Observe yourself every day, and integrate these concepts into your mental continuum. Practice in this way day after day, without deceiving yourself. Gradually, bodhicitta will ripen. Even if you have not studied much Buddhist theory, you can still attain genuine accomplishment.
Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö once recounted a traditional story while teaching The Seven Points of Mind Training. A learned Gelug geshe,highly accomplished in Buddhist theory, requested Patrul Rinpoche to teach him The Ornament of Clear Realization (Abhisamayālaṅkāra) to him. Patrul Rinpoche replied, “First go and cultivate bodhicitta. Once you have genuinely developed relative bodhicitta (saṃvṛti-bodhicitta), come back and see me. Then I will teach it to you.”
The geshe then withdrew to a mountain cave to cultivate bodhicitta, and remained in practice there for nine full years. (Tibetans are remarkably straightforward in this regard. Unlike us, who sometimes treat spiritual practice as a bargaining chip to exchange with our gurus, Buddhas, or Bodhisattvas for worldly benefits, he simply devoted himself wholeheartedly to practice.)
After nine years, he had genuinely aroused relative bodhicitta (saṃvṛti-bodhicitta). He returned to Patrul Rinpoche and reminded him of their agreement. Rinpoche asked, “Have you truly cultivated it?” The geshe replied, “Yes, I have. May I now receive the teachings on The Ornament of Clear Realization?”
Patrul Rinpoche was delighted to hear this. He instructed his attendants to prepare drums roots with butter—a delicacy considered one of the finest foods at the time—to honor his guest. After the meal, he began teaching The Ornament of Clear Realization. However, he taught it in the most concise manner.merely outlining the Eight Categories and Seventy Topics, and finished in a very short time.
Then Rinpoche told him, “Once bodhicitta has arisen, it already contains everything you need to know. There is no need to explain anything further, for everything you sought to attain has already been attained.” This implies that although The Ornament of Clear Realization is an exceptionally complex treatise, none of its essential teachings transcend the scope of bodhicitta.
Later, the geshe remarked to others, “While I was cultivating bodhicitta in that mountain cave, the tears I shed for sentient beings could fill several teapots.”
—Excerpted and adapted from Genuine Bodhicitta and Conceptual Bodhicitta.
This article is a preliminary translation draft and has not yet been reviewed or proofread by the speaker.
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