Lion's Roar

HOW TO BECOME A BODHISATTVA

WHEN HE WAS ASKED recently what will happen after he dies, the Dalai Lama shrugged and said he didn’t know. But he prayed he’d be reborn wherever there is the most suffering.

As I sat with this remarkable statement, it occurred to me that this is the bodhisattva’s way: to devote one’s life to the suffering of others, in all its forms, until it ends.

Yet, you may have noticed that this noble response—the compassion at the heart of Buddhist wisdom—can easily remain an elusive goal. For many of us, there is a distressing, almost instinctual

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