Bodhichitta

Bodhichitta [Skt.] (Tib. chang chub kyi sem; byang chub kyi sems) - The compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.

Definition

Bodhi means our ‘enlightened essence’ and chitta means ‘heart’ or 'mind', hence the translation ‘the heart of enlightened mind’.

The most famous definition of bodhichitta appears in Maitreya's Abhisamayalankara:

Bodhichitta is: for the sake of others

Longing to attain complete enlightenment.

sems bskyed pa ni gzhan don phyir//

yang dag rdzogs pa'i byang chub 'dod//

སེམས་བསྐྱེད་པ་ནི་གཞན་དོན་ཕྱིར༎

ཡང་དག་རྫོགས་པའི་བྱང་ཆུབ་འདོད༎

Divisions

It is categorized into ‘relative’ or ‘conventional bodhichitta’, and ‘absolute bodhichitta’. Relative bodhichitta entails the compassionate wish to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings and to train in the methods to achieve that aim. In relative bodhichitta there is also the distinction between ‘bodhichitta in aspiration’ and ‘bodhichitta in action’, which is portrayed by Shantideva as the difference between deciding to go somewhere and actually making the journey. Absolute bodhichitta is the direct insight into the absolute nature of things.

There is also a division into twenty-two similes of bodhichitta.