Mahayana legitimacy - Bodhicitta

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Konchog1
Posts: 1673
Joined: Sat Nov 26, 2011 4:30 am

Mahayana legitimacy - Bodhicitta

Post by Konchog1 »

For a long time I didn't understand the importance of Bodhicitta. When I read the reason in Engaging in the Deeds of Bodhicitta, I realized it also legitimatized Mahayana.

After reading the same reasoning in Nagarjuna's Treatise on the Provisions for Enlightenment I decided to write about it.
With but a lesser accumulation of merit
One remains unable to realize bodhi.
Only by collecting merit more massive than a hundred Sumerus
Can one succeed in achieving that realization

Although one may perform but a minor meritorious deed,
Even in this, one possesses a skillful means:
Taking the sphere of "all beings" as the object,
One should generate a mental transformation of the conditions.

Where one reflects: "May whatever actions I undertake
Always be done for the welfare of beings,"
Who could measure the merit of he
Whose mental actions are of this sort?

-Verses 36-38
To become a Buddha, and not merely liberated, one needs an infinite amount of merit. The only way to generate an infinite amount of merit is Bodhicitta. Why?

Imagine if you generate the desire to heal one person's headache. You would generate merit. Imagine if you generate the desire to heal five person's headaches. You would generate the same merit times five. if you generate the desire to heal everyone's headaches, since there are infinite beings, you generate an infinite merit. If you generate the desire to free everyone from all suffering and give them every happiness, you would generate even more infinite merit. This is Aspiration Bodhicitta.

Imagine if you actively engage in healing one person's headache. You would generate more merit than from merely desiring it. And that merit would multiply in the same way. If you actively engage in freeing everyone from all suffering and giving them every happiness, you would generate infinite merit. This is Engaging Bodhicitta.

So this is why Bodhicitta is so important, it's the only way to create enough merit to become a Buddha. This is also why Mahayana was taught by the Buddha, Bodhicitta is the only way to create enough merit to become a Buddha.
Equanimity is the ground. Love is the moisture. Compassion is the seed. Bodhicitta is the result.

-Paraphrase of Khensur Rinpoche Lobsang Tsephel citing the Guhyasamaja Tantra

"All memories and thoughts are the union of emptiness and knowing, the Mind.
Without attachment, self-liberating, like a snake in a knot.
Through the qualities of meditating in that way,
Mental obscurations are purified and the dharmakaya is attained."

-Ra Lotsawa, All-pervading Melodious Drumbeats
KonchokZoepa
Posts: 1358
Joined: Tue Sep 10, 2013 9:50 pm

Re: Mahayana legitimacy - Bodhicitta

Post by KonchokZoepa »

nice thread :smile:
If the thought of demons
Never rises in your mind,
You need not fear the demon hosts around you.
It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned,
there are neither buddhas or demons.
He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue,
will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion.
Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

-Milarepa

OMMANIPADMEHUNG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls6P9tOYmdo
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