Bodhicitta. Japanese: 菩提心, bodaishin.

 

In Buddhism, bodhicitta,
"enlightenment-mind", is the mind that strives toward awakening, empathy, and compassion for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Etymology.

 Etymologically, the word is a combination of the Sanskrit words bodhi and citta. Bodhi means "awakening" or "enlightenment". Citta derives from the Sanskrit root cit, and means "that which is conscious" (i.e., mind or consciousness). Bodhicitta may be translated as "awakening mind" or "mind of enlightenment". 

Spontaneity

Bodhicitta is a spontaneous wish to attain enlightenment motivated by great compassion for all sentient beings, accompanied by a falling away of the attachment to the illusion of an inherently existing self.

The mind of great compassion and bodhicitta motivates one to attain enlightenment Buddhahood, as quickly as possible and benefit infinite sentient beings through their emanations and other skillful means. Bodhicitta is a felt need to replace others' suffering with bliss. Since the ultimate end of suffering is nirvana, bodhicitta necessarily involves a motivation to help others to awaken (to find bodhi).

A person who has a spontaneous realization or motivation of bodhicitta is called a bodhisattva.  

 

Levels.

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 Different schools may demonstrate alternative understandings of bodhicitta.

Nyoshul Khenpo Rinpoche and Surya Das, both Nyingma masters of the non-sectarian Rime movement, distinguish between relative and absolute (or ultimate) bodhicitta. Relative bodhicitta is a state of mind in which the practitioner works for the good of all beings as if it were their own. Absolute bodhicitta is the wisdom of shunyata  (śunyatā, a Sanskrit term often translated as "emptiness", though the alternatives "vast expanse" or "openness" or "spaciousness" probably convey the idea better to Westerners).   The concept of śunyatā in Buddhism also implies freedom from attachments and from fixed ideas about the world and how it should be.

Some bodhicitta practices emphasize the absolute (e.g. vipaśyanā), while others emphasize the relative (e.g. metta), but both aspects are seen in all Mahāyāna practice as essential to enlightenment, especially in the Tibetan practices of tonglen  and lojong.

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