What Is Bodhicitta? Understanding the Intention Before Prayer

A group has settled into its seats. Before the first chant, the leader asks everyone to generate bodhicitta. You may recognize the word from a prayer book without knowing what you are being asked to intend. Does it mean feeling compassion, promising to help, or taking a vow?

In the Mahāyāna Buddhist explanations used here, bodhicitta joins concern for living beings with the aim of complete awakening. Understanding those two parts helps you hear an opening prayer more accurately. It also helps you ask about the commitments involved in a particular practice.

Two concerns belong in the definition

Patrul Rinpoche’s Essential Instruction on Refuge and Bodhicitta describes relative bodhicitta through two aspects: compassion directed toward beings and wisdom directed toward complete enlightenment. The aim is to attain buddhahood for others’ benefit. An intention to become calmer for your own sake does not yet express that whole aim. [1]

This gives you a specific question for an introductory class: “When you ask us to generate bodhicitta, what should we understand by awakening?” If the word remains vague, ask the teacher to explain the qualities being cultivated and how the practice relates to them.

Patrul also distinguishes relative from ultimate bodhicitta, describing the latter in terms of wisdom directly knowing emptiness. This article concentrates on the relative intention named in opening prayers. Recognizing that the term has another technical use can prevent confusion when you encounter a more advanced commentary. [1]

Why the refuge prayer mentions generosity

A common Tibetan opening prayer, known by its first words Sangyé Chö Tsok Ma, moves from refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Saṅgha to an aspiration for buddhahood. Dzatrul Ngawang Tenzin Norbu’s commentary explains how the final lines connect the virtue of practice with that aim. [2]

In his explanation, the reference to generosity “and so on” includes a wider training. Generosity, ethical discipline and meditation are ways of gathering merit; patience, concentration, wisdom and diligence are included in the account. Merit here belongs to a Buddhist explanation of constructive practice and its results. [2]

The final aspiration identifies both the intended beneficiaries, all beings, and the goal, buddhahood. Reading the meaning beside the Tibetan phonetics can help you notice that movement. If your group uses a different English translation, ask where it expresses these two points rather than judging it by whether the wording matches a page you found online.

Aspiration and action are named separately

Śāntideva makes this distinction in Chapter 1 of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, verses 15–16. He describes aspiring to awakening and putting bodhicitta into practice, comparing their relationship to wanting to go somewhere and setting out. The analogy identifies a direction and the activity undertaken toward it. [3]

In a commentary on Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche explains engaged bodhicitta through training in the six perfections. These are generosity, ethical discipline, patience, diligence, concentration and wisdom. He uses the concrete example of travel: the wish to visit a place must be followed by arrangements that make going possible. [4]

A beginner can bring that distinction to an ordinary choice. After praying for others’ benefit, you might listen carefully to someone you would usually interrupt, return something borrowed, or help a visitor find the accessible entrance. These are examples offered by this site for reflection. They do not establish that a person has attained bodhicitta or completed the bodhisattva training.

Choose a specific action you can examine afterward. Did you follow through? Did you become impatient when nobody noticed? Such questions give you something concrete to discuss with a teacher rather than treating the aspiration as a description of how kind you already are.

All beings includes people beyond your immediate circle

Serkong Rinpoche’s teaching begins with developing an unbiased attitude and expands concern beyond friends to strangers and difficult people. It places the wish for others’ happiness and freedom from suffering within a course of training. The scope of the aim extends beyond the people who make you feel warmly disposed. [4]

You can notice where your concern narrows without pretending the narrowing has disappeared. For example, “I can sincerely wish my friend well, but I become dismissive when I think of this colleague.” That is a useful observation to bring to instruction. A broad prayer and an uneven response can both be acknowledged.

When a group asks for the benefit of all beings, avoid silently changing it into “everyone who agrees with us.” Ask how the tradition works with resentment, partiality and difficulty including someone in the aspiration.

Ask what kind of commitment the session involves

Patrul’s text goes on to explain precepts and formal training, including repeated practices of taking the bodhicitta vow. It therefore contains more than a definition for someone encountering the term for the first time. [1]

Before a ceremony or online event, ask the organizer whether it is an explanation, a guided reflection, a renewal for existing practitioners or an opportunity to take vows. Request the commitments in advance and ask whether an observer can attend. Do not infer the event’s purpose from a short title or from the fact that a prayer is publicly available.

Our introduction to refuge can help distinguish another term often included in the same opening sequence. A teacher can explain how refuge and bodhicitta are approached in that community.

A short reflection before your next prayer

The following is an introductory reflection suggested by this site, rather than a traditional vow formula or a replacement for a teacher’s instructions.

1. Remember someone whose difficulty you know. Name the difficulty without inventing what they need.
2. Include people outside that relationship. Notice that others also want happiness and relief from suffering.
3. Consider the purpose of learning. Ask how greater wisdom, patience and care could improve your ability to respond.
4. Choose a question for study. If awakening or the scope of the aspiration remains unclear, write that question down.
5. Return to the prayer text. Read its meaning and follow the instructions appropriate to the session you have joined.

If you are learning the Seven-Line Prayer, ask how your teacher places it within the opening motivation and closing dedication. The words you recite then have a context: who the practice is for, what it aims toward, and how you are learning to act after the recitation ends.

Sources and further reading

1. Patrul Rinpoche, Essential Instruction on Refuge and Bodhichitta. Translated by Adam Pearcey, 2004; version dated February 19, 2025. Relative and ultimate bodhicitta, two aspects and formal training.
2. Dzatrul Ngawang Tenzin Norbu, Brief Commentary on the Refuge & Bodhichitta Prayer. Translated by Adam Pearcey, 2009; version dated July 28, 2025. Explanation of the aspiration and its relation to generosity and other training.
3. Śāntideva, Bodhicaryāvatāra, Chapter 1. Translated by Adam Pearcey, 2007; version dated February 22, 2022. See verses 15–16 for aspiration and enactment.
4. Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche, Developing Aspiring and Engaged Bodhichitta. Edited transcript of a June 1980 London seminar, translated by Alexander Berzin. Scope of concern and the six perfections.

Sources checked October 27, 2026. Written with AI assistance and checked against the linked texts. This introduction identifies teachings and offers explicitly labelled reflection examples; formal practice and vows should be discussed with a qualified teacher.