There are three objects which can either function as three poisons or can become three bases of infinite virtue. Atisha is talking of the inner alchemy. The poison can be transformed into nectar, the baser metal can be transformed into gold.

What are these three objects? The first is aversion, the second is attachment, and the third is indifference. This is how the mind functions. You feel aversion to whatsoever you dislike, you feel attachment to whatever you like, and you feel indifferent to things which you neither dislike nor like.

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Just watch your mind, this is how your mind functions. It is always saying "I like this, I don't like that, and I am indifferent to the third." These are the three ways the mind goes on moving. This is the rut, the routine.

Atisha says: These are the three poisons, but they can become the three bases of virtue. How can they become the three bases of great virtue? - if you bring in the quality of compassion...If you learn the art of absorbing suffering, as if all the suffering of the world is coming riding on the breath, then how can you be repulsed? How can you dislike anything and how can you be indifferent to anything? If you are unconditionally taking in all the suffering of the world, drinking it, absorbing it into your heart, and then instead of it pouring blessings on the whole of existence - UNCONDITIONALLY; not to someone in particular, remember; not only to man but to all; to all beings, trees and rocks and birds and animals, to the whole existence - material, immaterial - when you are pouring out blessings unconditionally, how can you be attached?

Attachment, aversion, indifference; all disappear with this small technique. And with their disappearance the poison is transformed into nectar, and the bondage becomes freedom, and the hell is no more a hell, it is heaven.

From The Book of Wisdom, by Osho
Used by kind permission of Osho Foundation International