The Great Chariot by Longchenpa III
Increasing kindness As explained above:
After the mind has developed this equanimity,
Think of the happiness that you want for your mother.
Then contemplate all embodied beings in just that way.
When the mind has been equalized, just as we are kind and pleasant towards our fathers and mothers, meditate on all sentient beings, placing the mind in the attitude we have toward our parents. So meditate on kindness. The Prajñaparamita in Eight Thousand lines says:
Meditate with an attitude of kindness, not letting it be ravished away by all the shravakas and pratyekabuddhas.
b. The object of kindness
How is this done?:
Kindness has the object of all sentient beings.
It hopes that they may encounter, in the incidental aspect,
The happiness that pertains to gods and human beings,
And, ultimately, the happiness of enlightenment.
Meditate, going from thinking of a single being
Up to all beings, as far as the limits of the directions.
When unhappy sentient beings are seen, think, “May they meet incidentally with the happiness of gods and humans, and ultimately with the happiness of buddhahood.” Thinking that, go from one to meditating on all sentient beings, as limitless as the space of the sky. The Middle Length Prajñaparamita says:
When we see sentient beings who have no happiness, we should think, “May these sentient beings attain the god realm, where the happiness of the gods is perfect.”
c. The sign of training in kindness
As for training:
The sign of success is supreme and all-pervading kindness.
Greater than a mother’s love for her only child.
Whatever sentient beings are seen, we are pleased, and, with a great kind longing, we want to help them.
d. Kindness without object
After meditating on kindness with an object:
Then rest everything in equanimity.
This is the great kindness without any reference point.
The sign is the unity of kindness and emptiness.
The object of meditation on kindness is sentient beings, who arise from the gathering together of the six elements. These elements are
earth
water
fire
air
space
consciousness.
If these elements are examined, their coarse atoms, subtle real nature, and consciousnesses of all this do not exist as real things. Meditate, thinking that they are like space. The Precious Garland says:
People are not earth and are not water.
Neither are they fire, air, nor space,
Nor are they consciousness, nor all of these.
A person is something different from these.
Since persons are gathered from the six elements,
They are not real, and in a similar way,
Any nature gathered from each of the elements
likewise cannot be something that is real.
The skandhas are not the ego, nor ego the skandhas.
Yet neither would be there without the other.
Also:
At the time when no things can be found,
At that time there is pure thinglessness.
Things of form are simply non-existent,
Even space is nothing but a name.
With no arising, form is superfluous.
Therefore, even its name does not exist.
Feelings, perceptions, and conditioned formations,
As well as consciousness, just seem to rise,
Regarded in thought as if they were a self.
Thus, the six elements are selflessness.
Why does no self exist? When sentient beings appear, if we examine their bodily nature, it does not exist. Neither a support or supported of consciousness is seen, so no “me” and “mine” are perceived. When analyzed, they vanish, essentially empty. The same text says:
Just as if the layers of a plantain tree[1]
Are all destroyed, then nothing is there at all;
People too, if all the parts of their nature
Should be destroyed, would likewise disappear.
Because all dharmas are without a self,
That is what the victorious ones have taught.
This mere appearance of seeing and hearing is neither true nor false, since truth and falsity are just patterns of dharmas in the mind. The same text says:
Our just being able to see and hear and so forth,
Is taught as being neither true nor false.
Also it says there:
This world transcends both truth and falsity.
Thus all dharmas are beyond truth and falsity, like a plantain or banana tree. This is also taught in the King of Concentrations Sutra:
Just as with the herbaceous trunks of plantain trees,
Wanting to find their real substance, people tear them up,
But nowhere inside or out is that substance to be found;
All the various dharmas should be known like that.
The sign of good training is that while kindness arises, at the same time there arises the realization that sentient beings, like a plantain tree, essentially have no self or nature.
e. The fruition of meditating on kindness
What is the fruition?:
The visible result is experience of pure pleasure.
Seeing sentient beings is pleasurable, and the beings, when they are seen, are cleansed of disturbances of love and hate and so forth. The Prajñaparamita in Eight Thousand Lines says:
Those who have an attitude of kindness meditate a great deal, and when they see the sentient beings inhabiting the world, it is pleasurable. They have no anger.
Also immeasurable merit is attained. The Sutra of the Great Liberation Blossoming in the Ten Directions (thar pa chen po phyogs bcu rgys pa’i mdo) says:
Though someone in the world
May keep pure discipline
For even as long as a kalpa,
An instant of joy in one person
Produced by kindness is better.
In the world, whoever does evil
In body, speech or mind,
Surely falls to the three lower realms;
But kindness will instantly cleanse it.
FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES:
[1]:
An onion is good western equivalent.
Meditation on Compassion
Thinking about the sufferings of sentient beings
Now compassion is taught:
After all beings have been enfolded in this kindness.
Think of their sufferings, arousing such a compassion
As when your mind cannot endure your parents’ suffering.
If our kind parents did evil deeds for our sake and consequently were tormented by the sufferings of the three lower realms and so forth, we would think, “I must be compassionate to them.” The Middle Length Prajñaparamita says:
If we see sentient beings who are suffering, we will think, “May these sentient beings be free from suffering.”
b. How to Meditate on Compassion
As for how to meditate:
Think how our parents, who were so kind to us,
Suffered by doing evil actions for our sake.
With thirst and hunger, heat and cold, and being killed,
They have been sinking down into the raging sea
Of birth, old age and sickness and finally of death,
Worn out by the great variety of these sufferings.
Because they did evil deeds for our sake, now they are tormented by their particular sufferings.
c. The main topic of compassion
From this present suffering:
Though they want liberation, they have no peace of mind.
There is no good friend to show them the proper path.
How pitiable is their limitless wandering in samsara.
Having seen it, can I forsake and abandon them?
The beings of samsara are suffering and know no way of being liberated. Except for a very few spiritual friends, there is no one to teach them all the path of liberation. None of these beings who now suffer without limit in samsara, formerly was not my father, mother, relative, and friend. As for just abandoning them without a refuge or protector, they are my family, father, and mother! That is how we should think.
The Letter to a Student says:
If beings get into such situations and remain,
Those who with kind attention receive them carefully,
Cannot be pained by these kleshas, but if they should reject them,
And are base and malicious, who will then be happy?
d. The reason of compassion
The reason:
Then we should think from the very depths of our heart and bones,
“May all beings be freed in a moment from suffering,
By means of our bodies and enjoyment of our wealth,
And any happiness that is ours throughout the three times.”
Thus may all our enjoyment and happiness be transferred to other beings. Having been freed from suffering, may they forever enjoy immeasurable happiness. We should think that from the depths of our hearts. The Prajñaparamita in Eighteen Thousand Lines says:
With such a vast mind possessing the great compassion, all shravakas and
pratyekabuddhas should meditate in this extraordinary way.
e. The sign of training in compassion
When training in this meditation, as we go from one sentient being to all, the sign of success is that the suffering of beings arises within us and becomes unbearable.
e. The post-meditation of compassion meditation
After all sessions of meditating like this on compassion with objects:
Then meditate on compassion without a reference point.
The sign is the unity of compassion and emptiness.
If the objects of compassion, sentient beings, are examined and analyzed, they are natureless like the appearance of water in a mirage. No water is really there. That is how we should think. The King of Concentrations Sutra says:
As when the summer sun is at its zenith,
Persons tormented by thirst and other beings
With their skandhas see a mirage of water.
All dharmas should be known to be like that.
The Precious Garland says:
As water in a mirage
Is neither water nor real,
Egos in the skandhas
Are neither there nor real.
“That mirage is water.”
So thinking, people go there.
If that water is non-existent,
Such grasping at it is stupid.
Existing like an illusion,
This world is non-existent.
The grasper of it is stupid,
And so will not be free.
But also it says there:
So both, in reality,
Never come nor go nor stay.
And so the world’s pain is gone.
Also it says there:
Therefore the teaching of the buddhas is deathless,
Transcending both existence and non-existence,
And also profound, as it has been explained
After we understand the nature of all dharmas through meditation, emptiness and compassion are unified. This is how practice is done on the true path. If either of these two is absent, we stray from the path. The Dohakosha says:
Those who, without compassion, dwell in emptiness,
Will never be attainers of the highest path;
But those who meditate upon compassion alone,
Will never be liberated from dwelling in samsara.
Those who have the power of joining both of these
Will not be dwellers in either samsara or nirvana.
f. The fruition of meditating on compassion
Of meditating in this way:
The fruition is workable mind without injurious malice,
Able to establish primordial purity.
One attains a workable mind without malice and injurious intent.
By that the Buddha’s enlightenment will be established. The Supreme Essence says:
By the great compassion the mind becomes workable. It becomes deathless. It attains the supreme adornment of delight.
The meditation of joy
The purpose of meditating on joy
Now joy will be explained. As just taught:
After beings have thus been moistened by compassion,
And each is happy, then we should meditate on joy.
When we see happy sentient beings, we should meditate on joy. The Prajñaparamita in Twenty Thousand Lines says:
Whenever we see sentient beings joined to their particular happiness, we should think, “May they be inseparable from this happiness. May they also possess the happiness of omniscience, beyond that of gods and human beings.”
b. The object of meditation on joy
What is it ?
The proper object of joy is happy sentient beings.
The content is thinking, “E ma! there is no need
For me to try to establish these beings in happiness.
All of them have gained their proper happiness.
Until they attain the essence of enlightenment,
May they never be parted from this happiness.”
First think of one, then meditate on all of them.
Thinking like that, go from meditating on one happy sentient being to all of them.
c. The measure of joy
As for the measure of training:
The sign is the arising of joy that is free from envy.
True joy has no envy for the wealth of others.
d. The essence of joy
After a session of meditating on conceptual joy:
Then meditate on joy without a reference point.
Meditate on the objects of joy, all sentient beings, as appearing while they do not exist, like an illusion. The King of Concentrations Sutra says:
Just as in the midst of many different people
Magicians may emanate illusory forms of things,
But the horses, chariots, and elephants they conjure
Do not exist at all in they way that they appear,
Every Dharma should be known to be like that.
The Precious Garland says±
Secret from people in general
Is this very deep Dharma teaching,
The amrita of Buddha’s teaching
That the world is like illusion.
Just as illusory elephants
Appear to arise and vanish,
While in truth and reality
There is nothing to rise or vanish,
Likewise this world of illusion,
Appears to rise and vanish,
But in real and absolute truth,
Nothing rises or is destroyed.
As an illusory elephant
Coming from nothing, goes nowhere;
By exhausting mind’s obscuration,
It is really and truly gone.
This world, just like the elephant,
Coming from nothing, goes nowhere;
By exhausting mind’s obscuration,
It is really and truly gone.
With a nature beyond the three times,
Unperceived by conventional labels,
How could this be a world
With existence and nonexistence?
e. The virtues of joy
In meditating in this way, by the joy of the natural state:
Body, speech and mind have spontaneous peace and bliss.
This is the measure of accomplishment.
f. The fruition of meditating on joy
By the wealth of fruition, joy is stabilized.
The Prajñaparamita in Eight Thousand Lines says:
Immeasurably vast, joyful mind is never taken from us. With this unsurpassable perfection we attain the heights.
Further explanation of the way of meditating
The details of meditation after this is familiar,
Now the way of meditating will be further explained. As it says above:
After this is familiar, then, beginning with kindness,
Meditate on all four, one right after the next,
With a gradual break in attachment to any of the four.
Sometimes meditate on these four in order, as an antidote to liberate them into purity.
2. How to stop obstacles to kindness with compassion
Moreover,
If meditation on kindness attaches you to all beings
Making you feel as if they were your relatives,
By compassion stop the cause and effect of the pain, attachment.
If sometimes you become permanently attached to other sentient beings as your father and mother, a second meditation on compassion will serve as an antidote.
3. How to stop obstacles to compassion with joy
Moreover,
When a lesser compassion attaches to reference points,
Sadness will be stopped by a joy that has no object.
When there is attachment to compassion for an individually characterized phenomenon, illusion-like, objectless joy will clear away all sadness and attachment.
4. How to stop obstacles to joy with equanimity
Moreover,
When joy disturbs the mind by arousing anxiety
Then we should meditate on the great equanimity,
Free from all desire for anything near or far.
If we are sad because we long for joy in the happiness of others, it will be cleared away by meditating on objectless equanimity.
5. Stopping the obstacles to equanimity with kindness
Moreover,
When equanimity is neutral and indecisive,
Meditate on kindness and so forth, as before.
Training, in that way, grows to be easy and stable.
If everything seems to become indifferent, arouse kindness and meditate on that.
These are the general antidotes. In particular, as an antidote for each object, meditate as taught in the corresponding objectless way. By meditating in that way, we will attain immeasurable peace within ourselves and quickly attain stability.
6. The way of meditating when we have become increasingly familiar
Yogins for whom this practice is fully stabilized
May meditate in a different order, or jump about.
After the four immeasurables are stabilized, so that their benefits may arise, after kindness, meditate on the others in order, or after equanimity go back and meditate in no particular order. That is, after meditating serially on kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity, after equanimity, meditating on compassion and kindness is the lesser degree. After kindness, meditating on joy is the middle. After equanimity meditating on kindness is the greatest. Jumping directly up and down after resting between objects is the meditation. The Middle Length Prajñaparamita says:
Subhuti, then meditate on kindness. Meditate on joy. Rest in compassion, Practice equanimity.
7. The virtues of meditating in this way
What is the purpose? It is like this:
By that our realization will gain the advantage of freshness.
Its steadiness will grow to the very greatest degree.
In particular the mind of the four immeasurables will gain freshness, unsteadiness will be steadied, and steadiness will become supremely great steadiness.
The fruition
How what is exalted, true and good is established
Now, teaching the fruition of the four immeasurables, the following words explain what is like:
There are four fruitions of doing this meditation.
By ripening we gain the exalted and truly good.
In the realm we wish, we have a divine or human body,
In a situation producing goodness and benefit.
Those who do not attain an exalted state attain the body of a god or a human being. They perfect the two accumulations, benefit beings, and become inseparable from the four immeasurables. Even if they are careless or fall asleep, they will not fall prey to serious harm. The Ornament of Mahayana Sutras says:
Having the mind of these four Brahma-viharas We will always take birth in the realm we desire. Because they perfect the two accumulations, They produce ripening for sentient beings.
Never separated from purity,
They are free from what does not in accord with them.
Being careless, which is such a condition,
As well as impatience, will never be found there.
As the ultimate fruition, enlightenment is established. The same text says:
What is harmful is banished, and, with seeds of enlightenment,
Happiness is produced and the cause of longing desire.
The essence ripens, and children of the Victorious One,
Relying on Dharma, are not far off from being buddhas.
Abandoning what is harmful is a fruition of separation.
Producing the seed of liberation is a fruition of the predominant condition of empowerment by the master. Being patient about our own trials and hardships, because we are producing happiness for others, is a fruition of production. By meditating on these four in this life, they ripen in other lives as a fruition according with the cause. The nature of these four immeasurables always arises in children of the Victorious One. It is born from previous familiarity, from seeing its objects, and by seeing the faults of what does not conform to them. The same text says
This kindness, having the nature of compassion,
Attains the nature and true discrimination
By former acquaintance and also purification
Of the non-according condition that would spoil it.
2. The benefits of according with the cause
From the two sections of the fruition according with the cause:
a. General
From according with the cause, these themselves are produced.
The good experience gained is free from its opposite side.
By action according with the cause, we always spend our time meditating on the four immeasurables. By experience according with the cause malice, harmfulness, unhappiness, passion, loving and hating will be absent. Now there are the benefits of the power of this.
b. The benefits of the decisive condition As for the decisive condition or power:
The power is birth in a pleasant, happy, and joyful country,
Where there are compatible people and amenities of wealth.
By kindness we are born in a pleasant country, by compassion in a happy one, and by joy in a joyful one with many flowers, medicinal herbs, and so forth. By equanimity we are born among many compatible people and are not harmed.
3. The benefits of doing this
For such a person:
By doing this, these four will grow immensely greater.
The wealth of the two benefits for self and others
At this time becomes completely spontaneous.
By performing this, the four immeasurables increase immensely, growing greater and greater. By that the wealth of the two benefits for oneself and others is spontaneously present. By the increase of the meritorious karma of meditating on these four immeasurables, happiness and goodness are established.
4. The benefit of kindness
Moreover
When perfect enjoyment of kindness is without aggression,
Then the mirror-like wisdom will have been fully attained,
As sambhogakaya adorned with the major and minor marks.
After kindness transforms aggression into the mirror-like wisdom, sambhogakaya is attained. The Lotus Peak (padma rtse mo) says:
By kindness aggression will be purified
As mirror-like wisdom and sambhogakaya.
5. The benefit of compassion
When compassion is desireless, there is dharmakaya,
Producing the manifestation of discriminating wisdom,
With dharmakaya’s exclusive dharmas, like the ten powers.
Compassion pure of desire is discriminating awareness wisdom and dharmakaya. The same text says:
By compassion desire is fully purified
As discriminating wisdom and ultimate dharmakaya.
6. The benefits of joy
When joy eliminates jealousy, there is nirmanakaya.
The holy all-accomplishing wisdom is attained.
Nirmanakaya is nothing fixed, but of various forms.
This self-existing kaya is spontaneous in its action.
By immeasurable joy we attain the all-accomplishing wisdom, whose nature is perfect buddha activity. Purifying jealousy makes nirmanakaya manifest. The same text says:
By joy all jealousy is fully purified,
As all-accomplishing wisdom and nirmanakaya.
Action becomes spontaneous and excellent.
7. The benefits of equanimity
When equanimity has eliminated pride,
As well as stupidity, there is the essence of things.
Through equality, dharmadhatu wisdom will manifest.
The simplicity of dharmata is svabhavikakaya.
When equanimity has purified pride and ignorance, the wisdom of equality and the dharmadhatu wisdom are established. Svabhavikakaya, the unchanging vajrakaya and the kaya of the manifestation of enlightenment are apprehended. The same text says:
By equanimity and great equanimity
Pride, with envy and ignorance, will be purified.
We master the dharmadhatu and equality wisdoms,
The kaya of manifestation and the vajrakaya.
As for the nature of passionlessness that arises from the four actions of these four immeasurables, the Ornament of Mahayana Sutras says:
Those who have kindness completed by compassion,
If they do not desire to dwell in peace,
Why even speak of worldly happiness
Or enhancing their personal lives and their careers?
As for their not desiring their own happiness, the same text says:
Compassion is made to suffer by those who have suffering.
If that moisture were not produced, who would make them happy?
After the kind produce these others’ happiness,
Their personal happiness is not produced like that.
As for the kind subjugating their own happiness to that of others, the same text says:
The suffering that is produced by kindness
Overwhelms all worldly happiness.
If those who are givers of benefit are without it,
What greater wonder could there be than that?
The Letter to a Student says:
For beings with many unbearable sufferings, without a refuge and helpless,
Those who are happy to suffer in helping others are said to be excellent beings.
The instant that others’ hunger and thirst is completely removed, and they have done it,
They become joyful people. Who indeed could be compared to them?
These diligent ones who so delight in working to benefit others and make them happy,
How could they ever devote themselves to enjoyment in the higher realms?
They will never gain joy by happy youth, nor the trappings of wealth and power,
Nor by spouses or other relationships, nor will they be born among gods or jealous gods.
As for the action of samsara not arising, the former text says:
Compassion, the highest attitude, lacks ego and the nature
Of suffering that comes from samsaric labeling.
It lacks the suffering that comes from consciousness.
Nor will there be the serious harm that comes from wrongdoing
As for the immeasurables of holy beings who have these immeasurably, they transcend the world and are without faults. The same text says:
Those who have desire have corresponding faults.
Those without it, beyond the world, do not possess them. Those who have this attitude, by their loving-kindness, Will be without any faults and go beyond the world.
Those who are kind to their literal fathers, mothers, and children have desire. Bodhisattvas have no such desires in regard to sentient beings. This is because they are liberated from samsara. They lack faults because they liberate suffering sentient beings from samsara. The same text says:
Not knowing how to cross the great waves of suffering,
As for those that put their reliance in the great darkness,
The sorts of means that are employed by worldly leaders,
How is it possible that they would not have faults?
The same text says:
If worldly enlightened ones and all the arhats
Among the pratyekabuddhas lack this kindness,
It is needless even to speak of any others;
But world-transcending ones are not like that.
If we do not meditate on the four immeasurables, there will be many faults. The same text says:
A bodhisattva who possesses ill-will
And malice due to pain and unhappiness,
Resulting from attachments of desire,
Is sure to come in contact with many faults.
As for its being said that those born in the desire realms have attachments of desire, those who are born in the first two realms of desire and form are said to have samsaric desire. The Abhidharmakosha says:
Those born in those two realms have attachments of samsaric desire.
As for the fault of increasing kleshas being immeasurable. the former text says:
Kleshas conquer the self. They conquer beings. They conquer discipline.
By receiving corruption, we are debased and become samsaric. Teachers of such things degrade us.
Do not listen to their arguments. They will be born in other lives as beings without the freedoms.
Harmed by attaining and non-attaining, their minds will attain great suffering.
Attainment corrupts the happiness of this life, and non-attainment corrupts later happiness. As for the benefits of meditating on the four immeasurables, we do not have such faults, we grasp the possibilities of benefiting beings, and since we are not whirled about in samsara by the kleshas, suffering does not arise. The same text says:
For those who rest in kindness and the rest,
The faults that were described do not arise.
Having no kleshas, they will benefit beings,
And will not pass into samsaric birth.
8. The praise of their virtues:
As to what they[1] are like:
These, kindness and so forth are given the highest praise
By the one who is the teacher of gods and human beings
As having limitless virtues and being beyond compare.
The Glorious Garland Sutra (dpal phreng gi mdo) says:
Whoever meditates on the four immeasurables
Will be considered with kindness by all the tathagatas.
All the immeasurable good qualities of this
Are even more limitless than endless space itself
9. The four immeasurables are the way of the victorious ones
As for the four immeasurables:
Any path that is without them is in error.
Refuge in other teachers is an inferior path.
The path that has them leads to spotless liberation.
This is the way that was traveled by buddhas of the past.
It also will be traveled by those who are to come.
The Commentary of the Praise of the Bhumis says:
The four immeasurables are the path of liberation. Others paths are wrong.
10) How to attain the two ultimate realities.
The causal vehicles hold that, like seeds producing sprouts,
Upaya and prajña are the producers of the two kayas.
The fruition vehicles proclaim them as being mere conditions,
Removing the two obscurations that veil these same two kayas .
But since upaya depends on the limitless path of compassion,
The meaning is the same, compassionate emptiness.
In that, both cause and fruition practice are in accord.
The vehicles of characteristics mostly proclaim that the two accumulations are the producing cause of the two kayas . The Sixty Stanzas on Reasoning (rig pa drug bcu pa) says:
By this merit all beings
Accumulate merit and wisdom.
May we gain the two ultimates
Arising from merit and wisdom.
In secret mantra, it is maintained that clearing away the two obscurations of the kayas occurs through practicing the two accumulations with profound upaya and prajña. Therefore such practice is proclaimed to be a condition of this clearing away. Both are in accord, insofar as practice has the essence of emptiness and compassion.
11. Summarizing the meaning of this meditation
The sutras say that the unborn seeds of happiness
Have existed primordially and never were created.
The mantrayana accords with this, because it claims
To clear away the incidental obscurations
That are the primordial obscurations of trikaya.
To summarize briefly, learned and accomplished ones
Explain that sutra and tantra are a unity,
As outer and inner aspects of a single path.
Therefore, following after the Buddha’s genuine children,
We should strive to practice the four immeasurables.
The Buddha’s final teaching says that the dhatu is naturally pure and possesses the buddha qualities primordially. However, at the time of practicing the path, the buddha qualities appear to arise, and are proclaimed to appear. In mantrayana all beings naturally exist as the mandala, as explained below. Since these two approaches are without distinction, it amounts to the same thing. In the path, the two accumulations of upaya and prajña are also the same. In the fruition, the kayas and wisdoms are the same. Former great masters like Padmasambhava have explained their relationship as inner and outer. Therefore, we should strive to meditate on the four immeasurables.
FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES:
[1]:
The immeasurables.
The dedication of merit
Now the merit is dedicated for the benefit of sentient beings:
By the nature of this peace that was so auspiciously taught,
When the roiling silt in the mind of all beings is pacified,
Fatigued by having strayed into wrong and degrading paths,
May our minds today find ease for their weariness.
By the power of this auspicious way of presenting the Dharma, like the host of spotless rays of the autumn moon, may whatever beings are dwelling on the paths of the shravakas and pratyekabuddhas, and others dwelling on the paths of the extremists, and those who are wearied by dwelling on paths that are less than perfect, and all those worn out by dwelling on the great path of samsara, completely pacify the roiling kleshas that disturb their minds. In the wondrously arisen grove of liberation, carpeted with an array of various flowers, like lotuses growing in the pond of buddha qualities, may they put themselves at ease.
As when the full moon of autumn ornaments the sky.
Having a perfectly rounded, brilliantly shining disk,
May hundreds of night-blooming lotuses of faith
Blossom in the light, and beings be illumined.
Lapping the motionless Meru of a mind of sanity
Is the play of the ocean of goodness and benefit.
As the four continents adorn that central mountain,
The four immeasurables are the ornaments of mind.
May accumulations of happiness beautify all the world.
May beings without remainder come to the ground of life.
From the peaceful garland of adorning clouds,
The play the three levels that constitutes our universe,[1]
May the heavens open with marvelous rains of happiness.
With flashing illumination and the thunder of victory,
May these four measureless benefits last to the end of time.
FOOTNOTES AND REFERENCES:
[1]:
Meter
Bodhicitta, the Mind Focused on Complete Enlightenment
After the mind stream has been well trained by the four immeasurable aspirations, eighth we enter the essence of the ocean of the activity of the Buddha’s children, our chief topic: arousing bodhicitta, the mind focused on supreme enlightenment.
Meditating on the root of all dharmas, the two bodhicittas
Now arousing the mind focused on supreme enlightenment will be discussed. As just explained:
When well-accustomed to the four immeasurables,
Meditate on the root of all dharmas, the two bodhicittas.
Bodhicitta is the root of all dharmas of the world and beyond the world.
It is the essence of all paths. It is the guide of all sentient beings. The steed by which one will quickly cross to the unsurpassable mansion of excellence is the best of attitudes, bodhicitta.
Therefore we should learn how to arouse it. The Sutra Requested by Maitreya (byams pa las zhus pa’i mdo) says:
Maitreya, if a bodhisattva has that Dharma, all the lower realms will be abandoned. There will be no coming into the hands of evil associates. It will be the cause of quickly becoming fully, truly, completely enlightened. What is this single Dharma? It is the most excellent and perfect of attitudes, bodhicitta.
Maitreya, if one has that Dharma, the lower realms are abandoned. There will be no coming into the hands of evil associates. It will be the cause of quickly becoming fully, truly, completely enlightened.
The Bodhisattva-Pitaka-Sutra (byang chub sems dpa’i sde snod kyi mdo) says:
Those who wish to become quickly enlightened with unsurpassable, true, complete enlightenment should train in the best of attitudes, bodhicitta.
the extensive explanation of arousing bodhicitta
