Welcome to Dharmabytes! In and#8220;Buddhist Conversion andamp; The Bodhichittaand#8221;, Sangharakshita, the founder of the Triratna Buddhist Order and Community, introduces the talk and#8220;The Arising of the Bodhicittaand#8221;. Here, in his classic form, Urgyen Sangharakshita describes the act of Conversion within Buddhist practice. Two contradictory trends that are discernible in the spiritual life: withdrawing from the world and compassion for it. The arising of the Bodhichitta or and#8216;Will to Enlightenmentand#8217; resolves this dichotomy.
Talk given in 1965.
[Music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you, and happy listening. [Music] Friends, today as most of you know, we come to the third lecture in our present series. As you know in this series, which is a comparatively short one, we are dealing with the meaning of conversion in Buddhism. In the first lecture, we discussed this phenomenon or this experience of conversion in terms of going for refuge. Going for refuge, that is to say to the Buddha, the enlightened one, to the Dharma, the teaching of the path away to enlightenment, and through the sangha, through the community of those actually treading that path away leading to enlightenment. In other words, in the course of this first lecture, we discussed the meaning of conversion in Buddhism more from the point of view of conversion to Buddhism. Now, last week you may remember, we discussed the same subject in different terms in terms of what is known technically in Buddhism as stream entry. Conversion as it were from the condition to the unconditioned, from the round of samsara through the spiral, which leads ultimately to Nirvana. So this was as it were conversion within Buddhism. So having considered, having discussed, having tried to understand conversion in the sense of going for refuge, conversion to Buddhism, conversion in the sense of entering the stream, conversion within Buddhism, going from the condition to the unconditioned, the round to the spiral, one might think that it's hardly possible to go further than this. And in a sense, though only in a sense, it isn't possible to go further than this. But we are not only dealing with this subject of conversion in Buddhism as it were on different levels, we're also dealing with it under different aspects or from different points of view. So today, this evening, we come to yet another aspect of the whole question, the whole problem. Today, we propose to discuss conversion in Buddhism in terms of what is known as the bodhicitta or the pata, or the arising of the will to enlightenment. Now here, there is in a sense a difference of level, and also, one may say, a difference of aspect, and both I hope will become clear to us in the course of the lecture. Now, the first question which arises naturally is what exactly is meant by bodhicitta or the pata, which I provisionally rendered as the arising of the will to enlightenment. First of all, what is the meaning of this word bodhi? Bodhi, you probably know already, comes from a root, a Sanskrit, root, meaning to know or to understand. So, bodhi means therefore knowledge, or understanding, or wisdom, or even enlightenment. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [music] [music] [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
