Armidale Community Buddhist Centre

In a verse of his Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (Bodhicaryavatara) Shantideva expresses tremendous courage, which transcends all boundaries of space and time. He writes:

As long as space endures,
As long as sentient beings remain,
Until then, may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world.

When the altruistic intention is supported by insight into emptiness, and particularly by the direct realization of emptiness, one is said to have attained the two dimensions of bodhichitta which are known as conventional and ultimate bodhichitta. With both these practices of compassion and wisdom, the practitioner has within his or her hands the complete method for attaining the highest spiritual goal. Such a person is truly great and worthy of admiration.

If one is able to cultivate these spiritual qualities within oneself then, as Chandrakirti writes very poetically in his Entry to the Middle Way (Madhyamakavatara), with one wing of altruistic intention and another wing of insight into emptiness, one can traverse the whole of space and soar beyond the state of existence to the shores of fully enlightened buddhahood.

...make an effort to contemplate, study and meditate, but without any shortsighted expectations. You should have the same attitude as Shantideva -- that as long as space exists you will remain to dispel suffering in the world. When you have that kind of determination and courage to develop your capacity, then a hundred years, an aeon, a million years are nothing to you. Furthermore, you will not consider that the different human problems we have here and there are in any way insurmountable. Such an attitude and vision bring some kind of real inner strength.

-from Transforming the Mind: Teachings on Generating Compassion by His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama