Bodhisattvacharyavatara

by Andreas Kretschmar | 246,740 words

The English translation of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara (“entering the conduct of the bodhisattvas”), a Sanskrit text with Tibetan commentary. This book explains the bodhisattva concept and gives guidance to the Buddhist practitioner following the Mahāyāna path towards the attainment of enlightenment. The text was written in Sanskrit by Shantideva ...

Text Sections 103-104

Khenpo Kunpal now explains how a student should listen to the dharma with proper motivation and conduct. A student of the dharma should know how to listen to the teachings properly. This includes a particular motivation and a particular conduct when receiving teachings. If you do not know the correct way of listening to the teachings, even if you receive one hundred teachings from one hundred great masters, they will not benefit you.

The teaching are designed to benefit your mind, to cause a transformation in your being. A single teaching might have such an effect on you, if you receive it with the proper motivation and the proper conduct.

Motivation is the reason or the purpose for doing something. Try to be clear about why you are listening to the teachings of the Buddha, why you are studying and practicing the dharma.

Look into your mind and examine your motives and reasons.

Are you listening to the teachings because you want to become a scholar of high repute?
Are you practicing and studying because you want to become a teacher and want to make a living from the dharma?
Do you want to make a university career by studying the dharma?
Are you sitting in the teachings because it is a social event that is enjoyable to join?

If such motives as these are your reasons for practicing and studying the dharma, then all your efforts will be useless from the onset.

Virtue [dge ba] and noble intention [bsam pa bzang po] are the essence of the dharma. Bodhicitta is the most noble intention of all. If your motivation for listening to the teachings is egocentric and less than noble, you are contravening the essence of the dharma and the teachings will therefore never transform your being.

The teachings of the Buddha will then be reduced to a mere academic lecture. If, on the other hand, bodhicitta—a mindset of compassion [snying rje] and wisdom knowledge [shes rab]—is your motivation to listen to the teachings, to study and practice the dharma, your mind is virtuous and open to the effects of the dharma.

Generate the attitude:

“I will listen to this teaching in order to liberate all sentient beings from their suffering and to establish them on the level of perfect enlightenment.”

With compassion, focus on benefiting others [snying rjes gzhan don la dmigs pa] through the steadfast resolve:

“I will listen to the dharma in order to free all beings from suffering.”

This is the compassion aspect of the bodhicitta motivation. With knowledge, focus on perfect enlightenment [shes rab kyis rdzogs byang la dmigs pa] through the similar resolve:

“I will listen to the dharma in order to establish all sentient beings on the level of perfect enlightenment.”

Bodhicitta must always incorporate these two aspects of compasssion and wisdom-knowledge.

If even a single stanza [tshigs su bcad pa gcig] of the dharma has truly penetrated your heart, this teaching will never leave your mind and will stay with you throughout this entire lifetime and all future lives to come. Listening wholeheartedly to a single teaching is much more beneficial than sitting for weeks and months absent-mindedly in retreat.

Furthermore, generate a joyous mindset whenever you have the chance to listen, study or practice the dharma.

Think,

“I have attained the precious human body endowed with eight freedoms and ten advantages. I have now met a qualified teacher. Now I have the opportunity to receive teachings from him. I am truly blessed.”

The motivation of a great person always embraces the bodhicitta intent to liberate all sentient beings. Bodhicitta is both the entrance way [’jug ngogs] to the accumulation of immeasurable merit as well as the source [’byung gnas / yong sa] of such merit. Here one must remember that throughout infinite past lifetimes [’das pa’i dus mtha’ med pa], all sentient beings have at one time or another been one’s parents. The Buddha said that no single being exists who has not at one time been your father and your mother.

In order to start to bring all these intimate relationships from former lifetimes to mind, first reflect upon the great kindness shown to you by your present parents, especially your mother. She carried you in her womb for nine months. She gave birth to you and fed you at her breast. She taught you how to speak, how to walk, and how to interact with others. She always guarded you against any possible danger. She nursed you when you were ill. During countless nights she did not sleep in order to care for you.

For years, when you were small and helpless, your parents carried you around and looked after you. They held your life to be more precious than their own. They fed and clothed you, protected you against heat and cold. They educated you and taught you how to survive in this world. When they were old or when they died, they left whatever they had as an inheritance, enabling you to live more comfortably. All of this they did out of great love and kindness for you.

It is important to know that all beings have at one time been your parents and have cared for you with exactly the same affection as your present parents. Therefore, you should extend your gratitude to all sentient beings. We are not exalted beings with supernatural perception, so we cannot really see what a close connection we have with all other sentient beings. At this point, we simply must come to trust in the word of the Buddha, who told us very clearly that all beings have been our parents.

Since we remain unaware of these intimate past ties, we continue to behave unkindly toward other beings. Although all beings aspire to happiness, they continue to create the causes for further suffering by engaging in the ten non-virtuous actions. They do not know that the real cause for happiness is to follow the dharma.

‘Dharma’ means behaving in a way that accords with the ten virtuous actions. Bringing to mind the causes of suffering and miserable conditions which all mother-like sentient beings bring upon themselves, and developing compassion for them, is called ’focusing with compassion on the welfare of others’ [snying rjes gzhan don la dmigs pa].

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