Q: Bodhicitta and wisdom of emptiness are the only two ways to get out of the Samsara, kindly explain.
A: I think, I think you know the answer, I think you know the answer by yourself as well, but anyway, if you want me to explain, then I will do it.
So, stop thinking about bodhicitta first. First think, “Where does the bodhicitta, where does the realization of the bodhicitta come from?” Like I said, just not long ago, you know, the very essence of bodhicitta is compassion. And the very essence of the compassion, the very foundation of the compassion, the birth of compassion, starts from the reflection that what you are seeing, the reality of the suffering, and how you bring that to your mind, and having an acceptance, and having a will to make an improvement, and make an improvement to benefit all the sentient beings, not just the families of this life, but also from the past and also from the future, to that kind of a mindset is very much needed and necessary. Right? So, with that tremendous compassion, the selfless act, then naturally becomes a bodhicitta.
If you are trying to “get” and “do” the “bodhicitta things” it will not work, because it doesn’t! You know, if you want to have a, if you want to have a fruit, you know, from different kinds of trees, and then, you know, first you have to put the seed. You know? Without the seed, there will be no tree. Without the tree, then there will be no result as a fruit. So therefore, instead of saying that “I would like to have the fruit that is coming from the tree“, and instead of looking for the tree, travelling around the world, instead of that, why not look for a seed, the way you can plant and where you can multiply, right?
So, the bodhicitta is like this: essence of the bodhicitta comes down to compassion. The essence of the compassion comes down to selfless act. The foundation of the selfless act comes to the acceptance from seeing the reality of the samsara, isn’t it? So, based on that, then, you know, you will have this growth of bodhicitta, and with that it’s already a ladder to remove ourselves from the sea of samsara, you know? So when you have the acceptance and selfless act, and there is a wisdom, naturally, you know? When there is an acceptance of the reality of the suffering, there is an honesty. When there is an honesty there is a transparency. When there is a transparency, there is a wisdom. When there is a wisdom, there is a kindness, right? So, so all these, comes together.
You know? So, you know, I find it very stupid, you know, when we, when we saying that “Oh, I go in front of the Buddha and I ask for more wisdom, I ask for more wisdom” and I’m like, no, you don’t get a wisdom like that, you know? You need to have an acceptance of the reality of the suffering and of the samsara, you know? Without that, you will not have wisdom, you know? And in order to contain the wisdom within us, you need to have an acceptance of suffering. And when you have that, you are being honest to yourself. When you are being honest to yourself, you are being transparent, and you are being selfless, yet courageous. And with the courageous and selfless act, naturally there is nothing to fear of losing, and there’s no fear of, there’s no fear of wanting or losing, therefore you will have a wisdom within your mind. Right? So, so naturally you’re out of samsara.
So bodhicitta is like that. So the more you try to say that, “Oh I want to have a bodhicitta“, you know, looking all over the sky and making offerings here and there, of course that is nice. That’s very good. That’s better than nothing. But bodhicitta foundation comes down to compassion. The foundation of compassion comes down to acceptance. An acceptance of what? Acceptance of recognizing the reality of samsara and reflecting that, and accepting that. And once you accept that, you are having an honesty to yourself. When you have an honesty, there is a transparency. When there is a transparency, there is a courageous act, because you are in a position where you have no fear of losing or gaining.
So therefore, you have a bodhicitta, wanting to benefit all sentient beings in a limitless way, to the past, to the present, and to the future. So, that’s how you get yourself out, get yourself out of samsara, you know? So that’s why many people, you know, when they hear the teachings of Mahamudra, and this deity and that deity, they just run like a fanatic, you know? And like, you know, so for me, I understand that, but it’s difficult to understand that. You know?
So, that’s that, okay?
Kalu Rinpoche
FB Livestream – 9th September 2018 (44′ 10”)
Comments are closed.