(upbeat music) This podcast 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. - What we're going to do this morning, first we're going to start with a little bit of ritual where we're going to invoke Avalokiteshva who holds the bodachita to his heart and sit for a couple of minutes. And then I am going to give you a talk and then we're going to have a tea break and then we're going to have groups and then it will be 12, 30. So that's what it's looking like at the moment. Yeah, so we're going to, in unison, to salute the shrine together in a minute. But let's just evoke what it is we're saluting here. So it's probably, I don't know how much you can see, but we've got both a tanker of the fore-armed Avalokiteshva and Rupa. And in a way like all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, like all these archetypal forms, they are symbols of the bodachita. And they're more than symbols of the bodachita. It's like they're sort of embodiments where it's like bodachita is just wanting to communicate with us and just wanting to kind of say, look, it's like this, it's like this. Have you got it yet? And they're just kind of trying to express that with so much compassion and so much kind of wanting us to be well and wanting us to break out of our limitations. And, you know, just the forms themselves are directly trying to communicate what bodachita is in this image, in this embodiment of a human being. So with Avalokiteshva, this forearmed version, we've got the hands of the two inner hands of Avalokiteshva. And he's holding both the bodachita to his heart. He's holding this jewel of what is most precious in the whole of the world to his heart. And imagine what our lives would be if we lived with what was most precious to us with this, you know, this conjoining of wisdom and compassion, and we never lost it. We always held it to our heart. And then with his two outer arms, well, on the right, he's holding a mala and he's going through his mantra on the man you've had made home. And a mala is a never-ending circle. So you never get to the end of this sort of activity of saving beings, and at the same time, it's kind of, it's wedded to devotion. And then on his left-hand side, which is the wisdom side, he's holding this lotus in bloom. And it's like he's saying to, you know, he's just offering this lotus and saying, this is our potential. You two could bloom like that lotus. Look, it's here, it's like this. Can you open like this lotus? So, now what we're going to do is we're going to salute the three jewels in the person of avolo-catestra. And then when we come back and sit down again, I'm going to do a reading from the bodhicario avatar, which is just very poetic about bodhicitta. And then we're going to chant to avolo-catestra. Okay. (gentle music) So, in unison. (gentle music) (singing in foreign language) (gentle music) Today, my birth is fruitful. My human life is justified. Today, I am born into the family of the Buddha. Now, I am the Buddha's child. So that there may be no blemish upon this spotless family. I must now act as becomes my family. As a blind man might find a jewel in heaps of rubbish. So too, this awakening mind has somehow appeared in me. This is the elixia of life, born to end death in the world. This is the inexhaustible treasure, alleviating poverty in the world. This is the supreme medicine, curing the sickness of the world. The sickness of the world, a tree of shelter for weary creatures staggering along the road of existence. The causeway to cross over bad rebirths open to all who travel. It is the rising moon of the mind, mitigating the defilements of the world. It is the brilliant sun, dispelling the mist of ignorance from the world. It is the fresh butter risen up from churning the milk of the true dumber. For the carillon of humanity traveling the road of existence, hungry for the enjoyment of happiness. This is a feast of happiness, offered as refreshment to all beings who approach. Today, I summon the world to Buddhahood and to worldly happiness, meanwhile. In the presence of all the Buddhahs, may gods, titans and all rejoice. 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oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, oh mani padme hoon, why would I not want to help? And if I don't act out those values of compassion in the world, well where is my Dharma life? That is, you know, completely going to be the heart of the Dharma life. And when I'm in touch with my yiddams, actually it's like they're saying, oh yeah, climate change is fine, that's how it is. And they are also radiating this sense of love and compassion, you know, just like this sort of caring for beings, that is beyond what my little mind can manage. So if we have just the wisdom perspective, it sounds like it's opposite, it sounds like it's affecting the compassion perspective, this wisdom perspective, what do you mean everything's all right? That's cold, it's uncaring, you're indifferent. And, you know, encountering someone with a very strong compassion perspective, we might perceive that as then desperately trying to fix the world, compulsive activity, probably ending up in a one-way trip to over one. And if we, and we may think that person expressing that compassion perspective, it feels like the Darwin has been lost. And if our natural affinity is with the compassion perspective, if we think, no, I need to respond to the world. We'll hear a wisdom audio, other way around. Sorry, I've got muddled with my positive. Yeah, for a compassion person, we'll hear a wisdom perspective as a kind of withdrawal into a narrow self-obsession with us and our mental states. So a compassion person just thinks, yeah, you're just using the Dharma as an excuse for passivity. You're ignoring our society and our world. And that person will also feel as though the Dharma has been lost. And yet both perspectives are essential. So we've got this image for enlightenment as the bird that flies on two wings, just as a vulture saws that it needs two wings to fly. Both compassion and wisdom are necessary. So Bunty says, how can there be compassion without understanding? Compassion means giving people what they need and how can you give them what they need unless you understand what they need. And similarly, how can you have wisdom without compassion? How is it possible to see what people need and not want to give it to them? And what I love about this is that in a way, how can we find that? How can we find those poles within us? How can we notice when does compassion arise in us? Like loving and just wanting things to be okay for and acting out of that? And when do we need a wisdom perspective and bringing in, well, actually these are the facts. This is how it is. How much am I just fighting reality? How much am I just doing the version and not wanting suffering to exist? Well, in fact, it does. And if we keep these two poles in tension, it's like we want both of them to be alive and vibrant in our practice. Then what arises out of that is this bodhicitta where wisdom and compassion are united. We're in line with reality. We're not fighting it. And when we see actions, we could take that would alleviate suffering. Well, of course, we just want to do that. It's natural. It's not even us deciding we want to do it. It's just kind of like, that is the response. You know, that's the response that we want to make. And you might want to think, have a little think about, well, have you ever had any experiences which you felt a bit like that? Sometimes it can be in moments of crisis or a sudden bereavement in the family where it's just like, this needs to be done. Okay, I'm going to do it. Before I... This... So, Banti talks about the living synthesis. He says, "As long as you think in conceptual terms, you will always have a contradiction. Therefore, the only real synthesis is not to be found in concepts at all, but in living experience." A final synthesis can only be in the life of the individual for whom those concepts have meaning. Life transcends logic. It's as simple as that. Okay, I'll put that on Padlet. [ Pause ] So that's the principle, this sort of holding together the paradox of wisdom and compassion and letting an alchemy happen in our minds. But then what practices might we undertake to allow this to happen? So, the first approach, the first way of practicing would be developing boducitta. So, it's like we think I can do it. We can reflect. We can set up the conditions. So, under this model, we might consciously choose to reflect first on the wisdom aspect, the three latiners. Here's this situation. How are the three latiners showing up in this situation? And then on the compassion aspect, and we care, we let our hearts care. And we might also consciously reflect on faith in the path, like a belief that we can become enlightened. So, boducitta can arise in us. And these reflections are sort of classically encapsulated in Vasubandhu's four factors. And Banti talks about them very excessively in the Bodhisattva idea, and if you're interested in that. It's not tablet. It's padlet. It's the online notice board, either. But we might sort of feel like, when I keep practicing and I keep reflecting and I keep doing the metabhavana and I keep on trying to make the boducitta arise and damnate it. It just doesn't happen. So, you know, if we start feeling a bit like that, then we might want to take a different approach. So, another approach would be an approach of opening to boducitta. Where we sort of imagine we can see the boducitta as a power or a force external to us rather than something that we are trying to make happen. So, this is a kind of surrender approach. I can't do it. I am a finite, conditioned being. You know, if I knew how to get enlightened, I'd have done it eons ago. And so, the classic practice for this would be puja or devotion. And this is a model of relationship. Here I am, a finite conditioned being and I'm speaking my aspiration. I'm coming into relationship with this dynamic enlightening force that has these qualities. We're aligning ourselves. And that is a very, very powerful practice. And Banti says, one needs a basis within one's own experience, which is so positive that even though one is fully aware of other people's suffering, and one is doing what one can to alleviate it, one is not overwhelmed by that suffering. So, it's like, where do we find a basis in our experience, which is so positive? And, you know, this is why when we get ordained, we have you dance. Can we find, you know, it's like, I don't have the capacity like that. I don't personally have that level of positivity, but I can relate to it outside of me. You know, my tria can hold that level of positivity for me, so, overall, doesn't happen. But we might feel like, I'm not really into pudu, and I just don't really get devotion, and it's just not my thing. I'm so, there is a third method. And this would be allowing Boducitta to emerge. So, this is an immanence or an emergence model where it's like there's just a sense that we don't need to do anything. A sense that the qualities of enlightenment, this wisdom and compassion, they are within us, and they're just waiting to unfold when we give them space. So, this practice looks like just sitting with, sitting alongside, breathing alongside our own experience and alongside suffering. We're just offering space, and we're letting this, these deep wisdom and compassion qualities emerge from our depths. So, this is like Banti saying, Boducitta is at the same time that individual's truest and deepest nature. And it does matter to practice in relation to Boducitta because our practice is never just personal. Because this self of a divide, it's something we invent. So, actually, like our practice is always influencing the world, and the world is always influencing us. And there's something about like holding these concepts that break us open and break us out of a sense of limitation into something much bigger, and we don't have to make that happen. We can set up conditions, we can try and open to it, we can let ourselves stay in relation, and we can allow our deep qualities to manifest. This is the arising of the moon of the mind, the precious and sublime Boducitta. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhas.io.com/donate. And thank you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
