In Buddhism, the main purpose of practice is to attain Buddhahood, or complete enlightenment. It is important, therefore, that our practices become its cause. To make every part of practice the cause of enlightenment, there are three main elements, which are called ‘the threefold excellence’. They are the excellence of bodhichitta, the excellence of non-conceptualization, and the excellence of dedication.
- The Excellence of Bodhichitta
First is the excellence of bodhichitta, the preparatory part of authentic practice. It is the skilful means to extend and uphold virtues we accumulate as well as lead us deeper into the practice. Great beings have pointed out that bodhichitta is indispensable for the extraordinary development of the virtuous mind. However vast is one’s bodhichitta, to that extent will be the virtue accumulated.
If we receive and practice Dharma to benefit only ourselves, then that kind of intention is very minute, whereas practice intended for the sake of all sentient beings is the extensive bodhichitta of the Mahayana path. Therefore, first of all we should have the correct motivation to cultivate bodhichitta. This is of two types: the motivation of the Mahayana and the motivation of the Vajrayana. Here, it is the first one that will be emphasised. Initially, compassion is the correct motivation and it is cultivated by visualizing all sentient beings. Wherever there is space, it is pervaded by sentient beings and wherever there are sentient beings, that space is pervaded by obscurations, afflictions and sufferings. There is no single sentient being who has not been our parent. Even one being has been our parents uncountable times, let alone all sentient beings. In this context, Nagarjuna states:
The number of one’s mothers, if counted by rolling up pellets of soil
To the size of a juniper fruit, even all the earth would not be enough.
Hence, we should repay the kindness they have rendered. They gave us birth, fed us, and brought us up with whatever they could, with love and care, just like the parents of our present life. But, they are suffering in different realms because of their ignorance. In searching for peace and happiness for themselves and for us, when they had been our parents, they committed many misdeeds. So now they are wandering in the cyclic existence of samsara, not knowing what to do to overcome suffering.
Therefore, what benefit or good would there be, if we left our parents suffering the unrelenting pains of hells and only sought happiness for ourselves?
Contemplating in this way, we should cultivate compassion for all sentient beings. This is the flawless cause of bodhichitta, and bodhichitta itself is the flawless cause of omniscience. In the Thirty-Seven Verses of a Bodhisattva’s Practice, it is said:
All sufferings come from the thought of just searching for one’s own happiness,
But the buddhas arise through the intention to benefit others.
Also the Prajnaparamita-upadesha-shastra states:
Bodhichitta is the intention to attain Buddhahood
For the sake of other beings.
It is very difficult for all sentient beings to create the opportunity to be liberated from samsara because they so frequently engage in various negative actions. Therefore, wearing properly every time the armour of moral strength to liberate all sentient beings, we should persevere for the benefit of others.
If we have this attitude before proceeding into our main practice, the benefit we gain from this will be unsurpassable. It will lead us onto, and make it easier for us to follow, the path of supreme enlightenment, non-conceptualization.
2. The Excellence of Non-conceptualization
Second is the main part, the excellence of non-conceptualization, in which no negative emotional force is allowed to destroy the accumulated virtues. Non-conceptualization is the ultimate Buddhist view that phenomena, whether of samsara or of nirvana, do not exist inherently. They do not exist like we perceive them: rigid and permanent. They are just the illusion of our deluded mind.
Everything is just like a dream, a dream in which we perceive everything to be real. Yet when we wake up, nothing of the dream is there before us. In fact, there is nothing we can call real because even the so-called reality that we perceive just now in our waking life is only the mere conception of our habitual tendencies. Everything is the fabrication or projection of our conceptual mind. Therefore, phenomena are empty by their nature in the ultimate perspective.
Nothing exists inherently, whether it is an outer perceived object or the inner subject, the mind, which perceives that object, and there is nothing to accomplish or to negate. Nothing exists that can be observed. Though there is nothing to be observed, however this can only be realised and ascertained through self-awareness. The Bodhisattvacharyavatara states:
When both substantial and insubstantial phenomena do not exist before the mind,
At that time, the mind will reside in its perfect nature without any perception,
Because there is no other object to be perceived.
This state is attained by meditating on emptiness that is free from all fabrications and duality, gradually purifying every obscuration, and finally clearing all conceptions. This non-conceptualization is the ultimate truth. Therefore, anger or any other emotional force cannot destroy any accumulated virtue if one has this realization. Conversely, virtue, be it accumulated through generosity, observing pure moral discipline, or making offerings or prostrations, if practised without non-conceptualization, might just be the cause to be reborn in samsara itself—in the god realms or other higher forms of the three worlds. In the Sutra of Abridgement, the Buddha said:
The virtue that we accumulate with conceptions
Is similar to eating a delicious meal mixed with poison.
Even if we feel loving-kindness for others with conceptual thoughts, that virtue will just create the temporary pleasure of the god realms but will not be of benefit as far as attaining Buddhahood. As Maitreya states in the Mahayana Sutralamkara:
Because loving-kindness is not contradictory to ignorance,
It does not annihilate obscurations.
Mental obscuration is the main obstacle that keeps us away from attaining liberation and Buddhahood. The only antidote to clear the obscurations altogether is meditating on emptiness, or the wisdom of non-conceptualization. Therefore, non-conceptualization is the cause of Buddhahood.
3. The Excellence of Dedication
Finally, it is the excellence of dedication that develops the virtues and increases them. We should immediately dedicate even the virtue we acquire from listening to a single word of Dharma, having a virtuous mind even for a short period of time, and any act of practicing right conduct and abandoning misdeeds. If this is not dedicated, then the virtue accumulated by a novice practitioner will easily become exhausted because they are so weak, like dried grass or a drop of water. Afflictive emotions such as anger, pride, and so on are so overwhelming. For instance, a short period of anger will destroy virtue accumulated for a long period of time.
Furthermore, there are other aspects to dedication, about which a sutra states:
The virtue accumulated will be destroyed by any of these four factors:
Keeping it without dedicating, or dedicating with false intention,
Stained with the intention of being a subject of praise, and having regret for it afterward.
Therefore, if virtue is dedicated with great intention, then it will never get exhausted. The same sutra mentions:
Just like a drop of water that falls in the ocean
Does not become exhausted until the ocean dries up,
Similarly, the virtue dedicated towards the attainment of Buddhahood
Will not become exhausted until then.
Dedication is inferior if it is made with the intention to just acquire rebirth as a god or human. This will not create permanent peace. Furthermore, such virtue will become exhausted without there being any lasting benefit either for oneself or others. Dedication is considered average if the intention is to attain the state of an arhat. This virtue will ripen only for one’s own benefit without producing any benefit for others. We should not dedicate our virtues towards these types of fruition.
How should we dedicate then?
We should dedicate our virtues just like the buddhas of the past, present and future have done, are doing, and will do. They dedicate them towards attaining Buddhahood in order to benefit all other sentient beings by bringing them to the attainment of enlightenment.
The virtues that we should dedicate are all those that were accumulated in the past, that are being accumulated at present and that will be accumulated in the future, both by oneself and others.
Secondly, for whom we should dedicate?
Virtuous actions should be mainly dedicated to ones’ parents and the beings who are related with us, irrespective of good or bad, and then extended to all sentient beings as limitless as the sky.
These three excellences are indispensable in every virtuous practice to make our accumulation the cause to attain Buddhahood. The excellence of bodhichitta should be aroused before every practice, in order to purify our intention and accumulate unsurpassable merit even from reciting a mantra once. The excellence of non-conceptualization should be applied during all the three practices, realising that everything is empty, even the practitioner, the virtue we accumulate from such practices, and those for whom we practice. The excellence of dedication should be performed after every practice, in order to make the accumulated merit inexhaustible. As for the two types of accumulation, the first is the accumulation of merit and the second is the accumulation of wisdom.
By Pema Tenzin
Final Year, NNI
