| All sentient beings, everyone around you, enemies, | | | | Buddhist scholar explains in the Bodhicaryavatara that |
| friends, neutral people are very important because | | | | these sentient beings are just as precious as the |
| your Enlightenment depends on them. It is by and | | | | Buddhas; they are equal. |
| with them that we can begin to cultivate spiritual | | | | The Buddhas are important because you need their |
| qualities like patience. In fact, the best person for | | | | teachings, their blessings, their inspiration and their |
| helping us to develop patience is an enemy. You | | | | guidance. But in order to fulfill what they have taught, |
| might wonder how that is that possible. Well, how | | | | you need sentient beings*. Yes, all sentient beings - |
| can you practise patience if you have no enemies | | | | those you love, those you hate and those you feel |
| who try your patience? An enemy is just as precious | | | | neutral towards. The very fact that you have the |
| as someone who benefits you, because without | | | | words "hated", "loved" and "neutral" in your |
| them, how can you practise patience? | | | | vocabulary shows you that you are not practising |
| One of the qualities of a Buddha is that he has | | | | patience. |
| patience. If you want to become a Buddha, you | | | | You have to learn to love everyone and everything. |
| must love every single sentient being that exists in | | | | We should start with our Guru, our wives, our |
| the six realms. Your actual Enlightenment is | | | | husbands. Have we been mistreating our wives? |
| dependent on every single sentient being, and your | | | | Have we been talking wrongly to our maids? Have |
| attitude and motive towards them. They are very | | | | we been mistreating and speaking wrongly to our |
| kind to exist to let you develop this! If instead, you | | | | husbands, our friends or our relatives? If we have, |
| show others a bad face, gossip about them, shout, | | | | we are not making progress. And if we are not |
| hurt and abuse them, you do not realise how | | | | making progress, we will be the ones who suffer. |
| precious they are. Shantideva, the esteemed | | | | |