One must remember to uphold the Mahayana aspiration. That is to constantly train our navigation through the course of our lives; to enable all of our karmic deeds to be projected in the direction of the spirit of enlightenment, for Bodhichitta is the cause of becoming Buddha’s child, which eventually converges us towards the path to Buddhahood. And achieving Buddhahood is the most thorough mean to eradicate all sufferings and attain the most encompassing happiness.
Global Lamrim 2, Lecture 0022
Why is it so important for us to have a steadfast motivation constantly?
Having a steadfast motivation has great importance to us throughout this lifetime as well as future lives. This steadfast motivation is important because this motivation will help us to achieve Buddhahood to benefit all sentient beings. This will actually become our life objective. So if it’s steadfast, it’s constant, then the habitual tendency of wanting to attain Buddhahood will also be brought over to our next life because it is strong. Which means that we will now have a single important life objective, not just in this lifetime, but throughout all our future lives as well. Every life, when we come back, we will want to work towards that highest ultimate goal, and that is to achieve Buddhahood. That is the first important point.
The second point is, due to our constant practice, the predominantly habitual karmic seeds will ripen first, this is according to the Lamrim book. One of the ways to make our karma ripen faster is to practice it constantly, this will also magnify the karma. To do something constantly, even though it’s a small act, accumulated overtime, it will magnify. So not only will it ripen first, the virtuous actions that you have done would be magnified.
And the last part, it will constantly enhance the projection of our practice towards the highest purpose of life. This means that if we constantly practice setting our life objective at the highest purpose, which of course is Buddhahood, then eventually this will be assimilated as the direction and meaning of our lives. Or another way of saying this is that eventually, this motivation, this life objective, will become the real direction and meaning of our life, it’s uncontrived. We tend to forget that everything we do now should be aimed towards achieving Buddhahood. We have to remind ourselves by reading the pre-lesson recitation. Once we do this often enough, then one day when it’s assimilated into our mindstream, it becomes second nature, and everything that we do will go towards achieving Buddhahood.
