in each incarnation, through all of our lives,
we've been cared for by others with motherly love.
while these mothers of ours are still lost in samsara,
how cruel to ignore them and free but ourself!
to save other beings, though countless in number,
to free from their sorrow these mothers of old,
produce bodhicitta, the wish to be buddha —
the sons of the buddhas all practice this way.