"It's said that the Buddha sat under the bodhi tree when he attained enlightenment. The word bodhi has a lot of different translations, but it basically means 'wide awake.' Sometimes it's translated as 'enlightened.' It means a completely open heart, a completely open mind; it means a heart that never closes down, even in the most difficult and horrendous situations. Bodhichitta communicates a mind that never limits itself with prejudices or biases or dogmatic views that are polarized against someone else's opinions. There is no limit to bodhi, no limit to its fluid and all-embracing openness.
"The word chitta means 'heart' and 'mind'; it means both things simultaneously, so we define it as 'heart-mind.' So you could say that bodhichitta is awakened heart-mind, or enlightened heart-mind, or completely open heart-mind. Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche had a synonym for bodhichitta: he called it 'soft spot.' He said that we all have this 'soft spot'; all living beings have this tenderness. Yet somehow we are born feeling that we need to cover it over and protect it. We live in a world where we think we need to contract and put masks over this part of ourselves that's so tender and soft.
"Meditation teaches us to nurture the soft spot, to reopen the heart-mind, to allow love to come and go freely. Dissolving the barriers to the soft spot, dissolving the armor around the soft spot, or dissolving the armor around the heart of bodhichitta (which doesn't ever actually shut down) isn't about finding a final answer, a final solution to life. After all, openness means we always need to be willing to be flexible and make it up as we go along. There is always room to open more.
"Another definition of the word bodhichitta might be 'becoming a completely loving person.' If someone says, 'What is the purpose of spiritual practice?' I personally feel that the ultimate reason why we practice, why we listen to these teachings, why we try to begin to bring this into every moment of our life, is so that we can become completely loving people. And this is what the world needs."
