An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series
According to the Buddha’s teaching all sentient beings have experienced suffering and continue to suffer. We have old age, sickness and death. We don’t know what to do about them. We get run over by cars and all kinds of crazy things happen to us on a regular basis. The Buddha teaches us the only way to end suffering is to achieve enlightenment. Once we achieve enlightenment, the very root causes that produce suffering, the seeds of karma within our mind, are eradicated.
We want to achieve enlightenment in order to attain happiness for all beings. That is the reason we enter the spiritual path and really pursue it in a determined fashion. If we were to look past the level of our mind that is constantly developing new and wonderful concepts, we would find that there is a basic primordial natural state. That natural state, free of conceptualization, that suchness, is the very fabric that is the mother of all phenomena, including your own self. The natural primordial nature that cannot be described is your nature and it is everyone’s nature and it is the same nature; there is no point at which you can divide it. When you divide it you start believing in self-nature or the ego structure. At that point, you are not experiencing the primordial state any longer.
The truth of the matter is, there is only that natural state. It is free of conceptualization, it is self-luminous, it is all-embracing, it is pure, and it remains and will always be undefiled. That is the natural state. If we are all one in that way – if that is what truly exists – then it is not possible for us to be separate. The Bodhisattva’s or the Buddha’s point of view is that I cannot achieve enlightenment without you. I cannot. Because that which I truly am is the same as you. If I separate myself from you, I’ve missed the point somehow. It is as important for all sentient beings to achieve enlightenment and to be free of suffering as it is for me and for you, individually, to accomplish that.
Thus the idea of compassion becomes more than an idea. It becomes the basis or the foundation of enlightenment. It becomes the only thing with meaning. That being the case, we must think about the ways in which compassion or Bodhicitta are practiced. There are two levels of Bodhicitta. There is aspirational Bodhicitta or aspirational compassion, and there is practical compassion.
Aspirational Bodhicitta is just as it sounds. It is the aspiring to compassion, or the wishing for compassionate activity. You should not think that because it is only wishing it is not precious and valuable. It is absolutely precious and valuable because it is the kind of contemplation that provides the basis or foundation on which you build your ability to practice practical compassion.
© Jetsunma Ahkön Lhamo
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