Both sutra and esoteric teachings exhort people to develop bodhichitta and many people are also explaining bodhichitta and the merits of developing bodhichitta and bodhichitta Tantra involves the development of bodhichitta into the uncommon tantric practice. Generally speaking, it's easy to explain bodhichitta and tell people to have a broad mindset of "keeping all sentient beings free from suffering, receiving short-term human blessings, and then hoping that sentient beings will be free from samsara, attain eternal happiness, and even become Buddhas." But how to really learn to send it out, the truth is very deep, so there is a saying in the tantra: "It's not important to develop bodhichitta but to send out bodhichitta is important." In other words, it is not difficult to understand bodhichitta and develop bodhichitta but to really develop bodhichitta is a very great knowledge and a very difficult thing to do.

Why can't we develop bodhichitta? It's because we don't know why we send it.

First of all, if we believe in samsaric cause and effect, we have to know that since the beginningless period we have created too much karma, we have accumulated a lot of sinful karma, and we have many unjust relatives and creditors. Why is this happening? If there aren't any sentient beings around, we don't have the object to create these karmas. Because we have festivals with other beings, everything we owe is our karma now. Since our negative karma comes from what we owe to sentient beings, the way to free ourselves from karma is also to start by giving to sentient beings.

Since the karma we have accumulated since the beginning of time is accumulated by external beings for the object, it is of course up to the sentient beings to eliminate the karma when we want to purify it. It's very good to have a strong bodhichitta and then repent of karma in this way. If we don't emit bodhichitta when we repent, will the karma be eliminated? It will only lighten the karma a little bit, and it is impossible to eliminate the karma from the root because we don't have the ability. So, when we practice repentance, we have to repent of our karma with the intention of benefiting all sentient beings. Sending out bodhichitta is a great method of repentance.

Besides, we have been in samsara since beginninglessness, and there are countless immeasurable beings who have been our parents, and all living beings, no matter how small bacteria and microorganisms, have not been our parents. When they were our parents, they all supported us with the most compassionate heart, giving us the best food and the best clothes, and now when we are faced with these beings who have so much kindness to us in samsara, how can we repay them?

We are now able to understand many of the principles of karma and reincarnation, and we have learned all kinds of compassion and wisdom because we have had access to the Dharma. For all the beings of the six realms who have been our parents, of course, we can't just ask for our own liberation and leave them all aside! If you think like this, isn't it better to develop bodhichitta than to do so?

There is this description in the "Entering the Bodhisattva Journey": The Buddhas come to take great compassion as the cause, because of the great compassion of all sentient beings, because of the great compassion to give birth to bodhichitta, because of the bodhichitta to become enlightened...... All sentient beings become the roots of the tree, and the Buddhas become the fruit of the Buddhas, and the wisdom of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas can be achieved by benefiting all sentient beings with the water of great compassion. Why? If the bodhisattvas benefit sentient beings with the water of great compassion, they will be able to attain the attainment of the three bodhisattvas. Therefore, Bodhi belongs to all living beings; Without sentient beings, all bodhisattvas would never be able to attain supreme enlightenment......

In this way, we can see that bodhichitta needs to be established by relying on sentient beings as objects, so that we can be free from suffering and be happy.