere venom of that is pity. So if we try to help beings out of a sense of pity, that puts a separation between us. Oh, here I am, the great beneficent one, helping you, poor pitiful thing.

[15:53]

Do you think that would feel really helpful to people? I don't think so. It would make people feel worse somehow. But how we want to help people is recognizing our non-separateness from them. recognizing that we are totally connected with each being and out of that connection try to offer what actually may be helpful. It's not that we set ourselves up as some special beneficent being, it's that We recognize that all beings are so totally interdependent and intertwined and interconnected that how we interact with our fellows, how we think about each other, matters a lot.

[16:59]

Which is why we don't entertain thoughts of deprecation about anyone. There's a chapter, chapter 10 in the Lotus Sutra, that talks about the bodhisattva never disparaged. And this is a bodhisattva who really was very adamant on never seeing disparaging mood about anyone. Because he could see that everyone would be a Buddha someday. because, oh, everyone has that. And some people who were rather more narrow-minded than he was didn't take time with his attitude and variety of him.

[18:00]

And there are a couple of them. Neither one of them is here. who wrote a poem about the Bodhisattva. Wrote a song. And then, this is for a bit nice. But I think there are some people here who know the verse, you could sing it with me. I would never despise you or hold you at arm's length. Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strength. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because I can plainly see, it's clear to me, you'll be a Buddhist. I love you. Okay, come on now. There are people giving me this. Let's do it once.

[19:02]

With feeling. I would never disparage you or hold you at arm's length. Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strengths. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see you'll be in the boot someday. I love you. I wish they were, because Greg is great at it. He does this whole description of the Bodhisattva never disparage to music. But with that attitude, we face the world and we face the suffering. And we see that we really have work to do to be wise enough to know in each situation what might be truly helpful.

[20:06]

And realizing that, you say, hmm, maybe I'll go to the Zen Center and have medication instruction. Maybe that will help. Or something. Because we need to study our mind. Our mind leads the whole thing. So if I never want to have a disparaging thought, I need to work on my mind because, you know, those kinds of thoughts do come up in me sometimes. And I need to be able to study my mind and see and actually study my body too because often there's some little contraction in my body that sort of precedes an inappropriate thought. a disparaging thought, a thought that separates me from others.

[21:10]

And when I feel that feeling, I need to turn and look toward it and say, what's that? And do I want to entertain that thought or do I want to let that thought go right away because it's harmful to me and everybody around me? Our mind leads the way. So we need to study our mind. We need to see how it works. We need to sit quietly, pay attention, and observe how our mind works. And we need to see what thoughts to feed and encourage and what thoughts to let go of as soon as they... poke their head in the door because we've seen them before and they know that we know these thoughts. These thoughts of being superior, these thoughts of irritation or these disparaging thoughts that we may bump into.

[22:21]

We've seen them before. We know they don't do us any good. We know they just cause trouble. So When we get to know our mind well enough, we can see the very beginning and say, no thank you, not today. Please go take a nap. This is not what I want to do. It's very important for us to do this work to cultivate this mind of awakening because The world needs compassion. The world needs compassionate action. Don't you think so? If you just look around and notice what's happening, if you look around and notice how much ill will can be cultivated and spewed out there, and we've got to be careful not to grab onto it.

[23:30]

I mean, you turn on your computer in the morning, and I don't know about you, but it starts receiving 37 emails, you know, or 46, or whatever. And half of them are strongly urging you to do or say something. And you have to pay attention to which ones... are strongly urging you to do or say something that's constructive or something that's destructive? Something that builds peace and harmony or something that destroys peace and harmony? Something that will help to protect the environment from our insatiable greed or something that's going to devastate it even more, and so on.

[24:33]

So this book that I've been studying, Pema Chodron's No Time to Lose, is a verse-by-verse translation and commentary on a book called A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life by the great... Indian teacher, Shantideva. He was, it was said that when he was a student at the great Buddhist University of Nalanda, and he was kind of a lazy student, and the other students didn't have much respect for him. And so it some point they thought maybe they would put him on the spot and so they invited him to give a teaching to the whole community thinking that that would embarrass him and make this work harder and be a more diligent student and and they built the you know

[25:51]

teachers at that time sort of, and in some traditions still, sort of sit on elevated thrones kind of things to teach the Dharma. And they, maybe to embarrass him a little bit more, they made this seat particularly high. And to their surprise, he easily got up on it. And then he said, do you want to hear something familiar something new. And let's hear something new. Also, again, not respecting enough to think that he might have anything useful to say. And he began to talk about bodhicitta and about just began speaking so eloquently that everybody was transfixed.

[26:51]

And it's said that he got so eloquent that he can't rise up in the air, and pretty soon he's disappeared in the clouds, and all I could hear was his voice. So people were pretty surprised. He wasn't such a dud after all, apparently. In any event, this teaching, a guide to the Bodhisattva's way of life, is all sort of expanding on this verse of Nagarjuna. It says, May bodhicitta, precious and sublime, arise where it has not yet come to be, and where it has arisen may it not decline, but grow and flourish ever more and more. So this Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life builds on that.

[27:55]

It starts by introducing Bodhicitta and praising it. Praising it to the sky, you know. So he rose up into the sky, praising it. trying to really encourage people that each one of us can make a difference in the world. How we train our minds, how we use our energy and skill and love and compassion in the world can make a tremendous difference. It matters how I use it. It matters that we really care about each other and feel and see, experience and act on our interconnectedness.

[29:01]

How each one of us lives our life, whether with kindness or contempt, makes a difference in the world. So having that confidence that it makes a difference how we act in the world, can encourage us to really develop those qualities that make us happy, that make those around us happy, to cultivate kindness, to cultivate compassion, to cultivate joy, to really get attention to how I could add to the happiness of those around me. of this particular person who's right here in front of me. What can I do that will add to their happiness?

[30:05]

Maybe it's just to give them a big smile. I mean, if you're just walking by somebody on the street, you can walk down the street looking gone, or you can walk down the street looking happy. And it makes a difference to the people who you just... Pass by on the street. You can look someone in the eye and smile at them. You can acknowledge their existence. How many times do you go around in the world and it looks like nobody cares if you're alive? They don't even notice if you're alive. And wouldn't it make a difference if somebody did? So I can make a point how it's connected. I have to wait for people to make a point out of connecting with me. Each one of us has the capacity to make someone else feel seen by seeing it.

[31:05]

Does it matter to you to feel seen in the world? It does to me. I think it matters to not to you. It will seem. And we can give that to anyone, anytime. It's a gift that we can offer. Our attention. Our appreciation. Our smile. It doesn't cost us. And it makes up. So why wouldn't we do it? How is it that we get trapped up in some place in our mind where we don't notice Can we develop this mind? Can we develop this mind that really wants to devote itself to making others better?

[32:20]

So we have, you know, in this aspirational verse, where you say, the reason it's considered a precious human birth is, according to the Buddha, that human birth is just right. It's ideal. It has just the right balance of pleasure and pain. We're not so glissed out that we can't notice that there is suffering in the world so that we can actually help depend to it. We can notice it. And we're not so in such a hell realm that we can't notice anybody else because we're so concerned with ourselves. But the human realm, it's, you know, it's said that there's these six realms in some sort of existence. There's the hell realm, where it's continuous format.

[33:39]

And then there's the animal realm, which fear is the main spirit. And there's the hungry ghost realm, which insatiability is the main spirit. And the human realm is sort of there in the middle. Then there's the angry titans, the powerful beings that there's a lot of angling there. And then there's the heavenly realm, which is so blissed out in the heavenly realm that you kind of don't notice. So the human realm is right there in the middle. It has the possibility of happening.

[34:43]

But it also has the possibility of being awake, seeing clearly what happens. So, this is why I'm alive and I have such a feeling life. I don't want to wait. This is the life where I can speak. So I'm going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out for others. So this is what we do. We give the open our heart first to our own concerns and actually listen to what we do. And then I noticed, oh, that's actually a new project.

[35:48]

Maybe I can often send it back to others as well. But we stand that hard out with others and continue working on understanding our mind sufficiently that we can see the truth of what is and not to know what is the most helpful thing to do, to act in any given situation. This is, of course, work that we never finished. We can certainly be enlightened, but we're never going to be so enlightened that there isn't any work to do. We can certainly see how to be helpful, but there's still always this cultivation of the mind of awakening that never ends, as long as we're alive.

[37:05]

to read you what the book of these terms says about bodhisattva. Bodhisattva, Sanskrit, literally, enlightenment being. Well, I've heard it. Awakening being. Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva, is a being who seeks fullhood through the systematic practice of the perfect virtue. Paramita means literally crossing over. The perfect virtues are God's generosity. Sheila, discipline, or conduct. Conduct which is focused on causing no harm and benefit of being. Causing no harm, doing all good than getting good. and meditation, and wisdom.

[38:24]

But the bodhisattva, while perfecting all of the virtues, renounces complete entry into nirvana until all the ages entered them home. The determining factor for his action is compassion, supported by highest insight and wisdom. A bodhisattva provides active help, is ready to take upon oneself the suffering of all other beings and to transfer one's own karmic merit to other beings. The way of a bodhisattva begins with arousing the thought of enlightenment and taking the bodhisattva vow There's more here. But the bodhisattva ideal replaced in the Mahayana tradition, the ideal of the earlier Buddhism, whose effort was initially directed toward his own liberation.

[39:29]

And the compassion, I think, is the great element that motivates a bodhisattva idea. There are very particular bodhisattvas, that we make a bodhisattva, and the bodhisattva. So Manjushri has really affected wisdom. And Avalokiteshvara has affected. all good perfect practice perfect action so these these three bodhisattvas are often on the altar surrounding the Buddha to help the Buddha

[40:43]

in the world, that help the Buddha do the Buddha work in the world, these bodhisattvas will do great virtues of compassion, wisdom, right action. All supporters of the Buddha work. Help the Buddha. So I would like to encourage each of you to continue on the path that you're on, opening up more and more to all the beings around you to see in what way you can arouse their Buddhism as well. so that we will all be focused on helping one another in this ideal world.

[41:57]

Now that we have this ideal human body, let's use it to its fullest extent to benefit me.

[42:07]

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