Emptiness is based on faith, but faith without the idea of getting anything in return; and compassion comes from giving up clinging. Having given up clinging to any situation in your life, you begin to develop sympathy, because you do not have to buy or sell anything. With real renunciation, you do not want to cultivate yourself for the good, the great, and the glory. Instead, with a very genuine and gentle process, you could cultivate bodhichitta in yourself. That is altogether the important point of mixing your mind with the dharma. When the flow of mind is becoming completely mixed with that of the true dharma, it brings about fundamental gentleness and tremendous beauty.
The extent to which you are actually willing to be gentle depends on how awake to yourself you are. You need to be able to catch yourself, and you need to be able to see yourself on your own mental screen in order to know how far you have gotten with the ego and egolessness. You need shamatha and vipashyana. That is the way to mix your mind with the dharma completely.
The problem in being unable to do such a thing is that you keep trying to mimic the dharma while trying to justify yourself at the same time. You may simply want to be the best, which becomes clumsy, awkward, and absurd. Although you may be somewhat well trained, you might still be simply mimicking the dharma. The blindness of not being able to watch yourself, and therefore going too far and making too much of your own abilities, is always possible.
You can sense when a person’s mind is somewhat mixed with or dissolved into the dharma. Some people might say, “I think I know the dharma. My mind is very much mixed with the dharma, but I don’t think yours is quite so much as mine.” Such people have less dissolving taking place, and it shows in the level of their arguments. Other people might try too hard and become too rigid and frozen; such people are also far from mixing their minds with the dharma. It is absolutely possible to know the level of mixing from the way a person picks up a cup of tea and speaks, the way they handle their mouth, handle their face, handle their arms, legs, neck, and shoulders. Strangely, the way we do those seemingly insignificant little things reveals how far we have merged our mind with the dharma.
1. The five skandhas refer to five aspects of what we take to be the self. For more on the five skandhas, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, chapter 2, “The Frozen Space of Ego.”
2. The realization of twofold egolessness is divided into three stages. First is the egolessness of self, the first fold. Second is the egolessness of phenomena, described as a partial understanding of the second fold. Third is the egolessness of the perceiving itself, which completes the second fold.
3. Twofold ego can be described in terms of grasping onto a self and fixating on phenomena.
9
Awakening Your Enlightened Genes
There is no limit as to how much you could develop loving-kindness toward yourself or compassion toward others. You can go all the way. It is like the atmosphere, which has no boundaries. You can achieve complete freedom; you can experience vastness.
GENUINE WAKEFULNESS is possible constantly. We all have the potentiality of wakefulness within us. Even those with cut-off genes have this possibility. As long as they can tune in to the dharma, there is always a way that they can be brought back. In the big vision of the mahayana, nobody is rejected.
The mahayana message of wakefulness is designed to make you feel claustrophobic, because there is no turning back. Once you have heard the message that everybody has enlightened genes, sooner or later you are going to wake up. There is no chance to panic, and even if you do panic, it is too late. On one hand, the whole thing is completely hopeless, even somewhat terrible. On the other hand, it could be delightful. It is a mixed blessing for beginners, and a full blessing for those who are proceeding. And for those who actually achieve it, it is a great blessing—whatever that “it” may be.
SIGNS OF THE ENLIGHTENED GENES BEING AWAKENED
There are two signs that the enlightened genes are being awakened: maitri, or loving-kindness, and a lack of deception. With maitri, you are gentle toward yourself and you do not give yourself too hard a time. When the enlightened genes begin to wake up, it is very genuine. Sunshine begins to come out of your heart. But when that happens, you may try to cover it up. You may begin to deceive yourself as well as others. The level of your deception is dependent upon your commitment to the dharma. When you have less commitment to the dharma, you deceive much more, and when you have more commitment, greater genuineness takes place. If you cover yourself up, there is no way of shining out, no way of enlightening, no brilliance of any kind. If you are afraid of brilliance, you try to insert some kind of filter. You apologize for the whole thing. You are shy and you do not want to give up territory, because when you do so, there is the possibility of genuine compassion. But in the mahayana proclamation of buddha nature, something tremendous takes place. You do not have to be worried about your existence. You do not need to ask, “How am I going to survive if I don’t have my little ego?”
SIGNS OF THE ENLIGHTENED GENES NOT BEING AWAKENED
There are two signs that the genes are not being awakened: being unable to react to suffering, and not having bigger vision. The first sign, being unable to react to suffering, is quite straightforward. Some people just keep hanging on to their own pain; they do not give it up. Pain is their home, their security, their lover, their friend, and their parents.
The second sign, not having bigger vision, is that you shy away from anything big, anything large scale. Relating to that kind of vision makes you feel awkward and wretched. For instance, you might decide to go out into your backyard and enjoy the snow. But suddenly you think, “I can’t go out there! It’s too cold!” So you decide to retreat to your bedroom. But inside, things are very constricted; there is no room to stretch out or expand. There is no fearlessness in that approach.
OBSTACLES TO AWAKENING ENLIGHTENED GENES
There are both psychological and situational obstacles to awakening enlightened genes: intrinsic slavery, being without awareness, taking part in evil activities, and sleepiness.
The first obstacle is enslaving yourself, or intrinsic slavery. You set up your life in such a way that you do not even have time to think about it. You have sold yourself to somebody, and there is no time for any-thing else.
The second obstacle is being without awareness. Without awareness, your intrinsic genes cannot be awakened. If you do not pay attention to your world and to yourself, things become extremely naive and ordinary. There is no sacredness without awareness; everything is too casual.
The third obstacle is taking part in evil activities. You are lured into activities that destroy your wakefulness and mindfulness. This could include indulging in the wrong occupation or wrong lifestyle. It could mean that rather than cultivating wakefulness, you are doing something that is against spiritual practice, that is degrading, or that perpetuates what is called “setting sun” vision.1
The fourth obstacle is sleepiness. You are asleep to your life, so successive kleshas, or conflicting emotions, of all kinds are taking place in you.
These four obstacles to awakening enlightened genes are very destructive.
SITUATIONS CONDUCIVE TO AWAKENING ENLIGHTENED GENES
There are also situations conducive to the awakening of enlightened genes: waking up at the right time, and taking an interest in dharma practice. The first is an outer situation. It is that you are actually waking up at the right time, a time when dharma can be heard. The second is an inner situation. Your interest in dharma practice becomes a prominent part of your enthusiasm.
METHODS FOR AWAKENING ENLIGHTENED GENES
We have two methods of awakening our basic genes: the four brahmaviharas and the four limitless ones.
The Four Brahmaviharas
The first method, the four brahmaviharas, is used at the hinayana level, before entering the bodhisattva path. As a beginner, you may not yet have formally connected with a spiritual friend, but you have made contact with an unofficial spiritual
friend, such as a parent or teacher who can guide you. Brahma is the ultimate god in the Hindu tradition, and vihara means “dwelling place”; so brahmavihara means the “dwelling place of Brahma.” It has the sense of behaving like Brahma, behaving like a god, so it is similar to the Judeo-Christian concept of godliness. The four brahmaviharas are: love, compassion, joy, and equanimity.
LOVE. The first brahmavihara is love. In Tibetan it is champa, which means “gentleness.” Here love does not refer to romantic love, but to the notion of love as it is understood in the Hindu tradition, which is a feeling of goodness, brotherhood, and harmony.
COMPASSION. The second brahmavihara is compassion, having a sympathetic attitude to others. In Tibetan it is nying-je, which means “noble heart.” You are merciful and you do not inflict your aggression on others.
JOY. The third brahmavihara is joy, or celebration. In Tibetan, it is gawa. You appreciate who you are and what you are, as well as your surroundings. There is an absence of aggression and complaint.
EQUANIMITY. The fourth brahmavihara is relaxation, or equanimity. In Tibetan it is tang-nyom. Tang means “let go,” or “release,” and nyom means “equalize”; so tang-nyom means “equanimity,” or “equality.” You are not constantly fighting, and you are giving up tit-for-tat mentality.
The four brahmaviharas are at the level of ordinary decency and good manners. They are practiced by nontheistic Buddhists, who don’t believe in ego, as well as by theists. But the term theism does not simply apply to Jews, Christians, or Hindus. It means maintaining an attitude of self-preservation, as opposed to giving up the self. When you take the bodhisattva vow, you are ready to be less concerned with self-preservation, ready to be more open to others. That is the beginning of the mahayana.
On the mahayana path, you have to mash yourself like a potato so that the ego begins to soften. The so-called ego, which doesn’t actually exist, is very gullible and credulous. It is always looking for security. So when the possibility of buddhadharma is presented to the ego, it buys that as well. But in the process of buying, the ego could be twisted around and it could begin to dissolve. Love or gentleness to oneself, compassion or gentleness to others, joy, and equanimity or equilibrium are all designed to thaw out the ego by a natural process, rather than a fight.
By working with the four brahmaviharas, you are keeping the world in good order and trying to be a good person. In order to wake up your enlightened genes, you have to develop decency. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to awaken that psychological inheritance of softness, brightness, and goodness.
The Four Limitless Ones
The second method of awakening our basic genes is called the four limitless ones. The four limitless ones are also comprised of love, compassion, joy, and equanimity. These are the same four qualities as the brahmaviharas, but in this case they can be developed to a much higher level. The four limitless ones are called “limitless” because they are not bound by ego intention. Since they are practiced after you have taken the bodhisattva vow, you begin to develop a nontheistic approach to the whole thing. The brahmaviharas are still somewhat limited by goody-goodyness, but with the limitless ones, there is no end, only continual expansion. There is no limit as to how much you could develop loving-kindness toward yourself or compassion toward others. You can go all the way. It is like the atmosphere, which has no boundaries. You can achieve complete freedom; you can experience vastness. The four limitless ones, particularly equanimity, have a quality of transcendence.
LOVE. The first limitless one is called love. It is maitri, or loving-kindness. You are beginning to realize that your buddha nature has woken up, so there is no reason to hate yourself anymore. You actually begin to feel good about yourself, and there is some sort of wakefulness. At the start of a new day, you do not just feel that you have to face another day, but there is a quality of rejoicing and delight. You develop an intrinsic appreciation of yourself in spite of all the obstacles you might face.
At the brahmavihara level, love is still somewhat self-centered, but at the level of the four limitless ones, love is not self-centered or a perpetuation of your ego. You simply realize that you have gentleness in you already, so everything is workable. Everything is possible, even more than possible. You are surprised how gentle you can be to yourself, and you realize that you don’t have to torture yourself.
When you are in pain, you feel lonely and distant, cut off from the world. You have no friends to talk to, and nobody understands you or how terrible you feel. It is as if the world has given up on you. But that feeling of loneliness can actually provide gentleness. You notice how soft and raw you are, and you feel the painfulness of your own ego. That rawness is the starting point of loving yourself and having compassion for others.
The theistic traditions carry with them the idea of punishment. The theism of the East teaches us how dirty we are, and the theism of the West teaches us how wicked we are. To overcome our impurity, we have to wear white and eat sattvic food.2 To overcome our wickedness, we have to be sweet and nice to everyone. However, the Buddhist nontheistic tradition is not based on having to prove yourself or change your lifestyle. According to Buddhism, gentleness simply exists in you, so you can afford to be good and to feel inspired. You can trust yourself. That trustworthiness is maitri.
COMPASSION. The second of the four limitless ones is compassion. The missionary’s style of compassion is based on feeling sorry for the natives. Feeling sorry for them makes you also feel sorrowful, so you ask the Red Cross to send supplies. With nontheistic compassion, although you may feel sorry for somebody, you are not disturbed and you do not necessarily shed any tears. You just act nobly in order to help others help themselves. The gentleness that you feel for yourself is expressed in turn to others, so your compassion has nobleness and dignity. With a noble heart of compassion, you understand people’s pain, but you still keep your composure.
JOY. The third limitless one is joy. Nontheistic joy arises as a celebration that you possess enlightened genes. You have tremendous personal dignity, which arises out of maitri, and you have tremendous public dignity, which is inspired by karuna. When you put them together, you develop joy and humor. In this case, humor does not mean laughing at jokes or making up puns. Humor is being able to see clearly, to see through things. With humor, you begin to appreciate the workings of your mind and the situations that are given to you. You have a quality of natural celebration, based on the goodness, wakefulness, and vastness of mahayana vision. You are inspired by the healthiness and togetherness of maitri, and the openness and possibilities of karuna. You have settled into your world and you are not threatened by possibilities of other worlds, so you can perform your activities freely, beautifully, and wholesomely.
EQUANIMITY. The fourth limitless one is equanimity. You do not hold on to your territory, but you equalize situations, so there is no bias. You have had a glimpse of egolessness, so you do not expect compliments and you do not work for a personal reward of any kind. You just open your heart; you open yourself altogether. In the Bodhicharyavatara, or The Way of the Bodhisattva, the eighth-century Indian teacher Shantideva says, “Please use me. I prefer to be a bridge, a ship, a highway, a swimming pool, a chariot. Please use me in the service of all sentient beings. I have no hesitation. Whatever my situation may be, I am willing to do good for others.”3 That openness is very genuine. It is not just a goody-goody approach, but is based on letting go of twofold ego.
Aims of the Four Limitless Ones
The aim of loving-kindness, or maitri, is to experience peace and to cause others to become peaceful. The aim of compassion, or karuna, is to separate the cause of pain from the pain itself. The aim of joy is to help people experience pleasure without causing themselves pain. It is to bring about a lessening of the kleshas. The aim of equanimity is to free people from passion and aggression so that they can see beyond the bias of close and distant. When you are too distant, you couldn’t care less about others, and when you are too
close, you care too much about them.
Causes of the Four Limitless Ones
There are four causes or ways to evolve love, compassion, joy, and equanimity: buddha nature, the spiritual friend, confidence, and discriminating awareness. The root cause is buddha nature. It is the natural tendency of your enlightened genes to evolve further rather than continue your particular style of nuisance and confusion.
The second cause comes from outside of you; it is the spiritual friend. When you meet a spiritual friend or teacher who demonstrates that such a possibility exists in you, it is like two flint stones rubbing together: there is a spark of wakefulness and connection.
The third cause is confidence. You are developing the confidence that the four limitless ones are possible and that you are up to it.
The fourth cause is discriminating awareness. You see the virtues of practicing the four limitless ones and the problem with not doing that. Your prajna is becoming activated.
The Natural Progression of the Four Limitless Ones
In our aspiration to become detached from our fixations and awaken our enlightened genes, the more keen our attitude, the more heroism and greater vision can take place. In the four limitless ones, there is a natural progression from love to compassion to joy to equanimity. With maitri, or loving-kindness, we begin to like ourselves. With karuna, or compassion, we begin to like others. Then, because we like both ourselves and others, we experience celebration or joy. Finally, with equanimity, we begin to feel that the atmosphere is clear, free, and fantastic. We feel that we could settle down and work with others. We could do anything with them.
The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion Page 9
