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8 EASTERN HORIZON | TEACHINGS

Bodhicitta:

The Perfection of Dharma

By Lama Thubten Yeshe

Lama Thubten Yeshe was born in Tibet in 1935. At the age of six, he entered
the great Sera Monastic University, Lhasa, where he studied until 1959,
when the Chinese invasion of Tibet forced him into exile in India. Lama Yeshe
continued to study and meditate in India until 1967, when, with his chief
disciple, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche, he went to Nepal. Two years later he
established Kopan Monastery, near Kathmandu, in order to teach Buddhism
to Westerners.

In 1974, the Lamas began making annual teaching tours to the West, and
as a result of these travels a worldwide network of Buddhist teaching and
meditation centers—the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana
Tradition (FPMT)—began to develop.

In 1984, after an intense decade of imparting a wide variety of incredible teachings and establishing one FPMT
activity after another, at the age of forty-nine, Lama Yeshe passed away. He was reborn as Ösel Hita Torres in
Spain in 1985 and recognized as the incarnation of Lama Yeshe by His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 1986.

I think it is absolutely essential for us to have loving meditation. And with it, we are always dedicated to
kindness towards others. There is no doubt about our own happiness: “Me, me I’m miserable, I want to
this. Loving kindness is the essence of bodhicitta, the be happy. Therefore I’ll meditate.” It doesn’t work that
attitude of the bodhisattva. It is the most comfortable way. For some reason good meditation and its results—
path, the most comfortable meditation. There can be no peacefulness, satisfaction and bliss—just don’t come.
philosophical, scientific or psychological disagreement
with this. With bodhicitta, there’s no East-West conflict. Also, without bodhicitta it is very difficult to collect
This path is the most comfortable, most perfect, one merits. You create them and immediately destroy
hundred percent uncomplicated one, free of any danger them; by afternoon, the morning’s merits have gone.
of leading people to extremes. Without bodhicitta, It’s like cleaning a room and an hour later making it
nothing works. And most of all, your meditation doesn’t dirty again. You make your mind clean, then right away
work, and realizations don’t come. you mess it up - not a very profitable business. If you
want to succeed in the business of collecting merits,
Why is bodhicitta necessary for success in meditation? you must have bodhicitta. With bodhicitta you become
Because of selfish grasping. If you have a good so precious—like gold, like diamonds; you become the
meditation but don’t have bodhicitta, you will grasp most perfect object in the world, beyond compare with
at any little experience of bliss: “Me, me; I want more, any material things.
I want more.” Then the good experience disappears
completely. Grasping is the greatest distraction to From the Western, materialistic point of view, we’d think
experiencing single-pointed intensive awareness in it was great if a rich person said, “I want to make charity.