A vision of emptiness is key to spiritual alchemy. Our FBA Dharmabyte today is an exploration of the transformative magic that is Bodhichitta practice. and#8220;Vision of Lifeand#8221;, by Padmavajra, is excerpted from the talk and#8220;Death and Desireand#8221; part of and#8220;The Alchemy of Loveand#8221; series given at Padmaloka Retreat Centre, 2004.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
Vision of Life
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio – the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. This vision of life, this insight, is in fact the ultimate nature of the bodhicitta itself, the awakening mind itself. Ultimately, this bodhicitta is the voidness, the emptiness of all things. The so-called relative bodhicitta, or I'll have more to say about this tomorrow, is the mind of love and compassion for all beings expressed in actual deeds for actual people. The aim of the spiritual life, according to Shanti Deva and others within his tradition, is to realise these two aspects of bodhicitta. The ultimate nature of things, which is insubstantial, illusory, empty, perfectly combined with love and compassion for all beings. A tenth-century master named a teacher, very instrumental in kind of bringing about a renaissance in Tibetan Buddhism, another Indian teacher, speaks of the aim of the spiritual life as "Shunya Tarkarina Garaba", which means the essence of emptiness and compassion. That what you're doing in your spiritual life, what you're trying to do is to see this insubstantial nature of things and have that perfectly blended, perfectly integrated with love and empathy for all others. This is why, by the way, we play so much emphasis on the two meditation practices, the mindfulness of breathing to develop awareness and the metabhavana to develop friendliness and loving kindness. That's the basis for the development of these two aspects of the enlightened mind. But the point I really want to make here is that the Buddhist vision of transfertreness, impermanence, insubstantiality, inventiveness, of illusoryness doesn't bring about when you see it clearly a kind of depression or hopelessness or sorrow. That insight is, in fact, the key to spiritual alchemy. It's why spiritual transformation can happen. And it's interesting here we have a kind of alchemical transformation as well. Death and change we usually see in terms of loss as very unfortunate things. But here, if we see, if we really face up to death, if we really see impermanence as it is, we transform our attitude to it. We see it as the key to creativity and fulfillment. We can transform ourselves, we can turn ourselves from man into Buddha, because life itself is transformation. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] You [BLANK_AUDIO]