"I want to benefit all sentient beings, and I am willing to pay so that they can become Buddhas", in words, it is just a slogan; Thinking seriously with the mind to form a kind of willingness, which still needs to be practiced in order to gradually attain perfection. Having made such a vow, bodhichitta can be practiced in three different ways, namely, equality between self and others, exchange between self and others, and self-respect over self.

The first is the "equality of self and others" law, which is very similar to the equality of others. Since the beginninglessness until now, we do not have a real "me", but we have always believed that there is a real "me", and it is dependent on everything in daily life, so we cherish the "me" very much, and will cling to the "me". From birth to growth, old age, and death, no matter how much we give to others, how much love and patience we have, and if we explore carefully, it is undeniable that we love ourselves the most. From another point of view, we want to get out of samsara and become a Buddha because we love ourselves too much.

What people are most partial and most caring for is their own body and mind. At all times, we want our body and mind to be very healthy, with no physical pain on the outside, no spiritual worries on the inside, and any small harm is the most intolerable for us. Think about it, if we can't even tolerate other people's petty sarcasm and some slightly unkind bad words, let alone other people's beatings or hurts. In the same way, every sentient being, like us, wants to be free from suffering and be happy, and as long as it is a living being, no matter how fierce and bad it is outwardly, or how gentle and kind it is, the mentality is the same as not wanting to suffer but wanting to be happy, and the problem is not knowing how to distinguish between what actions can bring happiness and what causes and effects will bring suffering.

Our desires and what we want to do are causally disproportionate, do not conform to causal logic, or even completely reversed. Because I want to be happy, I try to have it myself, but in the process of having it, I try to hurt other lives. When every sentient being has such a state of mind, it will lead to each other trying to survive by hurting each other. These beings who are suffering in samsara have been living according to this pattern since beginninglessness so far. Because there is ignorance, we don't know how to dispense with cause and effect.

We are all swayed by our own delusions of greed, hatred, jealousy, arrogance, etc., and in the sphere of influence of these emotions, every life makes mistakes in order to protect itself. Since we are going to be a practitioner, then after understanding this, we should not take sides. Think again and again: perhaps the person I least like now, yesterday or in my previous life, was the one who was most kind to me; The beings I like very much now may be the unjust creditors to whom I owe a lot, or even the enemies of my previous lives. Today's enemy may be tomorrow's benefactor who will help me the most; Today's lover may be tomorrow's enemy; Because the relationship between relatives and enemies is impermanent, I now have to treat them as equals, regardless of relatives and aliens.

You have to constantly train yourself to think like this, not to think about it once in a while or for a short time; If you don't want to train yourself to accept it and get used to it slowly, it will not be easy to do it; If you can get used to it, you can naturally achieve equality between yourself and others.

From birth to death, all the efforts of a person are to satisfy themselves and achieve their desires, and even many people do not hesitate to sacrifice their most precious lives in order to satisfy their desires. Now I have to think: why am I willing to give this to myself, and I want others to give to me, but I am not willing to give to others in the same way?

When we are children and young people, we hope that our elders can take care of us; When we grow up and these elders enter old age, we begin to feel that they talk and do things that are not to our liking, and they become more and more annoying. Think about it: when we are old, we also want others to help us, serve us, and honor ourselves, but now we are stingy when someone needs us to take care of us. Another example is how much we long for someone to visit us and comfort us when we are sick, and hope that the doctor will heal us quickly and free us from the pain. But when others are sick, we hide far away and are reluctant to approach, and most of us have a sense of fear of wards, hospitals, etc. We need to know that human life has a similar process in cycles, and now these situations that we don't like or want to escape from – the sick, the elderly, the instigating people, in a little while, we will also follow their path. These must be thought through in order to be saved.

In the same way, when we have happiness, wealth, and power, we are very satisfied, so we should feel the same happiness when others do. In particular, bodhichitta is not just dealing with one or two people, but the state of mind that all sentient beings in the six realms can receive such good fortune and merit, and at the same time do their best for them. In ancient times, many eminent monks used to tell their disciples to learn a method, which is to train themselves to give what they hope and want to have to other sentient beings, and not to give to others what they do not want and do not want to accept. We cherish ourselves, so we must learn to treat others in the same mood and way. You give so much love to others, and in the end, it is yourself who enjoys the most love from it. Learn to see every life as equals. This is "equality between self and others".

The second is the "self-other" method. How we don't want to be sick when we are sick! The Tibetans say: "When a strong man encounters a sickness, he is like a bird struck by a small stone, pitiful, with no light in his eyes and trembling." "Young and vigorous young people, even those who are called iron men, can be like a weak and helpless bird when they are sick. When we practice the "exchange of self and others," we can contemplate their suffering, and we can also think of the images of hellish beings suffering from cold and heat in the burning hell, or hungry ghost beings suffering from hunger, or ignorant beings in the path of living beings, and so on. When we contemplate their suffering, we can clearly see that we are still quite happy and have many rare blessings, especially the most precious human life.

Then we can meditate like this: when we breathe, visualize the breath we exhale into all our own happiness, wealth, health, good roots, hard-won fullness of human life, and all other blessings and merits, and give them to all beings as if we were taking off our clothes for others to wear. As you inhale, visualize all the karma of all sentient beings, such as calamities, illnesses, and afflictions, and completely inhale them into yourself. In this way, the visualization is kept on and on. Sometimes, if you really have afflictions or illnesses, you can think about how many sentient beings in the Three Realms and the Six Realms are suffering that may be as unbearable as your current mental afflictions, or as painful as your current physical afflictions, and they are pitiful and helpless, and they hope that their suffering will be transferred to me and let me bear it, so that they can get out of their suffering and get peace, happiness, and good fortune. This is the method of exchanging self and others, and it is the essential method of entering Mahayana Buddhism; This kind of thought can arise once in the mind, and the sinful karma of many eons will naturally be purified immediately.

In the past, when Shakyamuni Buddha was an ordinary man, he fell into hell and suffered, and he and his companion Gamaropa were pulled like oxen and horses. The two of them were pulling a very large trailer, but they did not have enough strength to drag the car, and the jailers of hell beat them with their fiery weapons, which was very painful. He thought, "Anyway, two people can't reach their destination, if that's the case, why let your companion suffer the same, just let his pain be on me!" In this way, the companion can be freed from being beaten by the jailers. So he said to the jailer, "Will you put the cord around his neck around my neck, and I will pull it for him, and I will pull the weight of the two together?" When the jailer of hell heard him say this, he replied angrily: "How can you leave your own karma to others?" In the world, only each has its own karma to bear, who said that you can receive this karma for others? So he took the mallet and struck it on the head of the Buddha, who was still a mortal at that time, and the Buddha immediately died, and his consciousness was immediately reincarnated in the thirty-three days. Where does such good fortune come from? Because at that time, he had compassion for the suffering of his companions—I took care of his suffering, and I came to help him drag it out—such a simple self-exchange mentality, so that he would be reincarnated in the thirty-three realms immediately after being beaten to death by the jailers, otherwise the beings of hell would not have died no matter how many times they were beaten. There are only two places in the Six Realms where sentient beings want to die early but can't, and that is the sentient beings of the Hell Path and the Hungry Ghost Path. This was the first time that the Buddha discovered that benefiting others is benefiting oneself, exchanging oneself with others, and quickly allowing oneself to achieve it.

The third is the method of "he is more important than himself", which requires greater motivation. Whether I am in samsara or in hell, suffering or sickness, facing loss or failure, I can endure any adverse circumstances, and at the same time hope that the suffering of all living beings will ripen in me, and all my happiness and blessings will be fully ripened in them. Just now, he was exchanging with sentient beings, but now he doesn't think about himself at all, only thinks about sentient beings, and can even sacrifice all his interests, happiness, wealth, and power, and is willing to go to the soup and fire, and even sacrifice his own life.

Shakyamuni Buddha was reincarnated as the Lotus King in his previous life. Once, there was a contagious disease in the country, and many people lost their lives because of it, and the doctor could not find a cure for it. Eventually, a physician told the king that only a fish called the Raheda fish could free the people from the epidemic, but it was no longer available. The king was very sad to hear this. So, on the morning of the eighth day of the lunar month, after bathing, putting on a clean garment, taking the vows like fasting, and making offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the Ten Directions, he prayed and made a vow: "I hope that I will be reincarnated as an extinct Raheda fish immediately after I die." After making this vow, he went to the top of the palace and threw himself into the river. After jumping, the king immediately turned into a Ruoheda fish. The fish came to the shore and said to the people in the language of men: "I am your king, come and eat the fish quickly." "When you cut the fish, when you cut the left, when you cut the right, the left side grows meat, and when you cut the left, the right side grows meat, and in this way, a lot of people are healed.

In ancient Tibet, there was a wise light king, although he was imprisoned, he told others not to redeem his life with gold, but to use the gold to welcome the Indian monk Atisha into Tibet to promote the Dharma, and finally he sacrificed his life for the Dharma. His idea is that sentient beings are saved by the Dharma, and that the loss of one of their lives is nothing, and the interests of sentient beings are important. This is the complete "he is more respectful than himself". There are many such stories in the Buddha's biographies of Bunsen.

"Self-others equal", "self-others exchange", "self-others are more respectful", all are very special, but it is not easy to really arise in our hearts, so we need to practice again and again. Let's start with visualization and do it slowly, starting with what we can do. For example, when driving and rushing to the road, we will stop the car and let the other party pass first, which is also a "he is more important than us" practice of "he is more important than us". In this way, small good deeds can be accumulated little by little, and gradually they can become great bodhisattva actions like the ones mentioned above. When we have the idea that we can let go of all selfishness for the sake of sentient beings, we are truly compassionate. The Sutra of Asking Questions on the Wonderful Arm says: "When the bodhichitta of aspiration arises in one's own mind, whether in sleep or in relaxation, merit will continue to arise, and it will be so vast and boundless that it fills the entire void." "What's more, he is practicing the bodhisattva path.

Those who are truly able to practice the bodhisattva path have an indescribable breadth of mind. Just as it is said in the two verses of the dedication of "Entering the Bodhisattva's Journey": "Even if there is emptiness, and all sentient beings live, may I dwell in the world and eliminate the suffering of sentient beings." All sentient beings suffer from suffering, may they repay me! This is a deep wish, a great wish of compassion that does not give up all sentient beings.