1. How I Offer Food: The Motivation
Part 2. We Are a Very Close Family
(duration: 11 minutes)
Transcript of Video 2: How I Offer Food - The Motivation, Part 2
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So all sentient beings have been our mother. We think only of this life, this life as a human being, our father and mother. Of course, in the West especially, those regarded as the biggest enemies are our father and mother. It is like that when children are young, especially. Because the parents always have to give advice, control, control, then they think parents are the worse enemies. They think like that. Then the children go away, they leave home, go away, then after some time, when they get bigger, after some time, when they are fifteen or thirteen, I don’t know, then some children remember the kindness of their parents and then they come back. For example, Roger’s niece or what?
Ven. Roger: Nephew.
Nephew. He became a monk for a few years and wanted to help us, but then it didn’t happen, but anyways, he did the same, but he thought of the kindness of his mother. He had some karma, I think, so he thought of the kindness of his mother and after a few years he came back, he told me. Some children do that. Generally it is like that.
Numberless times they have been our mothers, different mothers numberless times from beginningless rebirths. Every sentient being, not only human beings, all sentient beings, even human beings, at different times, when we were born as humans. So it is a very close, a very close family; then mother, then father, then if you extend this then brother, sister, and friend, many times everybody has been these. Therefore, they have been suffering from beginningless rebirths, experiencing the six realm suffering numberless times, and if they don’t meet Dharma, if nothing happens, if they don’t get to actualize it, then they will suffer without end, experience the suffering of samsara without end. With delusion and karma we create the cause, so without a choice we will have to experience it when it ripens. It is like that, numberless. It is not just one, it is numberless.
This is not only just mother and father, all that. I’m talking in general. Generally, yes, it is so in reality, so a good son or a good daughter remembers and then appreciates their mother and father who dedicate their lives, who sacrificed their lives for them in childhood time. For nine months in the womb then after that so much suffering. They worried and suffered, bearing hardships and worrying about your life, education, and health. They help you in many ways, in all the ways, in every way.
Now here, all your happiness experienced in past lives, from past lives the happiness, all the happiness you have experienced, what you experience now, what you will experience in the future, including liberation from samsara and enlightenment, all your past, present, and future happiness is received by the kindness of mother sentient beings, the kindness of every sentient being. Now I can say the kindness of every mother sentient being. For example, the person who gets angry at you, who abuses you, who beats you, who kills you, whatever, all your past, present, and future happiness including enlightenment, everything you receive by the kindness of this person. Everything you receive by the kindness of this person, because all your past, present, and future happiness up to enlightenment comes from your good karma, and your good karma is the holy action of the buddhas... Buddhas have two holy actions, one is possessed by the buddhas’ own minds, and one is within other sentient beings, within us sentient beings. So all the happiness experience in the past, present, and future, including enlightenment, everything, your happiness comes from your good karma, and your good karma is the holy action of the buddhas, sang gye kyi trin le. Then, that holy action of buddhas comes from buddhas; buddhas come from bodhisattvas; bodhisattvas come from bodhichitta; bodhichitta comes from great compassion; and great compassion is generated by depending on obscured suffering sentient beings. That includes him, the one who gets angry at you, who always abuses you, complains about you, beats you, kills you. That compassion is generated depending on him or her, on that one who is obscured and suffering. So compassion is generated, the preliminary to bodhichitta is generated, depending on her or him, on the kindness of the one whose mind is suffering, whose mind is obscured and suffering. It came from that. So therefore, from him or her who gets angry at you, abuses you, does all the bad things, kills you, great compassion is generated. It is generated or comes from them, all sentient beings including him or her who you call “enemy.” It comes from them. So bodhichitta came from that compassion. From that compassion, bodhichitta, from bodhichitta, bodhisattva; from bodhisattva, buddha; from buddha, holy actions (of the two kinds of actions, one is within us); from there, all your happiness from beginningless rebirths up to now and in the future, including liberation from samsara and enlightenment, whatever you receive, all that comes from this person. It comes from all sentient beings, yes, but this person, including this person, who you call “enemy,” who you think is so bad, who is angry and abuses you. It came from them. So it is huge, the benefits are like the sky. The person’s benefit to you is like the sky – limitless benefit. What you think is, “Oh, he beats me,” “Oh, he says bad things to me,” but that is just this time. It is not in past lives, just this time. But the benefit you get from him, wow, is like the limitless sky. Even you achieve enlightenment from this person, by the kindness of this person. Wow, wow, wow. You become free from the oceans of samsaric sufferings by the kindness of this person, wow, wow, wow. You become free from all the mistakes of mind, the obscurations, and then you achieve all the realizations by the kindness of this person. Like that, every sentient being is like that – the most kind for you, the most precious for you, the most dear for you, and your wish-fulfilling. Every single sentient being is your wish-fulfilling.