There are three main practices: Love, Compassion and enlightenment-mind. Love means that you wish every sentient being in all the six realms of existence to be happy, and compassion is the wish that all beings in suffering should part from suffering. The enlightenment-mind means the wish to attain enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. These three are very important. Without love and compassion, the enlightenment mind will not arise and, without the enlightenment mind, you cannot attain enlightenment, so therefore love and compassion are necessary. But of these, compassion is of particular importance. It is said to be the seed of the Great Way in the beginning, then the water that makes the crops grow, and finally it is the ripening of the fruit. So, clearly, compassion being in the beginning, the middle and the end, it is very important. Thus, when Chandrakirti wrote the Madhyamakavatara, he preceded it with homage to compassion. “The Buddha,” he said, “arises from the Bodhisattva and the Bodhisattva is born out of love and compassion, but especially out of compassion.” The main cause of the Great way is compassion.

Sakya Trizin

source: http://hhsakyatrizin.net/teaching-advice/


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