Awakening the Enlightenment Thought (bodhicitta): Love and Compassion
Renunciation cure to samsara.
Buddha's whole life (every atom) = compassion.
Buddhist ethics = avoid evil, do good.
(All living beings the same - want happiness, avoid suffering.)
4 Immeasurable Meditations (brahmavihāra):
Loving kindness(maitrī)
Compassion (karuṇā)
Sympathetic joy (muditā)
Equanimity (upekṣā).
Start small, local and expand out. Start with Mother, child, parent, spouse, etc. and move towards community, school, all beings.
Awaken bodhicitta through study, consideration and meditation.
Great Love = wish for all living beings to be happy. (Cultivated by wholesome actions.)
Expanding Loving Kindness through recollection that all living beings were at one time our Mother.
3 Levels of Compassion
- Living beings
- factors and aggregates
- objectless (nothing exists in ultimate reality)
Great Compassion - all beings be without suffering.
2 Types Bodhicitta = reaching or aspiring bodhicitta and entering or applied bodhicitta.
The practices of Perfections (pāramitās): generosity (dāna), morality (śīla), patience (kśānti), energy (vīrya), meditation (dhyāna) and wisdom (prajñā) convert the thought to the practice.
Conventional thought of enlightenment is gradually transformed into ultimate enlightened mind.
6 Perfections (paramita):
Generosity
Morality
Patience
Energy
Meditation
Wisdom (beyond merits, ultimate knowledge - understanding of emptiness)
Gaining wisdom allows previous perfections to move beyond perfections to transcendental states.
How to address subject/object/actions that are empty - like observation of person having a dream. We know it's just a dream, but they react as if it's real.
Four Articles of Assembly by Bodhisattvas (what draws people to them):
Giving (dana) = moral support, attention, sympathy, time
Pleasant Speech (priya vacana) = use appropriate words, speak with kindness
Empathy (arthacarcā) = share experiences, not react which is sympathy
Consistency (samānārthatā) = walk the walk
The Six Perfections: The Two Accumulations, the Two Dimensions:
Buddhahood =transcendental dimension (dharmakāya) and phenomenal dimension (rūpakāya).
generosity, morality and patience > accumulation of merits > phenomenal dimension
meditation and wisdom > knowledge > transcendental dimension
Grants Buddha's ability to interact with the physical plane without getting entangled by samsara.