A Meditation for Cultivating the Awakening Mind
Traditions of Buddhist practice place great importance upon the methods for cultivating the Six Perfections - giving, ethics, patience, effort, concentration and wisdom. They provide a foundation for developing compassion and loving-kindness, leading to the cultivation of the awakening mind. The following meditation is based upon teachings on the “Seven-Fold Cause and Effect Instructions with the Interchange of Self and Others.” They were taught by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Rikon, Switzerland during the summer of 1985. It is useful to review them daily.
| See all beings with equanimity --- Those whom I name friend enemy or with indifference Have not always been nor will always be --- |
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| Since we have been born many, many times They have all been my mothers, And have been very kind to me. |
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| Even when I've named them enemy they've been kind Because they've helped me to practice patience. |
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| Everyone has been so extraordinarily kind to me I want to repay all their kindness. |
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| So I will equalize myself and others, reflecting that just like myself, All beings want happiness and don't want suffering And all beings have the equal right to happiness without any suffering. |
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| Reflecting on the disadvantages of self-cherishing | ||
| at the expense of others; | ||
| And the advantages of cherishing others | ||
| rather than cherishing myself | ||
| I will exchange myself with others, Cherishing others rather than cherishing myself; Let harm come to myself rather than letting harm come to others. |
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| I will cultivate --- | ||
| Compassion, the wish to take on others' suffering --- Lovingkindness, the wish to give everyone my happiness --- Great compassion, the profound resolve to actually do this for all sentient beings. Bodhicitta, the Awakened Mind of a Buddha. |
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3:2006