Recite the refuge and bodhicitta aspiration
Begin practice, and your day, by voicing the aspiration in a short traditional verse, so the intention is renewed rather than assumed.
Pourquoi ça marche
Patrul Rinpoche’s Essential Instruction opens with a four-line verse of refuge and bodhicitta whose last line reads “May I attain buddhahood for the benefit of all beings.” He explains each phrase. “For the benefit of all beings” is compassion focused on beings; “may I attain buddhahood” is wisdom aimed at awakening. He also lists taking the bodhicitta vow at the six times of day and night as part of the training. Saying the aspiration out loud and often turns a background value into an act that is repeatedly chosen, which is how the tradition expects an intention to deepen.
Comment faire
- Choose a short verse from a translation you trust, such as the refuge and bodhicitta verse in Patrul Rinpoche’s Essential Instruction.
- Before each session, recite it slowly, three times, pausing on the phrase about all beings.
- Let one specific person come to mind as you say “all beings,” so the phrase has a face.
- If you want to go further, the vow verses in chapter 3 of the Bodhicaryāvatāra are recited three times in Patrul Rinpoche’s self-administered form, followed by verses of rejoicing.
- Consider asking a teacher about formally receiving the bodhisattva vow if this practice becomes central for you.
Données probantes
The verse and its explanation are in Patrul Rinpoche’s Essential Instruction on Refuge and Bodhicitta. His Brightly Shining Sun gives a full adoption ritual built on Bodhicaryāvatāra chapter 3: preparation, the vow verses recited three times, rejoicing, and a closing aspiration verse that begins “O sublime and precious bodhicitta.” This is liturgical practice. No research on it was found. (anecdotal)
Patrul writes that the vows can be received from a teacher by following the specific ritual of a lineage, and gives the self-administered form as an alternative. Many communities consider the formal bodhisattva vow, with its precepts, to be received from a qualified teacher. Reciting a verse is not the same commitment.
Sources
- Patrul Rinpoche. An Essential Instruction on Refuge and Bodhicitta, trans. Adam Pearcey (2004). Lotsawa House.
- Patrul Rinpoche. The Brightly Shining Sun: A Step-by-Step Guide to Meditating on the Bodhicaryāvatāra, trans. Adam Pearcey (2004; revised 2007 and 2019). Lotsawa House.
- Śāntideva. Bodhicaryāvatāra (Introduction to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life), Chapter 3: Fully Adopting Bodhicitta, trans. Adam Pearcey (2007). Lotsawa House.
Erreur fréquente
Letting the verse become a mumbled preamble you rush through to get to “the real meditation.” In the tradition the aspiration is what makes the meditation Mahāyāna practice, so it deserves the most attention, not the least.
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Plus de pratiques pour Bodhicitta: The Awakening Mind and How It Is Cultivated
- Tell the wish to go from setting out on the journey
Notice whether your bodhicitta is still a wish (aspiring) or has become a way of acting (engaging), and let one grow into the other.
- Hold relative and ultimate bodhicitta together
Pair the heartfelt wish to benefit beings with the recognition that nothing, including that wish, is as solid as it seems.
- Recognise beings as your mother, remember their kindness, wish to repay it
Lay the first three links of the sevenfold instruction: see others as having once cared for you, recall that care, and let the wish to repay it arise.
- Carry love and compassion into the superior intention
Complete the sevenfold chain: from love and compassion, take personal responsibility for others’ welfare, and from that the wish to awaken arises.
- Equalise yourself and others
See plainly that everyone, like you, wants happiness and does not want suffering, so there is no principled reason to put yourself first.
- Exchange yourself and others through envy, rivalry and pride
Imaginatively take another person’s position and look back at yourself from there, until self-cherishing loosens its grip.
- Dedicate whatever good came of it
Close each session, or each day, by turning whatever was good in it toward the awakening and welfare of all beings.
- Work with “who am I to aspire to this?”
When the aspiration feels absurdly too big for someone like you, treat that feeling itself as part of the practice rather than a verdict.
Concepts associés
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Se diriger vers la souffrance sur le souffle — la pratique de compassion radicale du bouddhisme tibétain
- Lojong : l'entraînement de l'esprit tibétain
Les 59 slogans et leur application pratique à l'adversité et à la compassion quotidiennes
- Metta bhavana : la pratique de la bienveillance aimante
Cultivation systématique de la bienveillance envers soi, les autres et tous les êtres
- Karuṇā: Compassion Meditation in the Theravāda Tradition
The second divine abiding, practised the way the Theravāda commentaries lay it out