Sun, 15 Oct 2006
Ramble Mode
I visited TMC today with Pete. It was just the usual Sunday practice, nothing special. In fact it was quieter than usual, because there was a Green Tara retreat going on down at the lama house. Khenpo Tsultrim gave a short talk and my notes on part of it are below. Unfortunately, I lost about half of my notes because of a glitch.
After the practice we had a look at the stupa. Since I was last at TMC, over Labor Day, they've filled and sealed the bumpa at the top of the stupa and covered it with cement. So it looks to be well on the way to being done, though the finishing details will probably take as long as the rest of the work. I heard that they're going to start work on retreat facilities, though it wasn't clear to me exactly what they plan to build. And we helped Khenpo take down the awning that was over the porch. That's about it.
All mother sentient beings are the object of our bodhicitta. But when a huge object is in front of us, we cannot see it all. So keeping all sentient beings in mind is difficult. If we try to start with all sentient beings we will never develop love and compassion. We should start with those we care about, such as our parents, children, or spouse. It could be anyone who is kind to us. From that we can go bigger and bigger until one day we can have love and compassion for all sentient beings. When you care about someone you will wish that they are happy. That is what love is. There are two kinds of love. The first is a kind of commitment. But I don't know much about that. The other is caring. The first is not so strong and can break easily. The second won't break, whatever happens. We wish that others have happiness and joy but when we look deeper others always have some problems. If you have a home, there's so much to take care of and worry about. And if you don't have a home, that's even a bigger problem. So having or not having is a problem. For this reason we should feel compassion. You can make people happy by solving their material problems, by giving food or clothing. A longer term solution would be to get them a job. Even better would be to lead them to enlightenment, which is unending peace and joy.
To do this we must first attain enlightenment ourselves. It's not sufficient to become an arhat, who only liberates him or herself. A bodhisattva practices in order to liberate all beings. To do this they must generate a great accumulation of merit and they do this by practicing the perfections. By doing this they eventually attain Buddhahood. No matter how high your birth in samsara you are always suffering. We celebrate the Buddha's decease, but that is more a Hinayana tradition. They believe the Buddha no longer returns to samsara after his death. And they believe any rebirth is suffering. But in the Mahayana they believe that when you are beyond attachment there is no suffering. So you need to have compassion and the realization of emptiness. Atisha said practicing only one is not the complete path. Realization of emptiness has three causes. The first is confidence in emptiness, the second is devotion, and the third is the accumulation of merit.
