Welcome to the Second Excellence ~ Module 1
Here we are entering the path of the bodhisattvas: the great vehicle or Mahayana. At the beginning of our training, we familiarize ourselves with the causal link between loving kindness and enlightenment. In this context we are asked to acknowledge all beings as our mothers and develop a feeling of gratitude for them. This tradition originates from the masters Serlingpa and Atisha and has been practiced in Tibet for centuries.
With the feeling of gratitude toward all our mother sentient beings, we sincerely wish each one of them to be endowed with happiness and the causes for happiness. Step by step we learn to extend it toward ourselves, a person extremely dear to us, friends, strangers, and troublemakers. Then we go on to train in developing impartial compassion, by wishing that every sentient may be free from suffering and the causes of suffering.
Next we consider what it is like to put ourself in someone else’s shoes before engaging in the transformative practice of tonglen: exchanging ourselves with others. The final step of Module 1 is the training in the precious awakened attitude, also called bodhicitta. We do that by using Chekawa’s Seven Point Mind-training to enhance our practice.
We wish you abundant blessings and a transformative practice experience.
