Towards Bodhicitta: Responding With Altruism

This meditation is from a series of teachings Venerable Sangye Khadro gave in part of the text “Ornament for Clear Realization.” This is the eighth meditation of 11, though they do not need to be listened to in order.

Using a familiar situation to compare the mind of anger with the mind of altruism, we notice a key difference: the absence of self-cherishing in the latter. Seeing that anger destroys our peace of mind, let’s determine to respond with altruism instead next time.

Transcript

And now let's do a little bit of meditation.

So we've been working our way through the method for developing bodhicitta that involves equalizing and exchanging self for others.

And in recent weeks we've been looking at the comparison between the selfish attitude,

Selfishness or self-cherishing attitude,

And the other attitude of cherishing others,

Or altruism,

And trying to recognize that selfishness is detrimental to our own happiness,

Well-being,

And of course our spiritual practice.

And altruism,

On the other hand,

Is a very positive state of mind.

It's the real source of happiness for ourselves and for others,

And is a key to attaining full enlightenment,

Buddhahood.

But let's do another meditation on that.

So I'd like you to bring to mind an incident in which you got angry.

So it could have been a situation where you were really angry and then actually felt like doing hurtful things,

Hurting someone physically or verbally.

Or it could have been a more mild experience of anger where you just felt angry or annoyed or irritated because of what somebody did or said or the way they are.

And maybe you didn't express that feeling to anybody.

You just kept it inside of yourself,

Kind of stewing in your own mind.

So you probably had numerous instances of feeling angry or irritated,

But just bring one of those to mind.

And then ask yourself,

What was that experience like,

Having those kind of thoughts and feelings in your mind?

Was it a pleasant or an unpleasant experience?

Did your mind and your body feel peaceful or unpeaceful?

And do you feel good about the way your mind reacted,

Or do you feel not so good about it?

Now look deeper and more carefully into your mind and see if you can notice if the self-centered attitude was among the causes for you to feel the way that you did.

So was it that your number one priority was yourself,

Getting what you wanted,

Having things go your way,

Your own happiness,

Pleasure,

Caring more for yourself than others?

So were those kinds of thoughts and feelings and attitudes present in that situation?

And now try to imagine if you had lived through that experience with altruism,

With an attitude of caring more for others than for yourself,

Caring about their happiness,

Wanting things to go the way that they would be happy and satisfied and benefited.

So if those kinds of attitudes have been strong in your mind during that situation,

How would you have responded?

You have responded differently than the way you did.

Now in conclusion,

If this little reflection enabled you to recognize that being self-centered is harmful and disturbing rather than helpful,

Both for yourself and others,

And that altruism,

The opposite state of mind,

Being more concerned for others is so much more beneficial,

Then you may be able to feel a kind of determination or resolution to work on bringing about that kind of change in your mind,

Change in your priorities,

And learn to be more altruistic and less self-centered.

So you can just make your own conclusion about that.

And if you're still not sure,

If you're not convinced about which of these two attitudes is more beneficial,

Then you could resolve to just do further investigation,

Further reflection on this,

And later make a decision as to which one is more beneficial,

Which one you want to cultivate in your mind.