The fundamental and distinctive mind-set of a bodhisattva, which enables all bodhisattva practices, can be characterized as the four immeasurable minds: kindness, compassion, joy, and impartiality. Here, kindness means helping others attain genuine, lasting happiness by leading them to enlightenment. Compassion means working with sentient beings to free them from all kinds of calamities, pain, and tribulations, and ultimately from the fundamental causes of suffering. Joy refers to the sincere delight in seeing other beings liberated from suffering and successful in self-realization. Impartiality means the perception of friends and foes alike as equally important and precious.
This mind of impartiality comes from breaking the habits of self-servingly helping others in order to angle for personal gain, and of seeing and judging others in a purely self-referential way. Although bringing happiness to others is the primary motivation of a bodhisattva, our deluded tendency to be jealous of others' success and happiness and to favor one person over another nevertheless makes it impossible for us to truly participate in the world and help all beings impartially. For this reason, a bodhisattva practitioner should not only nurture kindness and compassion, but also cultivate the minds of joy and impartiality.
just thought some people would enjoy this... i know even though i do my best there is always room for growth.
Impartiality.is the one I have been trying to work on. How is it possible, do you suppose, to know true kindness and true compassion, without knowing true impartiality? Someone could drag up posts, I'm sure, that show I am not impartial... It's a challenge, but I am working on it.
that is the same mind Kao is also struggeling with... i try to think of it this way... think of how old the universe is... think of how old the earth is... think of how long it took for the human race to evolve and think of how astonishing we really are as a species... if i crossed a "bad person" not the kind of person who tries to be "evil" but someone whos soul is truely impure and worthless... i would still not be able to destroy/kill that person... pass judgement yes... but not kill. to me the human form itself... no matter how tainted... is still... a human form, and as such is miraculous.
it is based on buddhist beliefs, yet they are simple life understandings which can be incorporated into any religion or into just any form o f spirituality to bring forth more growth, enlightenment is something all strive for in life, that one moment of pure realizatiopn that changes everything..
basically... if you take budhist beliefs and break them down... these are the things they learn and teach... to live live simply and in a manner that brings you great personal joy. once you have achived this.... you begin to teach others... because their is no use in having true pure enlightenment and knowledge of the universe... if you cant help others feel the same love and joy for themselves.
