The traditional blessing of saffron water at Tibetan New Year celebrations, Losar at Boudha Stupa in Katmandu, Nepal.
There are five forces for condensing the practice in one lifetime, namely this lifetime. The first force is the intention that we throw ahead of us. We wish, “May I always be able to develop a bodhichitta aim; may I always be able to practice attitude-training; may I always be able to develop the good qualities that will truly enable me to benefit all others.” Throwing ahead the force of our intention is like making a preparation to fulfill these wishes. So, we throw ahead the intention: “I am going to develop in this good direction. Now that I have this opportunity to practice these vast vehicle Mahayana practices, I am going to apply all my force and all my active energies in this direction.”
To do this every day, in the morning we say as we wake up, “Today it is so fortunate that I’ve woken up. I’m alive! I have a precious human life. I’m not going to waste it, but will use all the energies of this precious life today to develop a bodhichitta aim to achieve enlightenment in order to benefit others as much as is possible. So, I am going to have kind thoughts toward all others. I am not going to be angry or have bad thoughts. As much as I can, I will use all my energies to help others, to be of benefit to others.”
It is very important to have this very practical setting of our intention in the morning. Likewise at night, we can examine our actions: “What have I done today? What type of person have I been today: did I help others or did I just use others for my own selfish purposes? Did I get angry; did I develop attachment?” We need to examine our day honestly as to how we actually behaved and what types of attitudes we developed during the day. If we find that during the day we in fact were a kind and warm person, we can rejoice in that, feeling happy and encouraged. But if we acted in a very disturbing manner, we need to feel regret about that, admit we did wrongly, and set a very strong intention: “Tomorrow, I’m not going to act again in such a negative manner.”
If we do this each day, we will gradually improve and learn to sustain it by resolving to “act well” for the next day, month and year.
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Commentary by His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama; Attitude-Training Like the Rays of the Sun – Day Five: Relative Bodhichitta and Deepest Bodhichitta; Conventional Bodhichitta (continued), Developing Love and Compassion: to an audience with many new arrivals from Tibet. Translated by Alexander Berzin [http://www.berzinarchives.com ], Dharamsala, India, May 9–15, 1985
Photograph by C. J. Schake – © Copyright 2010 – all rights reserved, quality prints available on request.
Mahayana Wish 