Bodhicitta and the Question of Purpose

Most of us have a working answer to what our time is for, even if we've never said it out loud. It's usually inherited rather than chosen: get somewhere, build something, be comfortable, be secure. And for a lot of us that answer holds up fine until it doesn't — until we've been on the materialism treadmill long enough that it leaves us not just exhausted but a little despondent. Like this is it. This is what life amounts to.

I'm not here to tell anyone what their answer should be. That's your work, not mine. What I can offer is the one I've landed on after some years of practice, and the thinking behind it. That answer is bodhicitta. The way I frame it, bodhicitta is more or less everything — from the Mahayana perspective, you could say it's the entire path.

So let me give a loose translation, and then we can look at how it bears on purpose and meaning.

A loose translation

Bodhicitta usually translates as the awakened heart or the awakened mind. Chitta points to consciousness or mind. Bodhi points to being awake, being free of the causes of suffering. So bodhi is pointing at liberation, enlightenment, or Buddhahood.

For practitioners this will be familiar, but it's worth stating plainly: Buddhahood is not so much something we attain. It's something we uncover. There are different ways to frame this — some pathways describe it as an attainment, others as an uncovering — and I find the second more accurate.

That framing has helped me a great deal, and it isn't my invention. It comes straight from the teachings on Buddha nature, which describe a seed of awakened mind that cannot be removed from the heart or mind. It's already there. Unfortunately, for most of us, it's covered. Even sitting with that idea for a moment changes something. It's not that we lack something we have to go out and acquire. It's that something already present is obscured. So we use the path — dharma, meditation, study, contemplation — to uncover it. There are many pathways and many methods, but the essential point holds: it's there.

Bodhicitta is part of that Buddha nature. It's already present to some degree, just covered. And on the pathways of Buddhadharma we use various practices to help bring it out. One of those methods is simply talking about it, the way we're doing here — explaining it, and offering practices that help foster it.

Two sides of one coin

On the relative level, we usually connect with this awakened mind in two ways: aspirational bodhicitta and engaging bodhicitta. There is also what's called absolute bodhicitta, which is the wisdom side — the teachings on non-duality, or emptiness. These aren't two separate things. They're a coin with two faces: the ultimate and the relative.

In most traditional paths we practice both, because both are useful, and both lead to the awakening of the same thing. Depending on our proclivities we may lean into one more heavily at first, and that's fine. I try to practice both. What I've found is that the wisdom teachings make the compassion side — relative bodhicitta — far more workable for me. They let me hold it in an open, dynamic way with myself, rather than a fixed one.

But that's getting ahead of things. Let me step back to relative bodhicitta.

Aspiration, and getting to know dukkha

Most of what we're working with is aspiration bodhicitta: aspiring toward awakening for the benefit of all beings. Through the four noble truths as the basis or view, we study and practice, and we come to recognize our own dukkha — our own pain and dissatisfaction, gross and subtle. We begin to see that this is embedded in life. Not in a doomsday, cynical, nihilistic way, but in a way that's workable. In a way that says: this is simply the predicament we're in. And from there we start to seek freedom from it. The whole path begins at that recognition.

I won't say much more about dukkha here — there's a great deal to say, and I say it elsewhere. But the point bears repeating: we have to come to know dukkha intimately, because that intimacy is what makes us seek freedom from its confusion.

When we add bodhicitta to that, something shifts. We start to see that others are caught in a very similar predicament, and we want to help. Our path becomes connected to theirs. We're no longer only freeing ourselves; we're doing this because eventually we'll be able to serve others in a much larger capacity.

What Lama Zopa Rinpoche showed me

I was fortunate to meet Lama Zopa Rinpoche early in my Buddhist life, when I was around twenty or twenty-one. He's no longer with us, but he was a widely known teacher, and his teachings are easy to find. I don't want to put a hard number on it, but well upwards of sixty or seventy percent of what he taught revolved around relative bodhicitta. It came up so consistently that at a certain point I thought: why does he keep returning to this? It must be important. And it is. It mattered then, and it still shapes my life now.

His argument, put simply, was that without aspirational bodhicitta — without practicing and pursuing your own awakening from that perspective — you're missing something essential, because everything else ends up serving a closed loop of ego. He spoke often about how bodhicitta brings purpose and meaning to a life. I couldn't see it at the time. I see it now. That's much of why I wanted to write this.

But the real gift of encountering him wasn't the emphasis. It was that he lived it. You could see it in the way he moved, in the actions he took. There was very little thought of himself, if any, most of the time. It was always about benefiting others in immediate, relatable ways — an animal that needed healing or medicine or food, or a person who needed the dharma and help uncovering their own Buddha nature. He did both. That was his life. From the time I met him, I never saw him focused on anything else.

He was an example, not just information. Not just words. He walked the walk fully until he died — and he died practicing bodhicitta. He was high in the Himalayas, giving teachings and transmissions to Buddhist communities in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, places where few lamas of his stature go. He was in a helicopter, and on the way down he developed altitude sickness. Other medical conditions complicated it once he landed, and he passed away there. Even his last act was serving others through dharma, through skillful means.

He remains a hero and an example in my life. Between his example and my own practice and study, he convinced me thoroughly: there's no greater purpose in living than to wake up for the benefit of others.

This doesn't mean we ignore the world

None of this means we ignore the world, or let it burn. This is where some black-and-white thinking tends to creep in, and it isn't necessary. Relative bodhicitta includes helping when help is needed. If someone is thirsty, get them a glass of water. And when they're open to it, we can share dharma with them and support them in their own path.

There's another dimension to this. As someone becomes skilled in practice and begins to realize bodhicitta and emptiness, they move closer to being a bodhisattva — or they are one. They can certainly teach dharma and guide people directly. But they also become someone who lives it, and that influences others far more profoundly than words and information ever could.

This matters when we're pledging to live through altruism. We're not claiming we have to accomplish it immediately. We're training in what we need now, so that we can live with it and embody it more authentically over time. We can't force ourselves into it. We have to work from wherever we actually are.

That's what makes bodhicitta so workable. We can aspire to it and train with practices like the four immeasurables and tonglen. There are many methods for developing compassion and openness, for strengthening that altruistic wish to wake up for the benefit of others. And as we do, our actions in the present moment start carrying more meaning.

Not kicking the can down the road

On its face, this can sound like postponement — we'll help others later, once we're ready. But that isn't what happens. It affects us now. It changes our relationship to our immediate surroundings. It transforms us, and we become better able to serve others in the present. So I'd argue it isn't kicking the can down the road at all, even though it can sound that way while we're practicing. It's the beginning of embodiment.

And how else would it work? Anything we want, we have to get used to. We can't simply decide to become something else overnight. We have to transform. We have to practice. We have to work with our own dukkha and the mud of our own lives, and grow out of that.

The point is that bodhicitta strikes me as the best way to live and the best thing to pursue. We do what we can. We set the intention before we meditate. We dedicate the merit at the end. We motivate with bodhicitta at our daily work, with our families, in whatever we're doing. It's one of those universal things we can apply anywhere, and it brings a great deal of purpose and meaning with it.

Purpose in a material world

Which brings me back to where I started. When material values are placed at the forefront as the most meaningful thing available, and few other value systems are being shown or discussed, it gets depressing. The exhaustion isn't really the problem — the sense that there's nothing else on offer is.

But there is. There are many other things. Some of them are quite basic: living with more love, living with more kindness, caring for our families, our friends, our communities. And if we want to care for them in a much larger way — not separate from the care we already offer day to day — we can practice bodhicitta.

Buddhists generally understand bodhicitta as a training that unfolds over many lifetimes rather than a single one. But we have to start somewhere. So my view is: why not do both? Why not help family, friends, and communities in whatever material way we can, and also develop bodhicitta, making the aspiration to benefit them on a much grander scale by going inward and uncovering our own Buddha nature. Because in uncovering it, we become a path by which others can uncover theirs.

Closing

There's far more to say here, because bodhicitta really is the whole thing. It's a large enough topic that you'll find beautiful teachings on it from many great masters, and I've covered it elsewhere in more depth.

It took me some years to arrive at real confidence that this is the best way I could use my time in this body and this life. I don't expect anyone to take that on faith, and I'm not expecting instant enthusiasm. But I'd encourage giving it room. Especially when we're on the cushion, motivating with bodhicitta genuinely changes the process of what we're doing — and over time, it changes more than the practice.