Gary Peterson - November 22, 2024
Week 3 – Nov. 19, 2024
This covers Session Two in the A-Tri text and includes sections 1.4.1.2.2 – 1.4.1.2.2.3.3
The session starts with this statement:
Generating bodhicitta and taking refuge has three subdivisions:
- generating bodhicitta;
- taking refuge; and
- confession of negative deeds.
Virtually all of this week’s session focused on bodhicitta. The A-Tri text in footnote 111 says:
“Bodhicitta means “setting the intention toward awakening.” By setting the intention of the mind toward awakening at the onset of each meditation session, this intention serves as a central organizing principle for the meditation session. In this sense, once setting the intention toward awakening and serving the benefit of all beings, the meditation isn’t aimless, but rather is organized toward the goal.”
Dzogchen stresses the importance of focusing one’s efforts for the benefit for all beings. The A-Tri text says:
“In the lower [vehicles] one practices for one’s own purpose, but in the common [Mahayana vehicle] bodhicitta is generated for both the sake of oneself and for others. Here [in this system], you concentrate only on the welfare of others, but as has been said, “There is no doubt that your own welfare is also being served.”
To generate bodhicitta, the A-Tri text says we should redefine/reimagine our relationships with others. In doing so, we create a foundation for developing the positive mental factors and positive qualities of mind. According to Wikipedia, this redefining/reimagining can take place two different ways,
“Tibetan Buddhists maintain that there are two main ways to cultivate Bodhichitta, the “Seven Causes and Effects” that originates from Maitreya and was taught by Atisha, and “Exchanging Self and Others,” taught by Shantideva and originally by Manjushri.
According to Tsongkhapa the seven causes and effects are thus:
- recognizing all beings as your mothers;
- recollecting their kindness;
- the wish to repay their kindness;
- love;
- great compassion; (desire to help others)
- wholehearted resolve; (aspire to guide others by becoming a Buddha)
- bodhichitta
According to Pabongka Rinpoche the second method consists of the following meditations:
- how self and others are equal;
- contemplating the many faults resulting from self-cherishing; (confession)
- contemplating the many good qualities resulting from cherishing others;
- the actual contemplation on the interchange of self and others;
- with these serving as the basis, the way to meditate on giving and taking (practice of tonglen” – breathing in the suffering of others and breathing out peace and healing).
In terms of McGilchrist’s hemisphere hypothesis, in the last session we found fault with the left brain hemisphere’s inherent tendency to establish stasis and permanence. In this session, we are going to begin tapping into right hemisphere’s superior capabilities in creativity and imagination. When faced with differences, conflicts and incongruencies, the right hemisphere will work to synthesize new solutions, while the left hemisphere will try to resolve differences by rejecting one position and strengthening the other.
McGilchrist sees creativity as having three phases: a preparation period, an incubation period, and then a time of illumination – the “light bulb” moments. In this A-Tri session, we prepare to reset our views of ourselves and others in terms of connectivity, responsibilities, and capabilities. We have no clear ideas on how these enormous changes are going to happen yet, but the seeds for these ideas must be established – in faith and trust — in order for the right hemisphere to begin its silent incubating work. In taking refuge, we redefine/reimagine our relationships with our teachers and lama, as well as tutelary deities (yidams), the assembly of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, dakinis and the lineage-holders (these can be imagined as forms/processes of consciousness that can only be accessed/experienced by the right hemisphere). Trust/Faith and taking refuge are used to deepen and sustain the incubation process. As this preparation work is reinforced with repetitive actions over periods of time, positive qualities of mind are being established, which undergo subconscious development, while creating new capabilities and connectivity. When they mature, illumination occurs, with thoughts of compassion and loving kindness arising on their own, instead of through the willful processes of the left hemisphere.
Going back to what Laurie Burtt read and repeated at the beginning of the session, “Because of having studied well, a thought will arise of its own force in the stream of your mind.”
McGilchrist sees faith as a powerful part of the creative process. Instead of being a force pushing from behind using will and desire (left hemisphere processes), he describes faith as an attraction to higher qualities and values that will show themselves to us if we are persistent, patient and receptive (to the right hemisphere’s processes).
Again, Dzogchen teachings seem to intuit how the brain hemispheres function.