Bodhicitta Quotes

“First, we must see that our negative actions arise due to prejudice and erroneous judgments. The discrimination that labels some as 'friends' and others as 'enemies' must be perceived as the root of our problems. We need to see that we label people and things in terms of our own desires, our own wishes. These wishes are transitory. The labeled objects are, themselves, impermanent. Such labeling is therefore very confused and false, yet it persists, and we continue to create suffering for ourselves. To avoid this, we need to develop equanimity for all beings suffering in samsara, tossed to and fro by their fleeting delusions, just like ourselves.”
― Zongtrul Losang Tsöndru, Chöd in the Ganden Tradition: The Oral Instructions of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche

“There will be times, for example, when you feel you are faking it. However hard you try genuinely to practice, it just doesn't feel right. And on the rare occasions it does feel authentic, the sensation is over almost before it began. So, try to be content with your practice, whatever it feels like, even when you are doing little more than paying it lip service, because at least you are making an effort.”
― Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, Not For Happiness: A Guide to the So-Called Preliminary Practices

“If renunciation is not embraced
By the pure motivation of bodhicitta,
It will not become a cause for the perfect bliss of unsurpassed awakening,
So the wise should generate supreme bodhicitta.

Beings are swept along by the powerful current of the four rivers,
Tightly bound by the chains of their karma, so difficult to undo,
Ensnared within the iron trap of their self-grasping,
And enshrouded in the thick darkness of ignorance.

Again and yet again, they are reborn in limitless saṃsāra,
And constantly tormented by the three forms of suffering.
This is the current condition of all your mothers from previous lives—
Contemplate their plight and generate supreme bodhichitta.”
― Lama Tsongkhapa, The Three Principal Aspects of the Path eBook

“To talk of the size of a thought is odd, perhaps, but to say that someone is thinking big thoughts is not without meaning. "I want you all to come to my birthday party" is a bigger thought than "I want only some of you to come." Bodhicitta is theoretically the biggest thought anyone can think because of the number of beings involved, what it wants them to have, and the length of time it must last before its motivating power dies out. Since the duration of a thought is a variable of the aim, in the sense that the actions motivated by a thought cease when the aim is attained, one can conceive of thoughts that last longer and longer. Bodhicitta necessarily lasts until the last living being reaches the state free of suffering, because it is only then that the aim is finally achieved. This explains the prayer of Samantabhadra at the end of the Gandavyūha section of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, which the Dalai Lama often invokes: "For as long as space endures may I remain to work for the benefit of living beings.”
― Gareth Sparham, Vast as the Heavens, Deep as the Sea: Verses in Praise of Bodhicitta

“In compassion we seek to be aware and care about the suffering of others. We seek to bring Enlightenment to all beings everywhere. This is complete selflessness, the Bodhisattva ideal.”
― Ajhan Samvara

“Compassion transforms all suffering into wisdom and light.”
― Ajhan Samvara

“Reflect upon the wonderful enlightened qualities of the buddhas, particularly those of the historical Buddha. We all know that Shakyamuni Buddha was not a fully enlightened being right from the start. Initially, he was just like us—an ordinary being struggling on the path, with the natural weaknesses and limitations that we all have. What distinguishes the Buddha from us, however, is that he took the practice of bodhicitta to heart. He then embarked upon the path and, as a result of his efforts, eventually attained the fully enlightened state.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Lama Je Tsong Khapa's Lines of Experience

“According to Lama Je Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), the essence of the entire path to awakening can be distilled into three main realizations: renunciation, the mind that relinquishes distortions, afflictive emotions, and compulsions, as well as their unfavorable results; Bodhicitta, the mind set on awakening for the benefit of others; and wisdom, the mind that directly perceives the ultimate reality of emptiness and interdependence.”
― Miles Neale, Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human

“There are two kinds of aspiration in the realization of bodhicitta: the aspiration concerned for the welfare of all sentient beings and the aspiration to attain buddhahood for their sake. The spontaneous intention to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings occurs when these two aspirations are complete. This is the realization of bodhicitta, the mind of enlightenment. At this point, the student has become a practitioner of the highest capacity and all activities and practices motivated by bodhicitta are those of the Greater Vehicle, the Mahayana.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Lama Je Tsong Khapa's Lines of Experience

“The moment you have realized bodhicitta, you have become a Mahayana practitioner and are on the path to complete enlightenment but the moment your bodhicitta degenerates, you fall outside the fold of the bodhisattvas. Without bodhicitta, no matter how advanced you are in other practices—even if you have a direct realization of emptiness or have attained nirvana—nothing you do becomes the conduct of a bodhisattva or the cause of enlightenment.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Lama Je Tsong Khapa's Lines of Experience

“The highest perfection of altruism, the ultimate altruism, is bodhicitta complemented by wisdom. Bodhicitta—the aspiration to bring about the welfare of all sentient beings and to attain buddhahood for their sake—is really the distilled essence, the squeezed juice, of all the Buddha’s teachings, because ultimately, the Buddha’s intention is to lead all sentient beings to perfect enlightenment, complete omniscience. Since it is bodhicitta that determines whether or not our practice becomes the path to enlightenment, bodhicitta is truly the heart essence of all the teachings of the Buddha.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, Illuminating the Path to Enlightenment: A Commentary on Atisha Dipamkara Shrijnana's A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment and Lama Je Tsong Khapa's Lines of Experience

“The bodhicitta (spirit of enlightenment) starts arising when one sees what a mess we are all in. One can’t begin to see that until one is a little way out of the mess oneself.”
― Sangharakshita, The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism

“Through recollecting the Buddhas we become convinced that Enlightenment is possible. They have gained Enlightenment; why shouldn’t we gain it too?
Through this kind of reflection, energy and vigour is stirred up. Then, through seeing the faults of conditioned existence – seeing that it is impermanent, basically unsatisfactory, and not ultimately real – we become detached from the world. The trend, the stream, of our existence begins to flow in the direction of the Unconditioned. Next, through observing the sufferings of sentient beings – whether in imagination or in actual fact – compassion arises. We don’t think only of our own liberation; we want to help others too. Then, by contemplating the virtues of the Tathagatas – their purity, their peacefulness, their wisdom, their love – we gradually become assimilated to them and approach the goal of Enlightenment. As these four – energy, detachment, compassion, and ‘becoming one’, as it were, with the Buddhas – start to coalesce within our hearts, the bodhicitta arises; the awakening of the heart is achieved; a Bodhisattva is born.”
― Sangharakshita, The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism

“Through recollecting the Buddhas we become convinced that Enlightenment is possible. They have gained Enlightenment; why shouldn’t we gain it too? Through this kind of reflection, energy and vigour is stirred up. Then, through seeing the faults of conditioned existence – seeing that it is impermanent, basically unsatisfactory, and not ultimately real – we become detached from the world. The trend, the stream, of our existence begins to flow in the direction of the Unconditioned. Next, through observing the sufferings of sentient beings – whether in imagination or in actual fact – compassion arises. We don’t think only of our own liberation; we want to help others too. Then, by contemplating the virtues of the Tathagatas – their purity, their peacefulness, their wisdom, their love – we gradually become assimilated to them and approach the goal of Enlightenment. As these four – energy, detachment, compassion, and ‘becoming one’, as it were, with the Buddhas – start to coalesce within our hearts, the bodhicitta arises; the awakening of the heart is achieved; a Bodhisattva is born.”
― Sangharakshita, The Bodhisattva Ideal : Wisdom and Compassion in Buddhism

“9.
Should bodhichitta come to birth
In those who suffer, chained in prisons of samsāra,
In that instant they are called the children of the Blissful One,
Revered by all the world, by gods and humankind.”
― Śāntideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Desires are the source of drive and aspiration in human life. They provide the energy for a whole range of human accomplishments, including the spiritual quest for awakening. Bodhicitta, the thought of enlightenment for all living beings, evolves in the minds of bodhisattvas to become the primal desire, the deepest source of energy.”
― Dale S. Wright, Living Skillfully: Buddhist Philosophy of Life from the Vimalakirti Sutra

“The way to develop the altruistic intention
a. Seven points of cause and effect
1. Equanimity between fnend, enemy and stranger is the preliminary.
2. Seven points: recognizing sentient beings as your mother, remembening their kindness, wishing to repay it, heart-warming love, compassion, great determination, altruistic intention
b. Equalizing and exchanging self and others: equalizing self and others, disadvantages of selfishness, advantages of cherishing others, exchanging self and others, taking others’ suffering and giving them your happiness and its causes
c. Combining the above two methods into one”
― Thubten Chodron