Living Beautifully – 4 – The Bodhisattva Vow

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The Bodhisattva Vows are part of the teachings where we vow to not worry about solely our own awakening, but hold back from full enlightenment until we help all others become awakened as well.  This is often taught as the second step of the Eightfold Path, which is Right Intention.  How we motivate ourselves in our thoughts, words and actions. 

Sentient beings are numberless—I vow to liberate them.

Delusions are inexhaustible—I vow to transcend them.

Dharma Teachings are boundless—I vow to master them.

The Buddha’s enlightened way is unsurpassable—I vow to embody it.

The idea of wishing to help the entire world awaken.  That might seem a bit daunting!  On the internet, there is a clock that keeps track of approximately how many people there are in the world in any given hour.   So, as of about 6 pm last night, there were 7,120,332,037. Since the beginning of this year, there have been about 31 million more births than deaths, so we have a lot of people to consider. In 1900, there were 1.6 million people; in 1999 there were 6.1 million people.  "Currently, world population is growing at the most rapid pace in history," says Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau.

That is a lot of people who might be suffering.  We have got our work cut out for us.  And this idea of compassion may seem all warm and soothing, but when we start to try and apply it in real life, it’s very threatening to our ego, to our protective coating that we want to defend and ensure does not get pierced.  We can long to awaken so that we not only help ourselves, but we also help others.

(From Wikipedia) In Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is an enlightened (bodhi) existence (sattva) or, "heroic-minded one (sattva), passionate for enlightenment (bodhi)." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," Traditionally, a bodhisattva is anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhicitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings.

Bodhicitta is translated as awakened heart-mind, the intention to achieve Buddhahood (Trikaya)or awakening as fast as possible, so that one may benefit infinite beings. One who has bodhicitta as the primary motivation for all of his or her activities is called a bodhisattva. Bodhicitta also means the aim to, on the one hand, bring happiness to all sentient beings, and on the other, to relieve them of suffering; this definition is consistent with the definition of seeking enlightenment, as enlightenment is the freedom from samsāra.

The Bodhisattva Vow

Beginning students commonly ask how they can honestly vow to save all beings. It sounds like missionary arrogance. Hui-neng [the Sixth Zen Patriarch] offers a response: "You begin by saving them in your own mind." It is bodhichitta that you are cultivating—your own aspiration for wisdom and compassion, and your determination to practice it in the world as best you can."   -- Robert Aitken Roshi, "The Bodhisattva Vows"

This is not being evangelical about the Buddhist practice, but rather how you show up in the world, how you mold your thoughts into creating skillful actions.  Practicing bodhicitta means cultivating all one’s innate enlightened qualities and following the path of awakening.  Having an open heart-mind is teaching us how to be open and seeing the innate goodness in ourselves and all others.

If Buddhism is simply a practice to relief suffering, then by its very nature, we want to relieve not only our own suffering but the suffering of others, and not just the others who are people we like, but ALL others.  Whoa!  You mean I have to relieve the suffering of that man at work that is constantly giving me a hard time?  Can’t there possible be some exceptions to this practice—I mean really!

In Buddhism, no exceptions.  We work towards relieving our own suffering and the suffering of all others, even the ones that annoy us or don’t seem to deserve it, or who have hurt us in some way. 

It’s easy to be loving and kind to the people we like.  It’s these difficult ones when we really earn our Buddhist stripes.  Compassion is about going beyond our comfort zones, not about being a doormat and letting anyone and everyone walk all over us (that is called Idiot Compassion!), but rather a Wise Compassion that comes from being fully present in the moment and reflecting on what will create the greatest good and relieve the most suffering.

The Buddha never taught to anyone who did not ask for teaching.  From the very beginning, even his five friends that were ascetics with him, they had to beg him to teach them about this wonderful practice that he had discovered, because they saw the different that it had made in him.  So, he encouraged us to never go out and preach from the mountaintops these teachings.  Instead, he said if you embody the teachings, others will be naturally curious about what has caused this transformation in your life, then and only then, should you share with them this practice. 

Our thoughts are shaping and defining our actions and words.  Pema Chodron encourages us to imagine that everyone is our guest.  How would you feel about having anyone and everyone over to your house—to all kinds of people! That is a little daunting—but we start with the thought of treating everyone with kindness and compassion.  Everyone is not going to physically come over to our house, but they can be allowed in our heart—not to tear us up, but for us to open up to share love and compassion, whether they are deemed worthy of it or not.  Imagine  love and compassion without judgment.  This is the start of living in the flow of life, instead of skating around the edges, holding on to the rail.  This is how we get comfortable with uncertainty. 

Lama Surya Das says:

If it looks like wisdom, but is unkind rather than loving, then it is not wisdom.  If it feels like love, but it’s not wise, then it is not love.

There is a tender part of our heart that doesn't want to feel vulnerable.  Maybe you’ve been hurt before and the pain was so awful, that you’ve sworn off being that open to anyone ever again.  Now, I’m encouraging you to try, even just little, even if it’s just a small crack, to open up your innately good and kind heart.  You may still be hurt again, but it might be easier to stay standing with these practices of compassion and wisdom. 

So, we can begin in the simplest of ways.  Of beginning willing to see how we are all inseparably interconnected.  Something as simple as when you sit down to eat, or I guess if you’re standing up in your kitchen or even when you’re driving down the road with a hamburger in your hand, try being so deeply thankful each and every person that made that meal possible—the farmers, the trucker, the  grocery store clerk, the waiter or waitress, the bus boy or girl.  We can give thanks for all the people that are making our life easier.

Then, we can look for ways to reach out in earnest and help others who are having a difficult time.  Several of us go to feed the hungry or work the pantry in KCK on Saturdays.  Others are tutors at Banneker Elementary School—it is always a heartfelt experience.  Before the meal begins, each person who is helping goes around and says where they are from.  It’s kinda fun that among the Episcopalians and the Baptists and the Catholics, there we are representing the Temple Buddhist Center.  How can we go out in the community and be a loving presence and support to those who are suffering?

And it can be as simple as one of our visualizations, which is to simple silently wish for each and every person you meet, “may you be happy” and spend a moment or two radiating out love and compassion towards them.  Try it this week, and see what a difference this simple change can make. 

And if we break the commitment, if we respond harshly to others, it’s simple to mend.  We simply admit that we were unskillful, re-commit to being a Bodhisattva, and begin again.  It can happen on the spot, no need to wait to being anew.

I’ll end with a quote from Shantideva, who wrote The Way of the Bodhisattva:

And now as long as space endures,

As long as there are beings to be found,

May I continue likewise to remain

To drive away the sorry of the world.

Why I love and hate Brad Warner by John Corbaley

Here's John Corbaley's Dharma talk from Sunday.  Enjoy, and thanks, John!

I have this love/hate thing with Brad Warner. Does everyone know who Brad Warner is? He gave a presentation here about a year ago. He had just written a new book, and his stop in Kansas City was, I think, part of a promotional tour.

He’s so cool.  He writes a very popular blog on Buddhism. He’s an actor in independent films. He has kind of a messed up personal life. He’s in a punk rock band. At the same time, He received “inka”-- Dharma transmission from Nishijima Roshi. He wears strange glasses. We know you can never trust somebody who wears strange glasses.

His books are always provocatively titled: “Hardcore Zen,” “Sex, Sin, and Zen,” “Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate.” When I read his books, I always get the feeling that there’s no THERE there. He spends alot of time being very hip and cool and provocative in the way that only Zen can be. Always challenging your assumptions, always looking to put you ever so slightly off balance.

But sometimes, all that challenging, and all that bombast sometimes just makes me tired...In the end it can end up leaving you a little troubled. Which is, I am sure, exactly his intent. If you’ve ever read one of his books, you can see what I mean. There’s a lot of entertainment and not so much teaching. A lot of declaring that Zen Buddhism is not this, it’s not that; but when it comes to explaining what it really is, what you usually get left with is a paper thin, less than complete or satisfying answer.

And then there’s the whole “Dharma Transmission” thing. I mean, what is that, really?You know the story. It comes from the Flower Sermon. One of the Buddha’s disciples, mahakasyapa was looking at him one day, and the Buddha looked at a lotus flower, looked up at him, and ZAP, the tradition of “silent” transmission was, born, and the entire tradition of Zen was born.

The Buddha is quoted as saying, “I have the right Dharma Eye Treasury, the wondrous mind of nirvana, the reality beyond appearance. The Dharma-door of mind to mind transmission has been entrusted to Kāśyapa.”

There was, of course, the small detail that the Flower Sermon sutra does not exist in the Pali canon, the oldest existing texts of buddhist teaching, and that there was about a thousand years of history between the Buddha’s time and the actual arise of the popular practice of Ch-an in China, which was to become Zen in Japan.

There are other times, though, when Brad Warner gets right to the point and it totally resonates with me. He was being interviewed for Tricycle magazine recently and was talking about his life and his work, and he made some comments that I could really identify with. He was talking about his work at the Hill Street Zen Center in Santa Monica, where he led a sitting group and gave periodic talks. He says this about it:

"I was naive at first [about giving talks about my books] but I quickly realized that most of the people I was talking to were never going to do Zen practice. Essentially, when I’m giving a lecture, I just view it as  entertainment for the audience. I try to put on a show that will have something of value within it, rather than seeing the audience as potential practitioners, because most of them, realistically, are not."

Here is where I found a real connection with Brad Warner. As part of my work at the St. Luke’s Brain Fitness Center, I give presentations to the public every week, with audiences ranging from 10 people to 500. When I give these talks about the elements of brain fitness and what people can do keep their brains fit and healthy, I get a similar feeling to what Brad was saying. Most of the the people are there to be entertained.

I’ve even heard it referred to with the label: “Edutainment.” They think that attending a talk on brain fitness constitutes the extent of what they need to do, not exercising more, changing their diets, going back to college, learning to play a new sport or learn a foreign language. They’re certainly not going to start meditating. All they’re going to do is come to my talk. These folks are there and they are reading the menu. They have no intention of eating the meal.

So in this way, I totally get what Brad Warner is referring to, in the quote above, and what he says about his audiences. In his Tricycle interview, he also says something about teaching which I found very close to my thoughts, especially as I set down to write a ‘dharma talk.’ When you do this, you really develop very quickly an acute appreciation for what Janet does here every week.

She is able to crank out a dharma teaching that is  apt and funny and personal and natural. And she does it every week. It never ceases to amaze me at how she does it. Anyway, Brad Warner says,

            

"I know Zen teachers who will give a dharma talk once a month and that’s all they’ll do. That’s as much dharma as they’ve got in them, and I think those people are intelligent. There’s only so much that can be said.”

That’s definitely how I feel most of the time. Hacking away for hours with stacks of books all around me. I’m not saying this to try to impress anybody. What I’m trying to say is that, for me, at least, this is hard. I absolutely don’t know how Janet does it.

Anyway, that’s why I have this love hate thing with Brad Warner. There are times he will say something I totally get, agree with and resonate with. And there are other times, I just think oh please. In this way, Brad Warner can push my buttons, for good or ill. I have to look beyond the punk persona, the attitude, the glasses.

I am reminded about the story of Santideva, the monk who wrote the Bodhicaryvatara, the way of the Bodhisattva, one of the most important works of early Mahayana movement. It was said that because he kept to himself, the other monks didn’t really think that much of him. It seemed to them that Santideva simply lazed around doing nothing, in their chiding words, “just eating, sleeping, and defecating.”

In his introduction to a translation of the Bodhicaryvatara, Paul Williams relates the story. The monks decided to humiliate Santideva by asking him to give a recitation before the entire monastery, the great Nalanda University. They erected a seat for him in the monastery square. A seat so high he couldn’t possibly reach it. One story has him levitate to the top of the seat, another has him magically lowering the seat with a magic hand.

Santideva then asks the gathered monks if they want to hear something old or something new. They ask for something new. So from memory, he recites the whole of the Bodhicaryvatara, at one point ascending in the air and disappearing, with only his voice remaining to recite the remainder of the work. Santideva, who for all his learning appeared to be an ordinary monk and yet in his humility, wisdom and compassionate warmth to those who knew him showed an inner development which maybe some guessed but few understood. And my understanding of Brad Warner grows with time, too. We have a lot in common. That’s what I mean when I say I have a love--hate thing with him.

References:

“Interview: Sex, Sin, and Zen: Tricycle discusses Buddhist blogging, power, and the generation gap with Zen teacher Brad Warner” pp. 42-45, Tricycle, winter, 2011.

Williams, Paul, Introduction, The Bodhicaryavatara, pp. vii-xxvi, Oxford University Press, 1995.

---John Corbaley M.S., M.A.