12. Bodhicitta

THE MAHAYANA EQUILIBRIUM MEDITATION

[WFGS pp.175–80]

The equilibrium meditation is fundamental to all the Mahayana and tantric meditations. It’s used by those who have great psychic powers, such as being able to fly or make footprints on stone, to turn fire to water or make prophesies and so forth. But this meditation is regarded as more useful than these powers of clairvoyance, which can still be acquired even without the realizations of this meditation on the absolute truth of the equality between us and other beings. This meditation brings the realization of the equality of all sentient beings, of us, our friends, our enemies, of strangers, animals, insects and so forth. Anybody who acquires clairvoyance without this realization is not an inner being. Because they have no realizations of the evolution of samsara, karma and so forth, they have no way to overcome suffering, to escape samsara.

The equilibrium meditation is especially useful for stopping attachment and anger. It’s a meditation that causes us to have an equal feeling for all sentient beings by cultivating the mind not being attached to some and having aversion for others. When we have realized this meditation, we will naturally have an equal feeling for all sentient beings, something that can’t really happen without it.

Stopping the discriminating mind brings peace; it frees us from so many problems with our family and friends as well as with our enemies. Without destroying our partial mind, even clairvoyance can’t bring peace, nor can it help us attain freedom from samsara, the realization of emptiness and bodhicitta. This meditation is the best way to bring peace to the world. The discriminating, partial, expectant mind is the exact opposite of the mind we can achieve with this meditation and is the cause of all problems in the world—in families, in societies and in countries.

Each time we do this meditation, the mind gets closer and closer to the subject, becoming more and more familiar with it. Little by little the mind comes into equilibrium from its unsubdued state. As it does so, the actions of greed and anger arise less frequently, since the negative mind responsible for them decreases. And as our discrimination decreases, we create less problems for others. Because discrimination causes us to engage in negative actions to family, friends and all sentient beings, everybody is helped by subduing our mind.

All sentient beings become equal. This doesn’t mean equal in their possessions or their political power, but equal in our mind, without dependence on things they do to us, such as helping, harming or ignoring us. The limited mind that judges others only on their immediate actions for or against us fails to understand the infinite previous lives, where beings have been all things to us. With this worldly limited mind, we can never see all sentient beings as equal, whereas a mind of equilibrium can’t be betrayed by friend or enemy because all beings appear as equal. This is an unshakeable mind uncomplicated by attachment, anger or ignorance, a mind without confusion. With this mind, we are always happy and we always bring peace to other people. We stop others from creating negative karma. With no animosity to the enemy, they no longer react with anger; with no clinging to the friend, they like us without attachment.

The principal cause of not seeing people in equilibrium is the partial mind.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha says,

Anything growing on this earth, any flowers, fruit-bearing trees, forests or ayurvedic plants, is due to the lake called Matu, and that lake depends on its possessor, the nagas. Therefore, whatever grows from the earth depends on those nagas. In the same way, every single past and future happiness, samsaric, non-samsaric, and all realizations including enlightenment—from the tiniest samsaric pleasure such as a cooling breeze upwards—arises from bodhicitta. Without it, there can be no happiness. Even the happiness of animals, insects, and so forth cannot exist without bodhicitta.

Every single happiness of all our past lives, every present happiness, even today’s, and all future happiness up to enlightenment arises due to the power of bodhicitta. Therefore, bodhicitta is the most important thing, more important than this body or this life. Through bodhicitta we can have the most perfect, most meaningful life.

Why is bodhicitta more important than this life or body? Because it can never cause even a tiny suffering, in contrast to the body, which has been the fundamental basis for suffering. No matter how much we trust bodhicitta, it can never betray us. But the body can cheat us. Every problem arising from this body is due to its very existence, but bodhicitta can never cause suffering.

This body cheats us by making us think as if we will always have it and it will always help us. Yet no matter how much care we take of it, it will leave us in time, even if we try to always keep it happy and free from suffering. It cheats us by giving us expectations of happiness and never achieving them. We work so hard to give it everything it wants but it still lets us down; it still brings us suffering we don’t want. We think we are in control but really, we have no control at all.

But no matter how much we work for, trust and take care of bodhicitta it never betrays us, not even for a tiny second. That’s not in its nature. Just being alive is not enough to stop suffering and always enjoy happiness but because bodhicitta can eliminate all suffering, it’s more important than life.

People go to war because they worry that their country will become powerless and lose possessions, land and so on. They give up their life or put it in danger to fight other countries for their country’s prestige. This is because they see things like reputation and pleasure as more important than life. It’s crazy that they are willing to give up their life so they can have a more comfortable life. This works in complete opposition to the intention. They think power and land are the fundamental source of happiness. I’m not complaining, just explaining. It’s like explaining that fire is hot and ice is cold; it’s just a fact, not a complaint.

Bodhicitta is the fundamental source of our past, present and future happiness and therefore is infinitely more important than power and possessions. Even if we have some degree of samsaric enjoyment, it exists at the most for the rest of our life, usually much less, and is bound to cause problems. But the help of bodhicitta is eternal. It has a beginning and it results in everlasting happiness. Therefore, when we think of the infinite benefits of bodhicitta and compare them to chasing samsaric happiness, the latter looks so silly, like giving up our life for candy. That’s why bodhicitta is more important than life.

This well-controlled mind of bodhicitta is achieved on the basis of the fundamental attainment of the equilibrium meditation and attaining this depends on practice.

Visualize a friend, an enemy (animal or human), a stranger, and all sentient beings. Remember that in many previous lives the friend has been the enemy and the stranger for an equal number of times. It’s impossible that they were one more than the other. Since friend, enemy and stranger are seen as equal, we should have equal feelings for them.

Then, we should consider what causes us to become angry the most. For example, if we are attached to hearing praise, we should visualize someone criticizing us. If we don’t have any enemies, we can do this with anything that bothers us. At the same time, we should check to see if there is a negative mind arising.

Sometimes, if we think how someone is harming us, the more we think about it, the angrier we get. This mind of dislike comes to see that person as ugly, an undesirable object. If we can observe this negative feeling for such a person, we can use that to compare how we feel for a friend and for a stranger and to check the different feelings that arise. By going through the twenty reasons of the equilibrium meditation [WFGS pp. 175–80] we will feel the same about them. Then, think of our parents nearby; they are also equal.

The twenty points covered in the equilibrium meditation in Wish-fulfilling Golden Sun are these.

1. If I were to work only to gain my own peace, there would be no reason to have been born human, because, even as an animal, I could strive for this.
2. The main purpose of my being born human is to bring every sentient being into everlasting happiness.
3. Just as I wish to avoid suffering and find happiness, so do all other sentient beings.
4. For countless rebirths I have been discriminating all beings as either friend, enemy or stranger with a belief in the self-existing I.
5. The two negative actions, helping with greed and harming with anger, have thrown me into samsaric suffering for beginningless lives.
6. To continue in this way will cause me the same suffering, attaining neither realizations nor enlightenment, for countless eons.
7. The three objects—friend, enemy and stranger—are not definitely true. The present friend, enemy and stranger have not always been the friend, enemy and stranger in past countless lives.
8. If what my ignorant “I” saw as true, that friend, enemy and stranger are true objects, these three distinctions should have existed from countless previous lives to the present, and even beyond enlightenment.
9. My afflictions are not created by the enemy but by myself.
10. I should not hate the enemy because they are the object of my practice of patience, to control my anger.
11. The enemy is infinitely more precious than any possession. They are the source of my past, present and future lives’ happiness.
12. The enemy is the cause of all beings’ enlightenment, including mine.
13. Because the enemy harming me is under the control of their negative mind, there is no reason to get angry, it’s not their fault.
14. With wisdom I would see that harming others with hate is harming myself.
15. The enemy, as well as every other being, is the object of the Buddha’s compassion. Therefore, even lightly harming any being is like harming the infinite buddhas.
16. The Buddha always considers all sentient beings, even enemies, more important than himself.
17. The enemy and all other beings have been my mother countless times.
18. Not harming the worst enemy, which is my self-cherishing mind, but destroying the outside enemy instead, is like shooting a friend and not shooting the enemy.
19. A bodhisattva sees no sentient being as an enemy even if all should rise against them.
20. If I analyze the attached friend and the hated enemy with the ultimate analysis examining emptiness, I won’t find them anywhere.  

Then, think that all sentient beings are also equal, they were our enemy, friend, stranger, parents and so forth in past lives the same number of times. We should think, “There is no being that I cling to more or detest more.” We should feel neutral, the mind not clinging to the notion of friend. Like this, we become more relaxed; the mind is no longer so tight. We should have no anger but feel unattached, equal.

After each of the twenty reasons we should think, “Therefore, there is no reason to be attached to the friend or to hate the enemy.” This is the main resolution that we try to achieve with this meditation.

The first of the twenty reasons is that there would be no reason to have been born human if we were to work only to gain our own peace. Animals such as the cat and spider have a discriminating mind. Although the way people fight is different, the fighting is the same—one group against another, each an enemy to the other. Animals also have political minds and cheat one another. Even monkeys know how to throw things on people’s heads. Humans fighting and trying to control each other are no different than animals. However competent a person is in such knowledge, this is not human knowledge.

In Tibet if a rat is left to live in a room, it just runs here and there, eating clothes and other objects people are attached to if it is hungry. If someone harms the rat, it tries to harm the person back as much as they can by destroying their possessions or food.

Behavior such as this, working only for our own good, is not the purpose of the human rebirth. Its purpose is to try to bring every sentient being into everlasting happiness, and we can only do this when we have equal feelings for all sentient beings, seeing all sentient beings equally. Animals, those lower beings, can’t do this. Even animals such as dogs or rats have friends, enemies and strangers. If we were to follow this kind of partial behavior, this wouldn’t be human behavior but fitting in with that of animals. Animals will help those who help them and try to destroy enemies as much as possible. To do the same is not the action of a human being from the Dharma point of view.

The second of the twenty reasons is that our aim as a human being is to bring perfect peace to all sentient beings, not only to other humans. Even if we were able to achieve perfect peace, we wouldn’t be able to transplant it to other sentient beings; that state can’t be shared. Therefore, there must be some other way to bring them peace. Bringing peace to other sentient beings completely depends on releasing them from the unsubdued mind that disturbs perfect peace. That depends on their having completely attained the method side of the path. Thus, bringing them to peace depends on each of us achieving enlightenment. Without understanding their level of mind, we can’t help each sentient being in the wisest way.

Each of us can only attain enlightenment by following the practice of Highest Yoga Tantra and by practicing the six perfections. This depends on having a complete realization of the absolute truth and on bodhicitta. This in turn depends on having the realizations of great compassion and great love. For these, we need to experience the practice and develop a mind that is well trained in the practice of the basic Mahayana meditations through the practice of making ourselves equal with other sentient beings and exchanging ourselves with others.

These basic Mahayana practices depend on knowing that all sentient beings have been our mothers and that they are infinitely kind. We can only do this when we are well trained in the fundamental Mahayana equilibrium meditation. Unless we have attained higher Mahayana meditations, attaining the tantric path is impossible. Therefore, the practice of the Mahayana equilibrium meditation brings peace and release from suffering by achieving enlightenment. It also has the power to lead all sentient beings into perfect happiness. Therefore, this kind of meditation is the principal cause of our enlightenment and the principal cause of enlightenment for all sentient beings.

We always talk about peace: peace in our family, in our society, in our country, in the world, but how can we achieve world peace? When we consider peace we focus on these sorts of groups, but each group wants peace on their terms. Their peace will almost certainly clash with the peace of another group, whether that’s within a family, in a society or within two countries. To ensure their kind of peace, in order to stop others destroying their peace, they create weapons of war. And yet none have the power to bring peace, either individually or within the group or the country, or for all sentient beings. Because these things are not done in accord with the Dharma, they never bring peace.

The practice of the Mahayana equilibrium meditation, however, can really bring peace. First, we ourselves gain peace, and then with our own experience of perfect peace, with perfect power and understanding, we can enlighten all parents, relatives, societies, populations, all humans, even all sentient beings, leading them to the highest, perfect peace.

Even if we haven’t achieved perfect peace, the mind that is living in the practice of subduing the unsubdued mind, the cause of suffering for ourselves and others, helps other people a great deal. The practice does these things at the same time. It subdues the unsubdued, negative mind; it creates great merit, fertilizing the mind like a precious crop; and it helps others overcome their suffering. Wherever someone living in this practice travels, for all those that they encounter, there are less problems and fewer enemies, there is less suffering.

Our enemy is only created by our unsubdued, negative mind. Because this practice subdues the negative mind, we don’t create problems for others—for our parents, our children or any others. Wherever we go, no matter which countries, we are always considerate of people, wisely helping others, never creating problems due to partiality for friend and enemy.

When we live with a feeling of partiality, there will always be problems. We see somebody we don’t like and an argument develops. It gets bigger and bigger, more people get involved—different castes, different groups. Because of our prejudice, we confront other elements of our society we don’t like and there are huge problems. If it’s on the scale of country to country, there will certainly be wars. This is all due to the partial mind.

Even if we were the only human being on this earth, would we be at peace? We might have killed every other person to be rid of our enemies, but there would still be no peace because the principal cause, the unsubdued mind, has not been eliminated.

If just eliminating enemies can bring us peace, then the astronauts who landed on the moon should have achieved perfect peace because they were completely alone in that world. But real peace is the cessation of greed, hatred and ignorance. Peace doesn’t depend on the place or on being alone. When we can live in the practice of equanimity, we become a person that everybody likes. With our very positive personality, because we don’t foster any thoughts of greed, ignorance or hatred, we don’t create problems. If we had attachment to one person, that would mean disliking another, whoever it is who dislikes our friend. Seeing our attachment, they would naturally become jealous and feel hostility, wanting to cause us problems. But because our actions with others are based on equanimity, we don’t make others confused. Our mind is always peaceful, always happy, never uptight, like water boiling. With such a relaxed mind, we are a very strong positive influence on others, making them like us. Even though we might still be a long way from attaining the cessation of all suffering, because we are living in the practice, we always have fewer problems.

This practice is purely a mental one; it doesn’t depend on bells, dorjes or robes. Such a mind of equanimity has so much power, but if we were to try to find that mind, it’s impossible to find.

The third reason is that just as we wish to avoid suffering and find happiness, so do all other sentient beings. This is a very logical reason. Because we and all other sentient beings only desire happiness and don’t desire suffering, we are all equal. We have life, they have life; there is no difference. Why should we care more for ourselves than for others? There is no logical reason to feel we are more important. So why should we harm any other being? If they disturb us in some way, such as wearing our clothes or taking our food, because we are equal—both not desiring suffering, both needing happiness—there is no reason to react against them. As we desire happiness, so do they. There is no reason to take less care of them than of ourselves.

The fourth reason says that the falsely conceived self-existent I is not on any part of the body or the mind, and not in the continuity of the mind. We live with the assumption that this I we cherish is truly existent, that it is somehow independent of body and mind, that it is more than just a mere label placed on the ever-changing aggregates. This I is totally false; it’s a hallucination. Just as for somebody called Max, the name “Max” is not a separate entity, but just a name given to the body-mind constituents that together make up the person called Max.

The wrong concept of the truly existing I is beginningless. As long as this exists, we perpetuate the view, which leads to viewing others as truly existing. The clear light nature of the mind, the natural purity of the mind, which is seen by the enlightened beings, is within us all but at present we are unable to see that. What we see is a false view of an I that appears to exist out there, independently, and because of that, we see others as also existing independently, and this applies to all phenomena, not just sentient beings.

This ignorant view of a separate, truly existing I leads to duality, seeing others as separate, which leads to attachment, which leads to anger. And so, the ignorant mind increases.

To get out of suffering, we must first understand that the truly existing I that we have believed in since beginningless time is false, that it doesn’t exist in the slightest. Then we need to examine all other beings and all other phenomena in the same way, seeing how they too lack true nature. This belief in a truly existing I, which is the creator of samsara, can be eliminated by all these basic meditations.

Although the body is not I, were somebody to hit our body we would get angry, as if they were hitting this truly existing I. If we were to check up at that time, we wouldn’t be able to find the I that is feeling angry. That anger is nowhere in the body; none of the aggregates is that I. This analysis only really works if our anger isn’t too strong and we aren’t overwhelmed by it. If we have enough presence of mind, we can see there is no reason to get angry.

The partial mind is a mind of expectations, making a friend of somebody who might help us at some time in the future or who has helped us in the past.

Dharmakirti was a highly realized Indian pandit who wrote the root of the logic, the Compendium on Valid Cognition, originally explained by Guru Shakyamuni Buddha. This text not only proved past lives and so forth, it showed how Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was the founder of the presentation of the logical evolution of the mind.

The truly existing I isn’t the ignorance that locks us in suffering; it’s the belief in this truly existing I. That fundamental ignorance causes attachment to what we think will help this I and anger toward what we think will harm it. But the more we search for this I, the more impossible it is to find. However, our ordinary mind doesn’t search for this I; it just assumes it exists. It thinks that we are this I, the body-mind combination that exists as a separate, single entity. Only when we check using valid reasoning can we see that this truly existing I doesn’t exist at all. That’s why we say that the I and all phenomena are empty of inherent existence.

Just as how, without checking we instinctively feel this real I is there and attachment naturally arises, when we do check and discover there is no such I, we lose our attachment to it. The attachment decreases and loses its strength. The uptight feeling that attachment brings becomes loose, sort of free. Just as objects on a table would fall down if the table were to be suddenly removed because there is no longer a foundation to support them, attachment and the other negative minds would disappear if the belief in a truly existing I were to be overcome. To try to hold on to attachment would be like throwing eggs at a target when there is no longer any target or trying to put things in space and expecting them to stay up. Since it can’t find the object of attachment, the attachment itself can’t survive.

Just as seeing the truly existing I is the basis for attachment to arise, attachment is the basis of seeing things as good or bad, as beautiful or ugly. Our attachment sees an object of desire and thinks it is beautiful; our aversion sees an object of repulsion and thinks it is ugly. Based on this truly existing I, we chase objects that please our attachment, seeking the pleasure of possessions and so forth. Anything that disturbs our pleasure is recognized as an enemy and anger arises. That negative mind of anger sees the enemy as ugly due to our attachment to pleasure being disturbed. When we are able to enjoy that pleasure, the one who helped us attain it is a friend and beautiful to us. The one who neither disturbs nor helps is discerned as a stranger.

Whether a friend or an enemy, we also see that other person as truly existent, and so our anger toward an enemy is the anger of a truly existent I (which doesn’t exist) toward a truly existent enemy (which also doesn’t exist). This confusion, this battle of hallucinations, creates many other negative emotions and angry thoughts that lead to negative actions as we are locked into more and more suffering.

Both minds, attachment and hatred, are negative. One makes us blind to the faults of attachment and the future suffering result it will bring, and the other makes us blind to the faults of anger and its future suffering results. We will experience some of those suffering results in this life and others in future lives, depending on the karma.

All these problems originally come from the belief in and attachment to the truly existing I. If we were not attached to the I, there would be no way to be attached to pleasures and possessions. Then, there would be no way to harm the enemy or help the friend. As there is no discrimination, there is no negative mind creating future suffering.

The main thing is this. All the problems, all these discriminations of friend, enemy and stranger that are made by the negative mind, the whole thing comes from attachment to the truly existing I. The whole thing is based on a faulty belief, an ignorant misunderstanding. It’s wrong and illogical. Attachment and anger can never have any justification because the creator of the discrimination that causes them is a false mind, and this false mind comes from the incorrect belief in the truly existing I.

Any actions based on this false assumption are incorrect because they assume the hallucination of the real I to be true. For example, if the roots of a tree are poisoned, the whole tree becomes poisoned—the branches, fruit and so forth. Say I were to bark and somebody hears me. Because they hate dogs, they discriminate against me, thinking I am bad just because I barked once. This is illogical because the situation doesn’t exist as they see it; their perception is wrong. They see an object that neither exists for the logical, relative mind nor for the omniscient mind. The object, dog, is a hallucination; it doesn’t exist. If it did exist, it should be seen by the omniscient mind, and if it’s not seen by the omniscient mind, then it doesn’t exist.

Since everything we experience is based on false assumptions, viewing nonexistent objects as existing, how can we trust the negative mind that discriminates the enemy? If we could, we would also have to trust the truly existent I.

This consciousness is like the mother who produces many children. We can’t trust these negative minds that hold the I and others as inherently existing because we can’t find them (although if we don’t seek them, we assume they exist). If we discriminate and trust the wrong view, it only causes us to spiral ever deeper into more suffering and conflict.

The fifth reason is that the two negative actions have continued to make us experience samsaric suffering for beginningless lives. These two negative actions, helping with greed and harming with anger, keep us trapped in samsara, continually experiencing all the different sufferings and preventing all the realizations. Our current suffering is the result of following these negative minds in previous times. That is what those negative minds do; we should continually remember this. To understand the Dharma and progress along the path, we have to work hard, but to create any of these negative minds is effortless. But when we have a clear understanding of how destructive they are, we can have the determination to overcome them and eliminate them. Then, we can attain all the realizations. That is the power of the mind, although this might seem impossible to the ordinary mind from the ignorant point of view.

An ordinary example. Say, somebody harmed us or our relatives in the past, maybe even in a previous life. The anger we felt toward them leaves an imprint on our mindstream that is still there today. Although buried, this is an obscuration that clouds the purity of our mind. We retain, even subconsciously, a degree of spite. If we were to meet that person today, now we’re in another life and another body, that imprint could ripen and we would immediately and inexplicably dislike them, maybe even hate them. If we continue to associate with them—maybe they are a colleague at work—our prejudice against them grows and we develop real hatred for them, causing a real feud between us. We feel we want to harm them in some way; we might even wish to make them nonexistent! If we could do that, how happy we would be.

All this has come through the negative mind we have, the imprints of anger from harm and being harmed in the past, none of which could have happened if we had overcome our attachment to the self. In this way, we should continually remember the faults of the negative mind, the faults of attachment and anger, seeing them as the worst poison, just as poisonous food causes us great suffering, not knowing when we will die. Just as we would wish to free our body from that poison without delaying even a minute, we should develop a similar feeling for our negative minds. Being afraid of these minds, we should renounce them.

The sixth reason is that if we continue in this way, we will continue to suffer in the same way and be unable to attain realizations and enlightenment for countless eons. Negative imprints arise from discriminating with attachment and anger, imprints that will one day ripen as suffering results and that will cause us to do similar actions. Each time we do this, the mind becomes more ignorant. We do habitual actions without being taught, actions such as those caused by attachment and anger. Things like theft and sexual misconduct are done intuitively; they are habitual actions, coming from habits created in past lives. They don’t depend on someone teaching us. The negative imprints ripening now cause us to repeat these actions in this life and will cause us to repeat them again in the future. In this way, the mind is made more ignorant.

The seventh reason is that the three objects—friend, enemy and stranger—don’t exist inherently. We think that hating an enemy is justified because they have harmed us in some way. Perceiving that there is a truly existing enemy there shows that our understanding of reality is flawed. The truly existing enemy is a hallucination. If we get angry at this hallucination, we should also get angry at the illusion created by a magician. Just as the magician’s illusion is dependent on some object, a stick or something, this hallucinated enemy is dependent on their body and mind and because of that, they are incapable of any true existence at all. Just as it is silly to become angry at the magician’s illusion, it’s silly to become angry at this truly existing enemy that doesn’t exist at all.

When we can understand the emptiness of the enemy and when we can understand karma, we easily see how anger is meaningless and a waste of energy. Because we see that that person is completely empty of being that self-existent enemy, we don’t react with anger.

First, is the anger we feel toward the enemy’s body? But their head is not their body, nor are their hands, legs and so forth, and neither is the whole group the body, so how can we find the body in order to harm it?

Second, we can think the same thing about the mind. The mind is also a dependent arising, as is the body. We can decide that the body that harms us is reliant on the intentions of the mind, so it’s the mind that is the enemy, but we need to check up on what we consider is our enemy’s mind. “Mind” is only a word, merely a name; it’s also a dependent arising. To exist, it depends on the continuity of moments, how each moment of mind depends on the previous moment to exist. The mind is not one with the enemy and the enemy is not one with the mind, just as they are not one with the body. If they were one with the continuity of mind, they would always be the enemy—our permanent enemy from beginningless lifetimes and for endless lifetimes in the future. If they had been a friend in our earlier life or in previous lives, they would have to be enemy and friend together and continue to be both enemy and friend forever into the future, even when enlightened.

Just as the body isn’t one with the parts of the body, the enemy isn’t one with the body or its parts, so when we look we can’t find the enemy within the body. It’s exactly the same thing with the mind.

“Body,” “mind,” and “enemy” are only words. Just as the magician’s illusionary person is a dependent arising, dependent on the observer, the magician, the object transformed and so on, this enemy is also a dependent arising. Because it’s a mere name, we can’t find it as one with body and mind. We fight the enemy without recognizing what it is. Getting angry at this enemy for many years, fighting with them, arranging for somebody to kill them—all this is done for that word “enemy.” Many difficulties only arise because of the name “enemy.” Our whole life, all our energy, is spent trying to destroy what is only a name or a word. All the fighting is pointless because it’s just a name.

It’s impossible to find anything that exists as more than a mere name. Something that is more than a mere name can’t exist. When we see that, it makes the anger we have held all our life totally meaningless because there is no such thing. We get spiteful and waste our energy on something that is a mere name. It’s just like the child building things in the sand, who cries when somebody kicks them over, crying that their house is destroyed or their car is destroyed. They feel badly hurt because they believe those piles of sand are actual possessions; they seem real to the child. To the adult, the child’s action is silly, not worth crying over. This is similar to our own actions, but we don’t recognize it.

The designations of friend and enemy change quickly because of our ever-changing negative minds of attachment and anger. Friend becomes enemy; enemy becomes friend; stranger becomes friend or enemy; friend becomes stranger and so on. This has been going on from beginningless lives until now. They change within an hour due to our attachment or ignorance, due to the emotion of that moment. Therefore, the friend is not a true friend, a real friend, and neither is the enemy true or real.

Whenever we are attached to somebody who offers us things or says nice things, we should be conscious that they have been our sworn enemy and killed us in the past and that they will do so again in the future. This will help us break our attachment, because as long as we are in samsara this person will swap from friend to enemy and back countless times, so there is nothing to trust. The trusting mind of attachment arises from the feeling that they will be our permanent friend, so we spend so much time and energy influenced by their decisions while disregarding our own life. Following this “permanent” friend, we fail to create positive karma through our attachment and must remain trapped in samsara. This is very dangerous. For the person who practices meditation, this is one of the greatest disturbances to both the Dharma practice and meditation.

This doesn’t mean that we should completely forget that friend and disregard them as an object of true love and true compassion. This is a mistake. If we renounce anybody—human or animal—as an object of true love and true compassion, then we are not practicing correctly. This also breaks any bodhisattva vows we might have taken. To renounce anybody as an object of true love and true compassion is very dangerous.

It’s also a mistake to think that we can no longer enjoy samsaric things when we practice the Dharma. If we have achieved a degree of mental control, the actions we do might look like samsaric actions but be the cause of enlightenment. This can apply to having a family, where our married life is focused on protecting and helping our family become better people. Even if we are a leader of a country or a king, we can protect the population in the proper way, through positive karma rather than ruling for our own interests, which only brings confusion. Ordinary actions, even killing people, can become a quick cause of attaining enlightenment if we have bodhicitta and every action is only done for the welfare of others. This applies only if we are a bodhisattva.

Somebody who acts like a bodhisattva but who has a negative mind, working for their own happiness alone, can’t benefit others. However beautiful they look or sweetly they speak, no matter what exquisite clothes they wear, even if they seem to have attained Highest Yoga Tantra realizations, their actions can be very negative and they can harm us greatly by deceiving us. The Dharma doesn’t depend on how an action looks; it depends on the motivation behind the action. An action that appears to be negative can be done with a negative or positive motivation. An action that appears to be positive, when it’s done with a positive motivation is really positive, and vice versa. It all depends on the motivation behind the action.

Any samsaric enjoyment, such as the enjoyment of sexual intercourse, can become a shortcut to enlightenment. If we do it with the correct motivation it can be more beneficial to other living beings than living in the vows. But for that kind of higher tantric practice, we need the strongest mental control based on bodhicitta. Without the achievement of bodhicitta, we can’t transcend our attachment to samsaric enjoyments and therefore can’t turn them into a quick route to enlightenment. Until we have totally renounced the self-cherishing mind and do everything purely for others’ benefit, until we have bodhicitta, it’s much more beneficial for ourselves and others to live in the vows we can take as a Buddhist.

Once we have attained the higher realizations of a bodhisattva, when we have that degree of power, we can see which actions are more beneficial for others, even ones that go directly against any vows we have taken before we had reached that level. What to an untrained mind would be a strong negative action, such as killing or sexual misconduct, can be far more beneficial than practices such as making offerings, doing prostrations and so forth; it might cause us to attain enlightenment far more quickly.  When we transcend the dualistic mind, we experience infinite bliss, a happiness far exceeding any samsaric happiness. The happiness of sexual intercourse is nothing compared to the bliss induced by samadhi. Sexual happiness might seem like an unsurpassable happiness but it is just the suffering of change; it’s a temporary pleasure that will become the suffering of pain soon enough.

The yogi’s enjoyments may outwardly look samsaric but if they are done to only bring enlightenment, they will be greatly beneficial to all sentient beings. Until we attain bodhicitta, there will always be the flavor of self-cherishing in what we do, but when we have transcended that and have a mind that only cherishes others, we can progress quickly to attain enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings.

Our experience of samsaric pleasures is only negative until we have eliminated the self-cherishing thought. Only with bodhicitta, based on this equilibrium meditation, can we achieve this. Even if our goal isn’t enlightenment, we still need bodhicitta. We must subdue the mind, otherwise we will forever suffer from an unsubdued mind, without control. We must purify our past negativities and stop creating new ones. For example, the criminal punished for breaking the law has to vow in front of the judge that they will follow the law.

Riding into Kathmandu on the back of a crazy elephant, we probably won’t get there on time and we might be killed if the elephant goes amok and runs through the fields and the forests. If we want to make it to Kathmandu, we must ride a subdued elephant. The mind, like an elephant, must be subdued, cured of its craziness. Then, we can follow the path to Kathmandu as we want.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha says, [WFGS p. 178]

The father becomes the son in another life, the mother becomes wife, the enemy becomes friend; it always changes. Therefore, there is nothing definite in samsara.

One day when Shakyamuni Buddha’s disciple, the arhat Shariputra, was going for alms in the town near a family’s home, he looked through the door of the house and with his clairvoyance saw all this. He saw the father was now a fish that had been caught by the son and was being eaten by the family, while the mother, now a dog, was at the son’s feet, chewing the bones of her former husband. Meanwhile, the son was cradling his former hated enemy—now their child—in his arms and beating the dog, his mother, with a stick. When Shariputra saw this, he said, “Eating the father’s flesh, beating the mother, cuddling the enemy, samsaric existence is laughable.”

This sutra quotation is medicine to cure the problem of attachment. There is no point in killing the enemy, or even every sentient being. We’ve already done this in countless previous lives and it still hasn’t prevented enemies from arising. Killing an enemy only results in our own suffering in the lower realms for eons. Creating any negative karma only makes our own enemy. The problem cannot be solved externally. When we cease being an enemy to ourselves, all other enemies disappear.

The tenth reason is that the enemy is the object of our practice of patience. Only through having somebody who harms us can we learn to control our anger. Therefore, there is no such thing as an intrinsic enemy. The one we call an enemy can always help us. They help the practices of patience, of great love, and great compassion.

The eleventh reason is that the enemy is the cause of all beings’ enlightenment. Without having this body, we can’t have any physical happiness. The body comes from our mother’s body. Because all sentient beings have been our mother countless times, and because there is not one body that the enemy has never taken, the enemy has been our mother countless times. So, we can reason that all our happiness of past times has come from that enemy.

Even when the current enemy wasn’t our mother but was the mother of other beings, we still received happiness from them. Take the example of the present life. Happiness depends on many other beings besides our mother. Clothes, food, housing and so forth are produced by many beings who had to bear great difficulties, especially farmers working on the land, having to kill great numbers of other beings such as insects and worms. The food we eat comes from the sacrifice of these beings.

Consider the work in a handful of rice. Even one rice seed is the result of a previous seed and so on. And each is the result of sentient beings’ sufferings. If we could really see how many beings have suffered for that grain of wheat or of rice, we wouldn’t feel worthy of eating it. And it’s the same with clothes and all other comforts. This is one reason why all sentient beings are kind. As this is the case, how can we enjoy all the comforts of our life without repaying the kindness of all sentient beings? It is so selfish to work for our own peace alone. In our countless previous lives, such pleasures have also depended on other sentient beings.

So the enemy, apart from being our mother, has also been working for our happiness from time without beginning. And as long as we are in samsara, our future happiness also will have to depend on them.

Even the pleasure of a cool breeze depends not only on positive karma but also on the enemy who has cut our body to pieces countless times. The positive karmas that we create are impossible without the teachings of the Buddha showing us right from wrong. Therefore, in the texts it’s said that all happiness, all positive karma is an action of the Buddha. All enlightened beings attained enlightenment through following the path, starting with lower realizations of the perfect human rebirth and then the higher realizations of the equilibrium meditation and bodhicitta. Without depending on the enemy, they couldn’t have attained realizations, they couldn’t have practiced the six perfections and they couldn’t have practiced the equilibrium meditation. Without the realization of the equality of all sentient beings, there is no way to attain bodhicitta, so this relies on the enemy. Also, without the enemy we can’t develop great compassion. The enemy has to be the object of these meditations, as does every sentient being.

Therefore, this enemy caused Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and all the infinite buddhas to attain enlightenment. Because of that, and because of the Buddha’s enlightenment, we have the chance to study the Dharma and attain enlightenment ourselves. So, this enemy who has cut our body countless times in the past is even more precious than the infinite buddhas.

The root of all happiness is therefore the enemy. If we examine this, we’ll see that this is true. Can anybody be more precious than the enemy?

The twelfth reason is that we must not harm any living being because enlightenment depends on the development of bodhicitta, which depends on meditating on every sentient being without exception, including the enemy. To live as a bodhisattva, we need the strong will that is able to renounce the body and anything else in order to give the enemy even a little happiness. This is exactly the opposite of our usual reaction. Such understanding is the medicine that sees the extreme importance of the enemy, how they are most precious. It’s not enough to only know the words; it must be done by training the mind, through meditation. But meditating on this point of the enemy alone is inadequate; we must gain the other understandings too.

The thirteenth reason is that we can’t blame the enemy because when they harm us, they are under the control of their negative mind. If we are being verbally or physically abused, before we can let anger overtake us, we should hold onto this point and there will be no harm. This kind of harm is only a concept. Just as we don’t get angry at the stick someone uses to beat us because the stick is under the power of that person, so too we shouldn’t get angry at the person wielding the stick because they are under the power of their delusions.  As Shantideva says,

[6:41–42] If I become angry with the wielder
Although I am actually harmed by the stick,
Then since the perpetrator, too, is secondary, being in turn incited by hatred,
I should be angry with the hatred instead.

Previously, I must have caused similar harm
To other sentient beings.
Therefore, it is right for this harm to be returned
To me, who caused injury to others.

Any situation in which we experience hurt because of a physical or verbal action is our own karmic result, and at this point uncontrolled. We should not create any more negative karma with anger.

The fourteenth reason is when we harm others with anger, we are harming ourselves with that same anger. This is something we could see if we had the wisdom.

The fifteenth reason is that the enemy, as well as every other sentient being, is the object of the Buddha’s compassion. His teaching to us is that we too must have equal compassion for all sentient beings. These are instructions from the perfect guide to enlightenment. Therefore, if we are angry with or hate any other sentient being, who is the object of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s compassion, we are opposing the Buddha. Unless we understand his compassion and strive to also have that compassion, these are only words.

Seeing every being’s suffering with his compassion, he wants to release them from suffering right now. Therefore, if we feel anything but compassion for any being, we are in direct opposition to the wish of the Buddha. Even though of course at this stage our compassion can’t match his, we must still not oppose him. To do so is also to oppose all the infinite buddhas. Therefore, we must help our enemy out of suffering and help them to reach enlightenment. Any kind of help we give them must have their enlightenment as the ultimate goal.

This doesn’t mean we must always follow the enemy’s orders. Because of their ignorance, what they would want us to do will probably harm them and us, so we must be skillful. We must help them not to create negative karma. We really need to know the level of their mind so we can most skillfully help them, so that means we must develop our own mind to the highest possible level.

The sixteenth reason is that the Buddha always considers all sentient beings, even enemies, as more important than himself. When we consider we are more important than our enemy, we are therefore placing ourselves above the Buddha. That is a truly ignorant mind!

The seventeenth reason is that all the infinite buddhas are servants to all sentient beings, including our enemy, so we, who are still ignorant, must also be a servant and never harm any sentient being.

[The eighteenth reason is that harming the external enemy while not trying to harm the internal enemy, our own ignorance, is like shooting a friend and not the enemy because we mistake the target. The only real enemy is our self-cherishing thought. That is what we must determine to destroy. The one we call “enemy” is the enemy only of our self-cherishing, therefore to see the enemy as our teacher is to oppose the self-cherishing thought.]

[The nineteenth reason is that a bodhisattva sees no enemy because of their great realizations. Even if all the beings of this world should rise up and kill the bodhisattva, they would still feel great compassion for them. The Guru Puja says,

The mind that cherishes mothers and places them in bliss
Is the gateway leading to infinite qualities.
Seeing this, I seek your blessings to cherish these transmigratory beings
More than my life, even should they rise up as my enemies.¹]

[The twentieth reason is that both friend and enemy are unfindable when we examine them with our wisdom, the wisdom that seeks the ultimate truth. The concepts of “friend” and “enemy” are merely concepts of the ignorant mind. With the wisdom realizing emptiness, we can see how not a single atom of these can exist.

To attain realizations, we must depend on meditating to create some positive karma and on purifying our negative karma accumulated since beginningless lifetimes. This can be done by such means as prostrating, offering, cleaning holy places, confessing past negative actions and praying to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha for realizations. But to attain them, we must have determination. The Buddha said that to meditate without recognizing our own mind is faulty, leading to confusion and suffering at the time of death.

The explanation of these meditations might seem simple, but to think that meditation is easy is very mistaken. However, it’s good to find our practice easy, otherwise we tend not to do it. By taking time to attain their realizations, the ancient meditators experienced far fewer difficulties. So should we.

THE SEVEN TECHNIQUES OF MAHAYANA CAUSE AND EFFECT 

[WFGS pp. 183–96]

Even if we don’t attain realizations, meditating and practicing the seven techniques leaves an impression on the mind and brings us closer to realization of bodhicitta. Then in future human lives when we hear the explanations again, we can understand them more easily and achieve realizations more quickly. We must keep the practice of the equilibrium meditation close to the heart. In order to receive realizations, it’s very worthwhile to spend several years or the whole of our life on this; though this varies with the person. Understanding depends on the level of mind and is related to previous karmic impressions from practices in past lives and to the amount of merit.

1. THE KINDNESS OF THE MOTHER

How are all sentient beings my mother? When meditating on this point we should visualize our mother, father, enemy and a stranger in front of us surrounded by all sentient beings. All are equal.

Remember, when a relative gives us a gift, we should not be attached; and when we see an enemy, we shouldn’t get angry.

Our father has also been our mother in countless previous lives, as have our enemies and strangers.

The Buddha sees everything that exists. The very beginning of our mind, which is the time that sentient beings began to be our mother, doesn’t exist. Not even the Buddha can see the beginning of our mind with his omniscient mind. The time our present mother began being our mother has no beginning either.

2. REMEMBERING THE KINDNESS OF ALL MOTHER SENTIENT BEINGS 

Whatever happiness we experience, we should always remember that this is due to the kindness of our mother. We can see this is true when we examine everything we have ever done and understand that any happiness is due to causes and conditions coming together. Positive karma ripening is the cause that allows us to receive our mother’s kindness. She is the cooperative condition.

One of the kindnesses of the mother is that she willingly created negative actions in order to help us. Because of that, she has been reborn in the lower realms. This can be the reason for many of the beings suffering in the hell realm. All have been our mother and all have suffered in other realms because of their kindness to us.

While we remain in samsara, we will always have mothers and they will always create negative karma to benefit us, and thus always have to suffer like this. Therefore, the sooner we can be free from samsara, the sooner our mothers will be free from having to create negative karma for us. Looking at it like that, we are being very selfish if we keep being reborn. We might not see this, but the enlightened beings do.

Furthermore, we can also see how selfish it is to work for our own everlasting happiness alone. We must help all these suffering mother sentient beings as they helped us. They remain ignorant of the truth and rely on us.

Such realizations build a strong Mahayana practice. As our determination to only cherish others becomes stronger, we can reach the stage of the higher bodhisattva, where we can make charity of our body for the sake of sentient beings through the development of bodhicitta.

We remember the kindness of the mother, but we must be aware that our father was also our mother, as was the enemy, the stranger and every sentient being. We should consider the difficulties of the mother as a bird, as a dog, and so on, in all sorts of lives.

3. REPAYING THE KINDNESS OF ALL MOTHER SENTIENT BEINGS 

The limited mind might think to repay a trivial kindness, such as being offered a cup of tea, but it fails to understand that these kind mother sentient beings have been giving us countless cups of tea over countless lives. It’s impossible to imagine the debt we owe all sentient beings.

We have not yet repaid them with the realization of the Dharma.

4. EQUALIZING ONESELF WITH OTHERS 

The essential way to practice this meditation is to regard the suffering of other beings exactly as we regard our own and to help the others as if they were us, with no expectations, just as we would help ourselves. To live in this practice, we must completely change our old habits and actions that have controlled us for beginningless lives. Rather than living with self-interest, we must see all sentient beings as equal and equally deserving happiness, and we must work to lead them out of suffering with a sincere, generous mind. This is how the bodhisattva acts, renouncing themself and being willing to suffer instead of the others. We are nowhere near approximating this. We must really believe that the other’s body is our own and feel as if what happens to their body happens to our own. If we don’t do this, the other points of the seven points won’t come.

The struggle we have is not with others but with our own self-grasping and self-cherishing. Because these are delusions and not integral aspects of the mind, we can lessen and then eliminate them. At present, there feels a great divide between our body and the body of somebody else, but when we have overcome the self-cherishing thought, that divide will disappear and we will feel their body as we feel our own. At present we are well aware of our own pain; why not the pain of others?

Originally our body came from the sperm of our father and the egg of our mother, but we have learned to regard it as our own, thinking, “This is me.” Why does such a concept exist strongly and why do we take best care of it? Because this thought has been habitual for beginningless lives. We have had much training in it. We take better care of this body than of our parents’ bodies even though our body came from theirs. This concept originally arose due to ignorance. To overcome that ignorance and bring perfect peace to ourselves and others, the practice of exchanging oneself for others is essential. It is an essential bodhisattva practice.

Anytime we need to meditate on all sentient beings, we should just think of how many insects there are on a hill, how many tiny creatures there are in the ocean, how many humans, hungry ghosts, hell beings, gods, demigods and bodhisattvas there are in existence. Then, we should think, “Since beginningless time, of all the sentient beings in the universe, I have been taking most care of myself. In order to attain enlightenment, I must change this old attitude that was careless of others’ suffering into the complete opposite. From now on, I must take less care of myself than of other beings. The object of my affection has changed from me to other.”

This is regarded as a high spiritual practice that needs great knowledge but has numberless benefits. It brings perfect peace and enlightenment more quickly than the earlier meditation practices. It is the best puja and can stop hindrances to the realizations of the other Mahayana practices, such as realizations of the six perfections. This great holy thought of taking care of others more than ourselves is utterly vital for tantric practice.

The tantric path is such a quick path that can bring enlightenment in one lifetime due to this practice of exchanging oneself for others. This powerful practice is a shortcut to enlightenment. But it depends on how strongly the mind can live in this practice. It’s how Milarepa and other Indian and Tibetan yogis attained enlightenment. It’s the most powerful way to purify negativity.

This was the instruction given to Lama Tsongkhapa by Manjushri, the buddha of wisdom. Tsongkhapa was given many instructions, especially regarding emptiness. When he was training his mind in these practices in retreat, he created great merit and created further merits by also doing many other purification practices, such as offering the mandala and making prostrations. As he trained in absolute truth, emptiness, and so forth, Manjushri appeared many times to give him a pure view of these realizations. Therefore, Lama Tsongkhapa’s views of these subjects are very pure and clear, and to study his teachings on emptiness is the best way to study, never bringing wrong realizations.

Lama Tsongkhapa was told by Manjushri that the tantric path is not quick without living in the practice of exchanging oneself for others. For such a mind, it is unbearable that sentient beings are not enlightened and are suffering for even one second. Without this mind, enlightenment in a lifetime is impossible, even if we were to spend our whole life silently in a cave. Many animals do that. To follow the tantric path and practice it, we must take more care of others than of ourselves.

Also, any kind of heavy negative karma created, such as killing our parents and so on, can be quickly purified by this practice. Living in this practice can transform a negative action into a positive result. For example, when Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was living as a bodhisattva he took birth into the family of a leading trader who carried jewels by ship from other countries. On the ship one day, of the five hundred businesspeople, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha saw that one of them wanted to kill all the others. If he did that, besides of course harming the five hundred, he would harm himself because of the terrible negative karma he would create. Therefore, the Buddha thought it would be better if he himself suffered for a hundred thousand eons in the hell realm rather than let the other person do it. In killing the would-be killer, he renounced his own happiness for the other’s due to his great bodhicitta. But since killing the other person was done with great compassion, the action became a positive one, a method of purification. This action actually lessened the length of time he had to remain in samsara by a million eons. The man he killed was actually saved from far worse suffering, due to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s great compassion for him and the five hundred threatened people.

At another time, Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, when he was a bodhisattva, was born into a family that made clay pots. He was a celibate, living in the vows. One day, he saw a girl about to commit suicide because of incredible great greed; she was desperate because she couldn’t find a man. Due to the greatly compassion mind that cherished others more than himself, he renounced himself and, without experiencing the pleasures of a worldly life, he spent twelve years living with the girl and her family. Then he left and resumed his celibacy. But due to his pure mind, guiding the girl from suicide and living without samsaric desire, this potentially negative action of breaking the precepts became positive, and the time he would remain in samsara decreased from thirty thousand eons to four thousand.

Maitreya’s disciple Asanga spent twelve years in meditation before he saw Maitreya. During this time, he developed the great compassion that one day suddenly purified his obscurations and allowed him to see Maitreya. Then, he went to Maitreya’s pure realms for teachings.

Atisha’s guru also had to develop great compassion before he saw Chenrezig and he also saw Maitreya. When Atisha purified his delusions, he saw Tara, the female aspect of Buddha, who appears in such form for the benefit of sentient beings. She gave Atisha many instructions, including the instructions that he was also to go to Tibet and give teachings. He did this and purified the corrupted Dharma there. The aspect of the Buddha that we see depends on the karma of the meditator—whichever aspect is the closest is the one we will see. We can then have discussions, ask questions and receive instructions from that buddha. There are infinite aspects of the buddhas.

The principal instruction for curing the suffering of others is to have no expectations. This wonderful teaching of taking care of others more than ourselves was kept close to the heart by Atisha and other great pandits. A most purifying practice, it was secret for a long time. Shantideva received this practice from the buddha of wisdom. It’s the purest way to attain bodhicitta, stopping any hindrances and life dangers. It’s the best medicine to cure suffering.

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha descended to this world before Maitreya because he attained bodhicitta first. He had such a strong, holy mind, taking care of others more than himself, that while still a bodhisattva he prayed to be born in a bad place amongst ignorant people at an unfortunate time where there was the darkness of no teachings being available. Therefore, he appeared on earth prior to Maitreya to give us the possibility of studying these teachings and purifying our negativity. Understanding the teachings of the meditation course is due to the kindness of his holy mind, taking care of others more than himself, as is finding the purpose of human life.

We should pray for the continued existence of the teachings until samsara ends, since without them there will only be far more unhappiness and suffering. Positive karma brings happiness and we need teachings to know about this. If they don’t exist, we can’t practice. Even the temporal happiness of a person who knows nothing of the teachings, of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, is the result of the teachings because it depends on the creation of positive karma in previous lives and was done then with knowledge of the teachings. This worldly happiness doesn’t come intuitively. Thus, all happiness depends on the teachings.

We should know what a bodhisattva is and understand how they work. We should try to follow them, even though we won’t be a bodhisattva in this life. But copying their actions, acting like a bodhisattva, is good training for the mind, helping us develop bodhicitta and bringing us closer and closer to becoming a bodhisattva. It also helps others.

Attaining bodhicitta is a slow process; it depends on the energy and determination we have. Of the ten levels of bodhisattvas, even a low bodhisattva without all realizations can be reborn in any place they want by praying for it. That is, they have a controlled rebirth. For example, the Tibetan race came from a male monkey (a transformation of Chenrezig) and a female cannibal (a transformation of Tara) who had children whose births were samsaric, or uncontrolled.

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Notes

¹ V. 92. Taken from Lama Chöpa Jorchö, pp. 76–77. [Return to text]