Episode 38 – Awareness, Kindness, Openness

According to the Buddha, all sentient beings have buddhanature or bodhichitta • Trungpa Rinpoche spoke in terms of having “enlightened genes” — we have the DNA of buddhanature within us • our natural tendency is to awaken and to flourish, but how do we get a glimpse of this? • bodhichitta can be described as having three qualities: awareness, kindness, and openness • awareness refers to those moments when clarity seems to spring up effortlessly in our mind; whan that happens, that is bodhichitta saying “hello” • the second quality, kindness, also arises unconstructed when we spontaneously think a kind thought or have a little tenderness; it just appears because it is part of our nature • the third quality of buddhanature, openness or spaciousness, pops up in those moments when our heavy-handedness is suddenly seen through • it is a kind of lightness and openness, a feeling of spaciousness and possibility • these three qualities often intersect together: a moment of softness helps some clarity arise, or a moment of spaciousness breaks down a stuckness or frozen quality • these three qualities are like little doorways or peepholes through which we begin to have glimpses of the multifaceted nature of this heart of the Buddha