Contributed by the Buddhas’ Practice Incorporated, Australia
Mentor: Bennie Spirit
Editor: Yinyue(Ivy)
With gratitude to Google AI Gemini
With gratitude to NotebookLM
Draft Date: June 27, 2026
Location: BPI Meditation Center
Question: What is the difference between Mahayana and Hinayana?
Answer: Sacrificing oneself to benefit sentient beings is Mahayana; subduing afflictions to attain the peace and bliss of Nirvana is Hinayana.
Scriptural Source: (A clear and complete concept of Mahayana) “All Buddhas and Tathagatas take the mind of Great Compassion as their substance. Because of sentient beings, they give rise to Great Compassion; because of Great Compassion, they generate the Bodhi-mind; and because of the Bodhi-mind, they attain Perfect Enlightenment. It is like a great royal tree in the midst of a barren desert; if its roots get water, its branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits will all flourish. The royal Bodhi-tree in the wilderness of birth and death is also like this. All sentient beings are its roots, and all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are its flowers and fruits. By benefiting sentient beings with the water of Great Compassion, one can bring forth the wisdom flowers and fruits of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Why is this? If Bodhisattvas benefit sentient beings with the water of Great Compassion, they will be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi. Therefore, Bodhi belongs to sentient beings. If there were no sentient beings, no Bodhisattva would ever attain Unsurpassed Perfect Enlightenment. Good man! You should understand this meaning in this way. Because the mind is equal toward all sentient beings, one can perfect Great Compassion; because one accords with sentient beings out of Great Compassion, one accomplishes the offering to the Tathagatas. A Bodhisattva accords with sentient beings in this way…” Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, Fascicle 40: (CBETA, T10, no. 293, p. 846a13-25)
Scriptural Explanation:
“All Buddhas and Tathagatas take the mind of Great Compassion as their substance.” Overall, this means witnessing the various sufferings of sentient beings and resolving to uproot that suffering, which represents the complete process of Mahayana from beginning to end.
“1. Because of sentient beings, they give rise to Great Compassion; 2. because of Great Compassion, they generate the Bodhi-mind; 3. because of the Bodhi-mind, they attain Perfect Enlightenment.” These three phrases divide the process into three statements:
1. Because you want to uproot the suffering of sentient beings, you must first know what suffering is.
2. How to uproot it—generating the Bodhi-mind is precisely how to uproot it. One part is awakening to what suffering is, and the other is how to uproot it, which constitutes the Bodhi-mind.
3. From the Eight Sufferings of sentient beings all the way to how Bodhisattvas possess inconceivable power to uproot these sufferings, this mind of awakening
must be established within you and put into action; truly and practically uprooting the suffering of sentient beings is called attaining Perfect Enlightenment. Why is it called attaining Perfect Enlightenment? Because you know exactly as much suffering as sentient beings have, and you have an equal amount of skillful means to uproot these sufferings. This corresponding and correct awakening is the Buddha.
“It is like a great royal tree in the midst of a barren desert; if its roots get water, its branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits will all flourish.” The example here merely illustrates the roots receiving water. In reality, it requires not only water but also fertilizer; what kind of fertilizer do sentient beings ultimately lack? At which stage? How much is needed? What are the signs of excessive fertilization? With too little fertilizer and insufficient nutrition, it will not grow well. It also requires temperature, sunlight, soil texture, and so on, all of which you must provide. The sutra mentioning only water is giving you an opportunity to deduce other necessities; you must know that a great tree needs more than just water to survive. Sentient beings are the roots; whatever the roots need, you must provide accordingly. When sentient beings receive it, leave suffering, attain bliss, and are completely free from suffering with only bliss remaining—meaning you can solve any problem—that is being a Buddha.
Extended Questions:
Question: Do I need to have a lot myself before I can give to others?
Answer: That is a false statement, deceiving people. Bodhisattva Dharanimdhara (Earth- Holder) had nothing, yet he practiced and took action. Do you not have hands or feet? Can you not do the deeds of Bodhisattva Dharanimdhara? Have you done them? You haven’t. You make this statement first, saying you must have something before giving it to others, for what purpose? You should first start doing things like Bodhisattva Dharanimdhara, and later capabilities and merit will naturally follow. If you don’t do it, where will they come from?
Question: I will wait until I am fully equipped before I do it. I lack too much right now, I cannot do it.
Answer: What do you lack?
Question: I have neither ability nor merit.
Answer: It’s simple; you uphold the precepts. Once your cultivation of precepts is thoroughly pure, you cultivate concentration. Then merit and ability will both be yours. You refuse to do the road-paving deeds of Bodhisattva Dharanimdhara, you refuse to uphold precepts, and you refuse to cultivate concentration, just shouting there, “wait until I have them.” Wait for how many years? Those things cannot come into being just because you are waiting.
“The royal Bodhi-tree in the wilderness of birth and death is also like this. All sentient beings are its roots, and all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are its flowers and fruits. By benefiting sentient beings with the water of Great Compassion, one can bring forth the wisdom flowers and fruits of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Why is this?” “If Bodhisattvas
benefit sentient beings with the water of Great Compassion, they will be able to attain Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi.” “Therefore, Bodhi belongs to sentient beings.”
Question: Why is it said that Bodhi belongs to sentient beings?
Answer: Because upon seeing the various sufferings of sentient beings, you investigate exactly what this suffering is, where it comes from, and how to eliminate it. You need to give them Right View so they have Right Thought. Once they think it through, they will have Right Speech, Right Action, Right Conduct, and Right Livelihood; all will be rectified. If there were no sentient beings, you would not investigate all of this, nor would any of this arise. Naturally, Bodhi belongs to sentient beings.
“If there were no sentient beings, no Bodhisattva would ever attain Unsurpassed Perfect Enlightenment.” A Bodhisattva is also called an “Awakened Sentient Being,” which means one who causes sentient beings to awaken. If you do not hold sentient beings in your heart, have no thought of awakening them, and have no thought of letting them leave suffering and attain bliss, then you are not a Bodhisattva. Furthermore, a Bodhisattva cannot harm sentient beings. For instance, merely providing them with food, drink, and entertainment is called harming, not benefiting sentient beings, because it increases their suffering of illness. Anything that increases their suffering of illness, such as increasing their greed, will only make them suffer more and more. No matter what they are greedy for, they will definitely suffer more and more. If, however, you help them establish a non- greedy mind, non-greedy speech, and non-greedy behavior, constantly helping sentient beings overcome these afflictions, that is exactly what you as a Bodhisattva should do. If you simply satisfy their greed, that is the work of a demon, which can only harm them.
Question: If they are not satisfied, they will get angry and furious. What should be done? Answer: That simply means they do not wish to practice cultivation yet. If they don’t want to practice, you can only wait until they do. For example, as mentioned in the Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva Purvapranidhana Sutra, the Buddha has already liberated the vast majority of sentient beings in the world. The remaining beings simply do not want to practice; they insist on creating suffering, misfortune, disasters, and confusion; they only want these things. The Buddha cannot go against their will or force them; He can only respect them and wait. Therefore, even though He is departing, He entrusts Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva to help, because they will inevitably fall into hell: “You must help save them.” Thus, Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva repeatedly promises that he will definitely do so. So you see, even the Buddha has sentient beings He cannot liberate, let alone us at our level. However, regardless of the situation, sentient beings are suffering. Their manifestation of suffering is exactly the right opportunity for you to cultivate your own awakening, establish your Right View, and solidify your faith in practice. This is very important. Therefore, without sentient beings, you cannot attain the Buddha-way. You can use this opportunity to investigate and figure out completely where this suffering comes from and how to make them free from it. When you see suffering sentient beings every day and investigate and contemplate these things daily, your own abilities elevate infinitely, and only then is it possible for you to attain the unsurpassed Buddha-way.
Question: Does this mean I should keep sentient beings in my heart every day? If they completely disbelieve or ignore me, I should use this opportunity to observe the suffering
they manifest to cultivate my awakening, establish my Right View, and solidify my faith in practice; and if they listen to me and believe me a little, I should seize the opportunity to help them establish some Right View?
Answer: Correct.
Question: Whether or not I can liberate sentient beings is one matter. I just need to ensure that my intentions remain constantly on the path to Buddhahood, right?
Answer: Yes. That is being a Bodhisattva.
“Good man! You should understand this meaning in this way. Because the mind is equal toward all sentient beings, one can perfect Great Compassion.”
Question: Why must the mind be equal?
Answer: If the mind is unequal—for instance, if I find some people pleasing and have a good relationship with them, so I help them; while I find others displeasing and have a bad relationship with them, so I ignore them—then the mind becomes unequal. You will not be able to perfect Great Compassion; you will have only perfected partial Great Compassion, because there is another part where you completely failed to apply it. If, regardless of what they are like, you generate the resolve to aid them and make efforts to relieve them, even if they are Icchantikas, lack faith, and have no conditions to be liberated yet, they are still beneficial to you. You can prepare your Right Knowledge and Views in advance and give them to them when needed. Moreover, this Right View is not sufficient if it’s only on a single point; when you possess Right View on all points, that is being a Buddha.
Extended Questions:
Question: If my inherent self is complete with All-Knowledge, Teacherless Knowledge, and Natural Knowledge, and All-Knowledge is so powerful, I shouldn’t be deluded. Why am I still so deluded?
Answer: You have not acknowledged your true self; you have never identified with it. You become what you identify with; whatever is in your mind is what you are at that moment. You all think this body is “me.” How could the food I am eating become “me”? When I drive, how could the car be “me”? Am I not “me” anymore? Exactly, when you drive, the car is you. When you eat, the things you eat are you. You inherently possess All- Knowledge, but you have never used it.
Question: Wasn’t my very first, original beginning my self-nature?
Answer: There is no beginning; it has always been a circle. You are constantly revolving within this circle, with no beginning and no end.
Question: What is the very first seed? Can it not be found?
Answer: You are beginningless, revolving and circling around yourself in a circle. Beginningless and endless.
Question: Does attaining Buddhahood mean jumping out of it?
Answer: It is not jumping out; one is still turning, but one knows where one is turning, how one is turning, and everything is completely clear.
Question: So I have never recognized my All-Knowledge?
Answer: Yes. Like the bright jewel hidden in your robe, you have never discovered it because you never directed your mind toward it. Why do I say you are what you identify with? It is because you apply your mind to it. If you apply your mind to something, that thing is you. When you focus on eating, that food is you. When you drive and your mind is on the car, the car is you. When you wake up in the morning and your body powers on, you identify this body as yourself. When you sleep at night and the body powers off, you identify the figure in your dream as yourself. You are always identifying other things as yourself, and within those identifications, you experience greed, anger, fear, discomfort, and pain. These arise from what you identify with. It is not that your true self is essentially blissful or painful—it is neither blissful nor painful—but it possesses the capacity for seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing, and it has the capacity to identify. Whatever you identify with, that is what you are.
Question: We constantly identify with something as ourselves, and this continues endlessly. If we attain Buddhahood, what kind of identification is that?
Answer: A Buddha uses wisdom to identify. He can generate all functions simultaneously. That is a Buddha, and a Buddha has that mastery and sovereign power. If you bring out your own capacity, you can also generate infinite mastery. The key lies in your identification; this is extremely important. For instance, if you identify all phenomena as inherently real, they will confront you in a substantial form. If you think everything is real, fine, it is real. If you think everything is fake, it is fake. It depends on your identification. The Avatamsaka Sutra spends extensive passages discussing various types of identifications, such as identifying things as a dream, as an illusion, and so on—there are many, many. First, you must establish this correct view. Since you lack the capacity to penetrate this wisdom, you cannot compare with someone of Einstein’s caliber. By delving into a single point, he could study it so deeply and thoroughly that he recognized the true Dharma through physics; he truly figured out what “illusion” is. When you have time, you should research his later years, particularly a letter he wrote to a friend, which explained it profoundly, though few can understand it now: “How can a solid, real world be an illusion? How can solid time, with a past, present, and future, be said not to exist but merely be a human illusion?” Why? Because he personally verified this state. When you haven’t personally verified this state, you can comprehend these states through learning. We are not scientists, but we use computers now; at first, we didn’t know how, but as long as you learn, you slowly figure it out. The more thoroughly you learn it, the more adroitly you can use it.
“Because one accords with sentient beings out of Great Compassion, one accomplishes the offering to the Tathagatas. A Bodhisattva accords with sentient beings in this way.”
Question: We generally think that making offerings to the Buddha means offering wealth and material goods. Why is according with sentient beings also an offering to the Tathagatas?
Answer: Offerings of wealth, material goods, and food are called the Four Requisite Offerings in Buddhism. These four kinds of material offerings cannot compare to the offering of constantly according with sentient beings. With the Four Requisite Offerings, you are always an outsider. It’s like relatives or friends giving you gifts, and later you help them with various difficulties; the relationship between you remains that of outsiders. Constant accordance with sentient beings has the primary goal of uprooting their suffering and giving them true peace and bliss. This is the Buddha’s work, the Buddha’s enterprise. You are now the inheritor. Thus, this is the greatest, most perfect, and most supreme offering. It means you are completing all the Buddha’s tasks; you are not alienated in mind and virtue from the Buddha, but are keeping completely aligned with Him, even eventually attaining Buddhahood yourself. What does it mean to be alienated in mind and virtue? It means when He thinks east, you think west; when He wants to practice giving, you want to be miserly and greedy. When your minds are not aligned and your virtues are not aligned, it is called being alienated in mind and virtue. If you can never align with the Buddha, how can you accomplish the greatest offering? When you attain Buddhahood, that is the greatest offering, because you have fulfilled the Buddha’s wish. The Buddha’s wish is for all sentient beings to become Buddhas. If you fulfill the Buddha’s wish, don’t you think that is the greatest offering? What the Buddha needs most is the greatest offering. He doesn’t need your Four Requisite Offerings; to Him, they are almost like pollution. When you satisfy the Buddha’s wishes and meet the Buddha’s needs, that is the greatest offering. Moreover, you are then of the same mind and same virtue as the Buddha.
Question: There is a condition here: when you accord with sentient beings, you must do so based on Great Compassion. Why is that?
Answer: Because sentient beings all want to attain bliss and do not want suffering; this is the wish of sentient beings. However, they hold on to suffering all day long while seeking bliss. If you say, “Give your suffering to me,” they won’t hand it over; they hide it, conceal it, keep it secret, and refuse to give it up. They cling tightly to their suffering, as if saying “if you try to take it, I’ll fight you to the death.” To uproot their suffering, you must first coax that suffering out of their hands. Being able to coax it from them is called according with sentient beings out of Great Compassion. But sentient beings do not recognize what bliss is; they even mistake suffering for bliss, leaving you at a loss.
Question: What if someone says, “You must constantly accord with me; give me all your money, your car, and your house.”
Answer: To them, this is not called bliss; it is called suffering.
Question: “I want this bliss right now. Are you going to give it to me or not?” Answer: That is called giving them suffering.
Question: Therefore, the definitions of suffering and bliss must be properly established? Answer: Of course. No Bodhisattva is willing to throw suffering onto sentient beings; doing so would not be called Bodhisattva practice. The constant accordance of Great Compassion is accordance that uproots suffering, not accordance that adds to it. Once
you thoroughly understand this entire passage, you will be clear about the entire path to Buddhahood.
Question: When coaxing them, do you also need to use skillful means?
Answer: The skillful means of a Bodhisattva are boundless and infinite; you will know them as you study more. Some are hard to talk about, because even if they are explained, you do not have the capacity to practice them. For instance, the Second Patriarch Huike truly accorded with sentient beings out of Great Compassion, which is why he frequently visited taverns and brothels. Many people at that time didn’t understand, and even the translation masters, led by Bodhiruci, were furious. They felt the Second Patriarch was disgracing Buddhism, thinking: “Either take off the monastic robes and do whatever you want, or don’t go there. You have inherited the Chan lineage, yet you run off to those places.” The Second Patriarch replied, “I am pacifying my own mind; what business is it of yours?” In reality, the Second Patriarch believed, “Sentient beings are all my own mind, merely points of delusion. A sentient being is a single point, and this point is deluded. I am dispelling the delusion of my own mind; what business is it of yours, arguing about this and that all day long?” Eventually, the emperor ordered the execution of the Second Patriarch, only to discover it was a mistake—his blood was white, a phenomenon only manifested by sages. Think about it: Buddhism was very prevalent at that time, and most people understood the Dharma, yet they still didn’t comprehend it. Therefore, regarding some matters, we should all take our time to learn. In the future, when you have the ability and the capability, you will go and constantly accord with sentient beings based on Great Compassion. But in the process of according, you must be uprooting suffering, not according with their whims to increase their suffering.
Question: Why is this chart so scattered?
Answer: For example, the cultivation goal of Mahayana is to pursue the Buddha’s perfect, wondrous awakening; this is correct. Why pursue this? Because sentient beings need you to have immense power of wisdom and awakening. Only when you understand thoroughly can you make sentient beings understand. The afflictions of sentient beings are boundless and infinite. You must be able to awaken to all these boundless points of affliction: Why does this suffering arise? How can one break free from this suffering? However, if you look at them individually, they appear scattered; they need to form a system. This passage we excerpted from the Avatamsaka Sutra is systematic; it explains everything clearly. To give another example, the core generating of resolve—if we categorize it this way, it seems the goal is the goal, and the resolve is the resolve. In reality, the goal is the resolve, and the resolve is the goal. Because what my resolve aims toward is the goal; although I haven’t walked the path yet, my direction is firmly set on the goal. I generate my resolve based on the goal in order to reach it, so the resolve is the goal. If you insist on separating the resolve and the goal, it becomes a separation of the starting point and the destination. However, the resolve and the goal echo each other; they are the same thing. It is just that one is the endpoint and the other is the starting point, but they remain the exact same thing. Furthermore, regarding the cognition of the mind, you must know that you need to recognize the path. The entire path is the mind. From your starting point to your destination, you must walk on the path and cannot leave it; this path is entirely the mind. However, the path of the mind differs at each stage:
sometimes you must cross a river, sometimes climb a mountain, and sometimes face steep cliffs. How do you walk this path? Because you must have different response plans for different scenarios. It is not enough just to know of the mind. When the mind generates its function, how do you apply it in every little detail? The mind is also the path between the starting point and the endpoint, and it cannot be severed. If it is severed or separated, it will be very difficult for you to grasp the complete picture.
Source:
Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, Fascicle 40: (CBETA, T10, no. 293, p. 846a13- 25)
Ending
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