BA3_13-17 Giving Away the Body
With video BA3_13-17, Rinpoche explains stanzas 13 to 17 of the third chapter of the Bodhicharyavatara. This section is about the special method of giving away our body.
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The audio as well as the audio translations in different languages and the transcript of this teaching are all available on Chapter 3 page.
We are also studying the commentary transcript on Chapter 3, which you can download here and in the Library section. Further recommended reading: the commentary book by Kunzang Pelden (Khenpo Kunpal), The Nectar of Manjushri’s Speech, p. 128-129.
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Upaya comes up powerfully here. (Prajna regarding actions?)
3:12 15 – “Let beings do to me whatever does not bring them injury”
“If they do something that brings injury to them now or in the long run then I should try to prevent that because it is not good for them …”
“Whatever they may think of me let this not fail to bring them benefit.”
“Whenever, whatever … any actions they do towards me, may that be of some benefit …”
Not returning ill for ill, that surely has to be the base.
I remember years ago (1994?) my teacher (the Dzogchen Pönlop, Rinpoche) lead a workshop on Social Justice in Halifax, with the Shambhala community. I asked him about intervening in some ill-deed, how to respond to someone who was doing ill. In the style I’ve come to know so well he began his reply with, “Give them a break!” This, to me, signals an over-arching benevolence.
But I am thick, and slow, and clumsy. How to “give someone a break” in a manner that does not do them injury “in the long run”? I am surely not to establish a co-dependent relationship where I door-mat myself and indulge their delusion.
I can appreciate “taking the lance directly into your heart and there dissolve it” but my understanding is so thin I can’t imagine how to acknowledge their goodness, through the antagonism and confusion.
I suppose that’s because my own prideful resentment is muddying my mind!
🙂
thank you, Rinpoche, for your gentle counsel
Karma Chöpal
Dear Rinpoche, thank you for your explanation of these stanzas and it is great to have the Shedra again after a summer break. When I first read the stanzas they seemed to be about extreme self-sacrifice, but in your explanation they describe amazing generosity. Maybe this apparent discrepancy is because westerners have particular associations to the language used in the verses?
thank you,
Lynda