Motivation and Conduct

We should have no confusion regarding motivation and conduct, and these are the unmistaken motivation of Bodhicitta and the conduct of listening to the teachings. This is to ensure that when you are hearing the Dharma it is benefiting your mind. As we have said before, this teaching is not to be seen as a class instruction. It's not for the purpose of gaining new knowledge or new information only, as if we are only interested in things that we haven’t heard before. That is the mindset of gathering new information. This has little benefit for the mind. When you hear something new, you think that it is something important, and when you hear something that you’ve heard before, it’s disregarded. If we are only concerned with new information, rather than looking at the meaning and really letting those words penetrate our minds, that doesn’t have much benefit for our mind.

Another important factor in learning is to view the teacher who is explaining the Dharma with trust and confidence, or if not trust or faith, at least with some kind of respect. If you hold the teacher in high enough regard when you are listening to their words, their words have import. Their words have some kind of importance, so if you hold respect or devotion even for the one who is speaking, the words can penetrate your mind. You are sending a signal to your mind that this is something to listen to and pay attention to. That will also be an important factor in helping you learn and internalize the teaching, and this will ultimately benefit your mind.

By attending with our body, our speech and our mind, we involve all three facets of our being in the process of listening: body, speech and mind, present and engaged. If you listen in this way, then the Dharma really benefits you. It benefits you, and you gain the ability to retain the information and hold it inside of you, to carry it with you. It’s very different from looking at a book and flipping through the pages. You may be reading page after page of information but once you set the book down it's as if you can’t remember what you read. That’s what we want to avoid.

We want to be able to digest the meaning of these words so that we bring them into the situations of our life. We can be happy, we can be sad, our life can go through ups and downs. Sometimes its good, and sometimes we go through difficult times, but we want to be able to bring the teachings into our life, into the situations of our life throughout our waking hours, and truly be able to realize the meaning of the Dharma so that we can benefit from it.

As for conduct, the way we conduct ourselves, this is an important topic in the Dharma. Ideally, we will have compassion and wisdom integrated and inseparable in our actions. If we’re able to accomplish that, then we are able to have a very effective, very good Dharma practice. We want wisdom and compassion in union, not separate, not going in opposite directions. Let’s say we have compassion but there is no wisdom, or we have wisdom without compassion — that is not what we want. We want compassion and wisdom united inseparably.

This word compassion, it’s a word we hear a lot. We hear it in Dharma teachings, and there are many levels of understanding of what this compassion is. But the basic point is that compassion, however we understand it, is indispensable. The Buddha Shakyamuni himself said that if you want to attain perfect enlightenment, you don’t need many teachings, simply focus on one teaching alone, and that teaching is Great Compassion. These are the words of the Buddha himself.

With a mind that is devoid of compassion, we do not see the suffering or hardships that others go through. We don't see it, we don't think about it, we don't notice those things that other people are going through. We don't have the ability to feel the pain of others. We are only concerned with our own feeling, how are we feeling right now. We are not concerned about others or able to feel the physical or mental suffering of those around us, and this has the effect of not allowing us to alleviate our own suffering.

We need compassion that is in union with wisdom. We might hold the view that compassion is enough, but we also need to have good judgement, and use the faculties of being able to analyze and understand. We need the capacity for introspection and the ability to discern what is right and what is wrong, to look into one's own mind and exercise the ability to see clearly one's own mind.

Why do we need compassion together with wisdom? Here's an example: there may be situations in which we want to help, but we might lack the aspect of wisdom. We don't really have a full understanding of our own minds or how these situations may work, or how these situations may unfold. Sometimes we may try to use our good intentions to intervene but we may end up causing more harm than good. So we need to be careful in that regard. We need to have the ability to understand what our action will do to others. We need the wisdom aspect to understand how to alleviate another's pain and act on our compassion. It's better to have the wisdom of insight before proceeding with our actions. We must have wisdom, the ability to see clearly and analyze our own minds, before engaging and helping others.

- Jigme Wangdrak Rinpoche, August 28, 2021