The Main Practice: Training in Bodhicitta

This is the heart of the Seven Points—the actual cultivation of bodhicitta, the awakened heart that seeks enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. Geshe Chekawa divides this training into two complementary aspects: ultimate bodhicitta, which recognizes the empty nature of all phenomena, and relative bodhicitta, which develops boundless compassion through the practice of tonglen (giving and receiving).

These two aspects work together like the wings of a bird. Ultimate bodhicitta provides the wisdom that prevents compassion from becoming attachment, while relative bodhicitta ensures that wisdom doesn't become cold intellectualism. Together, they form the complete awakened heart.

Notably, Chekawa's root text presents ultimate bodhicitta first—the reverse of most Mahayana teachings. Commentators such as Jamgon Kongtrul explain that understanding emptiness creates a safe container for the emotionally demanding practice of tonglen. Some later teachers reverse this order, presenting relative bodhicitta first, so students encountering other versions of this teaching should not be surprised by the difference.

Ultimate Bodhicitta

Ultimate bodhicitta (don dam byang chub sems) is the direct recognition of emptiness—not as a philosophical concept, but as the living reality of how things actually exist. This isn't about negating the world, but about seeing through the solid, permanent, independent existence that our minds habitually project onto everything.

The practice has three phases: preparation, main meditation, and conclusion.

Preparation

Before diving into emptiness meditation, we establish the proper foundation. Take refuge in the Three Jewels and generate bodhicitta—the intention to attain enlightenment for all beings. Offer prayers and perform the seven-branch practice (prostration, offering, confession, rejoicing, requesting teachings, requesting the teachers to remain, and dedication of merit).

Sit with your spine naturally straight and breathe in and out twenty-one times without distraction. This isn't mere ritual—it creates the stable, clear mental state necessary for profound meditation. The breath counting settles the mind while the preliminary practices align your motivation with the vast scope of the Mahayana path.

The Main Meditation

The ultimate bodhicitta meditation involves four progressive instructions, each pointing to the same essential recognition from different angles:

"Consider all dharmas as dreamlike."

Begin by examining your experience right now. Notice how solid and real everything appears—your body, the room around you, your thoughts and emotions. Now consider: how different is this from last night's dream? While dreaming, that experience felt completely real and immediate. Only upon waking did its insubstantial nature become obvious.

In the same way, our waking experience, though vivid and compelling, lacks the solid reality it appears to have. The point is not that nothing exists, but that things don't exist in the permanent, independent way they seem to. Like dreams, phenomena arise through the interdependence of causes and conditions, lacking inherent existence.

"Examine the nature of unborn awareness."

Turn your attention to awareness itself—the knowing quality of mind that experiences everything. Try to find this awareness. Where is it located? What color is it? When did it begin?

You'll discover that awareness has no findable characteristics—it's not born from anywhere, doesn't dwell anywhere, and doesn't go anywhere when it ceases. Yet it's undeniably present, clear, and knowing. This unborn, unceasing, unlocated awareness is your buddha nature—not something you need to create, but something you need to recognize.

"Let even the antidote be freed in its own place."

As you meditate on emptiness, subtle grasping may arise—perhaps pride in your understanding, or attachment to the meditation itself. Notice how even these "spiritual" thoughts and feelings are empty of inherent existence. Don't fight them or try to maintain special states. Simply recognize their dreamlike nature and let them be naturally free in their own place.

This instruction prevents the common mistake of making emptiness into another object to grasp. Even the most profound realizations are empty of solid existence.

"Rest in the ālaya, the essence of the path."

Ālaya here is interpreted differently across commentarial traditions. Some read it as primordial awareness—the basic space of mind that is the ground of all experience—while others understand it more neutrally as the fundamental basis of consciousness. In either reading, the instruction is the same: rest in this open, ungraspable awareness that is neither existence nor non-existence, neither something nor nothing.

This isn't a blank state, but a vivid presence that is the very essence of the spiritual path. All the preliminary practices, all the effort and study, point to this simple resting in what has always been present.

Conclusion

"Between sessions, be a conjurer of illusions."

When you rise from meditation, maintain the understanding that appearances, while vivid and functional, are like magical illusions. A skilled magician creates convincing appearances—elephants, tigers, palaces—knowing they aren't real in the way they appear. Similarly, engage fully with daily life while remembering its dreamlike nature.

A common misunderstanding here is that this leads to passivity or nihilism. But illusions still function according to their own logic. Even knowing a dream is a dream, you still avoid dream cliffs and seek dream shelter. But you're no longer fooled by appearances or trapped by what seems solid and permanent.

Relative Bodhicitta

Relative bodhicitta (kun rdzob byang chub sems) is the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity toward all beings. While ultimate bodhicitta works with wisdom, relative bodhicitta develops the heart qualities that naturally arise when we truly recognize our interdependence.

The main practice here is tonglen—literally "giving and receiving"—one of Tibetan Buddhism's most distinctive and powerful methods.

The Meditation Practice

"Train in the two—giving and taking—alternately."

Tonglen reverses our usual selfish patterns. Instead of trying to get happiness and avoid suffering, we practice taking on others' suffering and giving away our happiness. This isn't masochism, but a profound method for dissolving the self-grasping that is the root of all our problems.

Begin with someone you care about who is suffering. As you breathe in, imagine taking their pain, illness, fear, or sadness into your heart as dark smoke. This practice is safe because you are receiving suffering into the vast space of your compassionate heart, where it dissolves naturally. As you breathe out, send them everything good you have—happiness, health, peace, love—as bright, warm light.

Start with manageable situations. If your friend has a headache, breathe in their pain and breathe out relief. If they're sad, take their sadness and give them joy. Gradually extend this to more difficult people and situations.

"These two are to be mounted on the breath."

The breath is the vehicle for this exchange. This isn't mere imagination—the breath connects us intimately with all life. Every breath we take has been breathed by countless beings before us. Every breath we exhale becomes part of the atmosphere that sustains all life. Using the breath makes tonglen a visceral, embodied practice rather than just a mental exercise.

Don't force the breathing or make it artificial. Let the natural rhythm of breath carry the giving and receiving. Some practitioners find it helpful to make the in-breath slightly longer when taking, and the out-breath fuller when giving.

Post-Meditation Practice

"Three objects, three poisons and three sources of virtue."

This slogan provides a framework for practicing throughout the day. The three objects are: beings we're attached to, beings we dislike, and beings we ignore. The three poisons are: attachment, aversion, and indifference. The three sources of virtue are: giving up attachment and taking others' attachment, giving up aversion and taking others' aversion, giving up indifference and taking others' indifference.

When you encounter someone you're attracted to, instead of indulging the attraction, use it as a reminder to take on the attachment of all beings and give them freedom. When you meet someone you dislike, take on the aversion of all beings and give them love. When you're indifferent to someone, take on the ignorance of all beings and give them wisdom.

This transforms every encounter into an opportunity for practice, gradually wearing away the ego-clinging that keeps us trapped in suffering.

"In all activities, train by applying slogans."

Don't limit tonglen to formal sitting practice. Waiting in line at the store, stuck in traffic, dealing with a difficult colleague—every situation becomes a chance to practice giving and taking. See a homeless person? Take their cold and hunger, give them warmth and food. Witness someone's anger? Breathe in their rage, breathe out peace.

This doesn't mean becoming everyone's therapist or taking on responsibilities that aren't yours. It's an internal practice that gradually transforms your relationship to your own and others' suffering.

"Begin the process of taking with yourself."

This instruction might seem contradictory—how can you take your own suffering? But it points to a crucial understanding. Before you can genuinely help others, you need to develop a healthy relationship with your own pain.

Practice taking on your own future suffering—the anxiety you'll feel tomorrow, the aging and death that await this body, the confusion and negativity you'll surely experience. Give yourself the peace and happiness you want. This isn't self-indulgence but the development of genuine self-compassion, which becomes the foundation for compassion toward others.

You can also practice taking suffering from your past self—the child who was hurt, the teenager who felt so lost, the young adult making painful mistakes. Breathe in their pain with infinite tenderness and breathe out the love and wisdom you have now.

The Unity of the Two Bodhicittas

Ultimate and relative bodhicitta are not separate practices but two aspects of one awakened heart. Wisdom without compassion becomes cold and self-serving. Compassion without wisdom becomes sentimental and ineffective. Together, they form the complete method for awakening.

As your practice deepens, you'll discover that the dreamlike nature of suffering doesn't diminish your compassion—it enhances it. When you truly understand that beings suffer unnecessarily because they don't recognize the open, free nature of their own minds, your heart naturally breaks open with love for them.

Similarly, the more you practice tonglen, the more you realize the emptiness of the one who gives, the one who receives, and the suffering being exchanged. This recognition doesn't stop the practice but makes it infinitely more profound and effective.

This is the main practice—the actual training in bodhicitta that transforms ordinary mind into the awakened heart of a bodhisattva. Through ultimate bodhicitta, we recognize the space-like nature of awareness. Through relative bodhicitta, we fill that space with limitless compassion. Together, they awaken the buddha nature that has always been present, waiting to be discovered and expressed for the benefit of all beings.