Khenpo Sherab Sangpo
Shantideva said, “Those who wish to overcome the many sufferings of samsara, who wish to remove the suffering of sentient beings, who wish to experience many joys, they should never turn away from Bodhicitta.”
Every day, I think about this quote from Shantideva’s Bodhicharyavatara. He said that if you want those things, like if you want to overcome sufferings of samsara, if you want to help sentient beings and have many happiness, then you should never, ever turn away from Bodhichitta, never forget Bodhicitta.
I'm so grateful for this instruction, this helps me a lot, tremendously.
I always tell you that there are two important things you must constantly keep in mind if you want to practice a great meditation. These are mindfulness and Bodhicitta, okay? These two are the foundation of our practice.
No matter what you practice, you must combine it with mindfulness and Bodhicitta. I really want you to understand how to correct your motivation.
Breathe slowly, rest your attention on the breath, at the same time, look in your mind. That means recognize your thoughts.
What are you thinking now? Are you thinking, “Oh, I have heard these teachings hundreds of times, nothing special, nothing new,” or are you thinking, “My goodness, I don't have a good mindfulness, I don't have genuine Bodhicitta.”
Pay attention, look within at your mind, meaning you have to recognize what you are thinking. You're thinking constantly.
In order to correct your motivation, you need to look at your mind and see what kind of thoughts and emotions are in your mind. If you have a negative thought, something based on selfishness, let it go and change your mind into a positive thought or motivation.
That is a great place to begin, okay? In order to recognize, look at your mind and recognize your thoughts, you need mindfulness for that or it doesn’t work…
If you really want to develop your meditation correctly, you need to understand how to proceed along the stages of meditation. If you follow the stages of meditation step by step, the result cannot be anything other than beneficial.
But if you don't follow the fundamentals and try to practice something like, you know, Dzogchen, Mahamudra and Generation-Completion stages, without a good foundation, the result will be nothing but arrogance.
No mindfulness, no Bodhicitta, then you practice Dzogchen, it develops your arrogance and that's very dangerous.
Paltrul Rinpoche said that top-level practitioners are able to make progress every day through their meditation. Middle-level practitioners are still capable of improving every month. Lower-level practitioners progress over the course of a year. We have three levels of practitioners. Now think about ourselves.
Think about yourself and your practice. Think about your practice level. Which level do you belong to? That's very important. Can I improve my practice capacity at least in a year?
If you became a Buddhist, many years passed and nothing developed. Within a year, nothing changed, only the same. That's not good. So, we have to change. Something is wrong if you can't change.
We have to investigate ourselves, you know. Can I improve my practice capacity at least in a year? If the answer is no, I'm still the same person. Then we do not belong to any one of these three levels of practitioners.
Then, Paltrul Rinpoche calls us a practitioner in name only. Oh, you're a Buddhist, you're a practitioner, but nothing other than a label, just a name…
The minimum goal we should set for ourselves in this life is to enter the Bodhisattva's path of accumulation. That's the minimum goal, which is the first step.
The Bodhisattva's path of accumulation is the first path (of the five paths to Buddhahood). When you have generated genuine Bodhichitta, you enter the path of accumulation. I'm not talking about the ultimate Bodhichitta, but the relative Bodhichitta.
If you have developed relative Bodhichitta in your mind, then you are on the Bodhisattva's path of accumulation. You don't have to ask any other teachers where you are, you can see for yourself where you are.
You know what is genuine Bodhichitta. If you have that in your mind. you have reached the Bodhisattva's path of accumulation. Once you reach this, you're fine. Even if you die with nothing more than this achievement, you will be just fine.
But if you don't reach the path of accumulation by the end of your life, then the name “practitioner” or “Buddhist” is just a label…
If we missed the opportunity to take this first step in this life, we may not have another chance to be reborn as a human life. So, keep that in mind.
You need this minimum goal— "I need to reach the Bodhisattva's path of accumulation before I die." That's your goal. Keep that in mind.
