Cover Story

The Awakening Mind - Dalai Lama

Part II

Generating love and compassion is extremely important for your practice in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end when you attain Buddhahood. And it is only by attaining the fully awakened state of a Buddha that you have the capacity to fulfill the purposes of sentient beings. Practices like the four means of gathering disciples (giving, speaking pleasantly, teaching and acting in accordance with the teachings) and the six perfections (generosity, discipline, patience, effort, concentration, and wisdom) are actually generated in dependence on sentient beings. All the fruitful practices of the Great Vehicle arise in relation to concern for the welfare of other sentient beings. Therefore, whenever your gaze falls upon a sentient being, thinking, "I shall fully awaken by depending on such beings as this," behold her with love and compassion.

Just as you will be able to harvest good crops if you plant healthy seeds in fertile soil, by cherishing sentient beings you will reap the fine crop of Buddhahood. By cherishing the welfare of sentient beings, you will be able to attain both good rebirth and the full awakening of a Buddha. The many types of suffering experienced by animals, hungry spirits, and the inhabitants of hell are the result of harming sentient beings. Neglecting the welfare of sentient beings, you will encounter the miseries of eating and being eaten by others, hunger and thirst and overwhelming and unrelenting pain.

Of course, some sentient beings might appear to be quite harmful to you. This is mainly the result of your own negative activities stimulated by disturbing emotions over many lives. Your having harmed other sentient beings in the past acts as an auxiliary condition. When the causes and conditions are activated and negative thoughts arise within the minds of other sentient beings they harm you. However, those sentient beings who are harming you now have been your mother many times in previous lives. In other lifetimes, when they were reborn as animals, you have eaten their flesh, drunk their blood, gnawed their bones used their skins, sucked their milk, and so forth. Therefore, if at this time you run into certain problems with these sentient beings, you should pay more attention to repaying the great kindness you have received from them in the past. Feel gratitude and love toward them, wishing that they be happy. Reflect that even when they harm you, they provide you with an opportunity to generate patience. This is an example of how to cultivate the practice of the six perfections in dependence on the kindness of sentient beings.

Part III will be published in the next issue.

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