The Teacher and His Mission      Unit MI 102

Lesson 6

The Bodhisattva

We have spoken of the Arahat, who upon becoming Awakened becomes

automatically, by the release of his true nature, bound to help all sentient

creatures. We will discuss that Bodhisattva Nature and see how the Mahayana

version of that Bodhisattva state differs. We shall show that differences of doctrine

are so minimal in this regard that the artificial divisions created by political

interests and folly have done a great disservice to the dharma.                         

Lesson 6                 The Bodhisattva

Let us try then to simplify this complicated idea of the Bodhisattva. We see him or her eulogized and set apart from normal mortals and set up as an ideal that all should reach as Arahats or Mahayana Bodhisattvas. Thus we enter Buddhism and strive and reach for that objective along with the desire to Awaken.

That is all a mistake. We cannot strive to be a Bodhisattva any more than we can strive for Awakening. We must simply realize that we are upon a certain programmed path that is our true nature. That is not to say that everything is predetermined, it means that there are latent attributes in each human creature, just as there are evident attributes like the physiological response to a strong flash, which is to shut our eyes.

One of those human attributes is the state of being unified, first with all other sentient creatures, and then with all other human creatures. In other words, one way of looking at it is that we are a single organism. If you look at the human body, we think of it as a whole, but it is in another way not really a whole at all. It is made up of many apparently different parts: the heart, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the members, the brain etc. We would consider it ridiculous if the different parts of the body decided to work by the dictates of nature independently, without synchrony.

We can go further and say that each apparent separate organ is made up of apparently independent cells. It would be absurd if these natural cells began to go their own way without some form of synchrony and coordination, would it not?

Each cell in a normal and healthy state works to defend itself, but in the interest of the whole human body. It would be unthinkable otherwise. Within our human system there are natural conflicts which are resolved by the process.  Similarly, there are invasions of the natural system in which it acts to defend itself.

Thus, within any integrated system, there are programs of interdependence, which really means unity. We may then say that every single cell works for the best interest of the whole and that every organ works for the best interest of the whole.  Now in almost all sentient creatures that appears to be so, but there is one exception. The human creature has a mind which not only thinks but knows it thinks and there is the problem.

The human mind has been invaded by an anomaly called the belief in duality.  That is to say that it no longer works in its best interest. 

Just as a single cell works for the best interest of the whole, so the human creature has also evolved to work for the best interest of the whole. The natural state of all things may be considered as impermanent, conflictful, chaotic, without individual existence and without meaning. However, everything works together, not with something we can call harmony or purpose, but with a natural energy according to natural laws.

As a human creature within this natural order, accompanied by other sentient creatures, we have our conditioned programs which function. However, our human brain contains the Mind Virus and as a result we work against almost all our natural programs both physiological and psychological.

One of those programs that is perfectly natural in the human creature, is the natural impulse to work for the common good, consistent with the homeostatic impulse (the life force -Jivindra) to preserve our apparently individual consciousness. That impulse is the Bodhisattva impulse. It manifests itself mentally as happiness, compassion, benevolence and joy, which are experiences that accompany natural and correct attitudes, intentions, actions and equanimity. We know them as the four sublime states.

So we can see that these four sublime states are correct, complete and natural. We can see that the Bodhisattva state and the processes which control attitudes, intentions, actions and equanimity are also completely correct, complete, and natural.

Lest we get involved in the normal circular wheels of philosophy, let us make clear what that word ‘correct’ means. It does not signify right nor make any moral judgement. As Buddhists, we know that the natural system does not do that. ‘Correct’ means any process that is natural and complete and does no harm to either the apparent mind or body of oneself or any other sentient creature.

That really means that we are all, by our nature, Bodhisattvas, who under natural and complete conditions work and operate for the benefit of ourselves and all sentient creatures.

What then has gone wrong? Evolution provided us in various stages with three precious tools which gave feedback information to consciousness. We call them today a self awareness of the Visceral system, the Affective/ Effective system and the Central system. More simply, we may call them monitors of sensations, emotions and passions. 

Unfortunately, when man began to see himself as the thinker, he separated himself by placing himself in opposition to all other sentient creatures, and these precious tools became Id, Ego and Super Ego or, as the Vedic priests knew long before Freud, the three Gunas, which tangle up the human creature, this beautiful lotus.

Now apart from using the terms of Freud, we can divorce ourselves completely from his and other psychological theories that have different goals than our own.  Our goal, simply stated, is to get rid of the tangle provided by the three Gunas and let the lotus, that wonderful human Bodhisattva, free.

So you can see that we don’t have to strive to build this Bodhisattva; it is there waiting to be released from the slavery of the dual mind. It is waiting to be released from the poisonous threads of craving and clinging.

You can see then that is folly for any individual our group to claim and reserve the right of the bodhisattva state for themselves.  However, there are, within Buddhism, differences which are related, not the disposition of the state or its liberation in each living creature, but to how to go about realising that state.

From The Diamond Cutter Sutra, Section III,

The Real Teaching of the Great Way:

Buddha said: Subhuti, all the Bodhisattva Heroes should discipline their thoughts as follows: All living creatures of whatever class, born from eggs, from wombs, from moisture, or by transformation, whether with form or without form, whether in a state of thinking or exempt from thought-necessity, or wholly beyond all thought realms- all these are caused by Me to attain Unbounded Liberation Nirvana. Yet when vast, uncountable, immeasurable numbers of beings have thus been liberated, verily no being has been liberated. Why is this, Subhuti? It is because no Bodhisattva who is a real Bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality.

Realizing then clearly that a Bodhisattva is NOT a Bodhisattva, we must then look at the Theravadin ideas of the Bodhisattva and the various Mahayana ideas.

The Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravadin Buddhism

Today there are two great divisions in Buddhism, Theravadin and Mahayana. I use the word divisions with great regret, because those divisions are artificial. After long years as a Theravadin with an understanding and respect for the traditions and the meditations and likewise the same time, over thirty one years in total, with the Mahayana tradition, I can say definitively that there are no essential differences and that any division is folly.

This division was born in discontent many years after Buddha’s death. There was much discussion certainly during the first hundred years, which is natural after a great spiritual leader falls away. After that time, there were monks who differed in their interpretation of the rules of the sangha, claiming that Buddha had said that certain rules could be dropped if the sangha so desired.

In a democratic union where votes are the deciding issue, there is always, with few exceptions, a discontented minority. In this case, the minority group, refusing to obey the majority, were expelled at a Second Council (the first met within three months of Buddha’s death). Those who separated gave themselves the name  Mahasanghikas. Thus, at the time of the Second Council, when there was no separation with a different name, there arose the first differentiated form of Buddhism. However, the name they chose for themselves indicates that the essence of Buddhism had not changed.

From this moment on, however, different groups broke off, each with their own ideas, until about fifty years later there were at least eighteen schools, each with their own designation. The disputes, however, for many of those new divisions were not just over the rules, but doctrinal and almost all exclusively intellectual and philosophical in nature.

In the reign of Asoka, Maha Moggaliputtatissa, who was a member of the continuing original group called a Third Council. This council was in no way conciliatory. It imposed its rule of law and declared the other groups clearly heretical and incorrect.

At that time, in chronicles in Sri Lanka, the term Theravada, “School of the Elders” was mentioned as representing the original teachings of Buddha. These adhered to the teachings accepted by the First Council which had met originally three months after Buddha’s death, to put the Buddhist house in order.

During the time between the Third Council, for about one thousand five hundred years there were disputes and divisions and various groups fell into oblivion. But between the first century before the Christian era and the first century after the Christian era, books were written expressing a new idea called Mahayana. 

In one of these famous writings, the  Saddharma Pundarika Sutta, (The Lotus Sutra), there is a clear mention of different Yanas. The works were clearly written by Maha yanas  and naturally the “others” were termed  Hina yanas  (inferior yana). Clearly this name was pejorative.

This term clearly is unacceptable, not only because the “others” could not accept such a term, but because this idea of great and inferior is certainly not a Buddhist attitude. Not only the school then called Theravada received the name Hinayana, but all schools which were opposed to the new ideas.

It was at best an inappropriate term, for the significance of the word is quite broad  and means in addition to inferior or small; also poor, miserable; vile, despicable, abject, distainable, dispossessed and deficient. 

It would be unkind to say that these other definitions were inferred, and in the light of the choice of their own name, we can accept the idea that they considered the other ideas inferior and that was sufficient.

In 1950, the World Fellowship of Buddhists inaugurated is Colombo, unanimously adopted the resolution to exclude the term Hinayana from Buddhist use. 

Allowing then that there were and are non essential doctrinal differences, differences arose with respect to the topic at hand, namely the Bodhisattva.

We have met the term Pacceka Buddha. This term signifies “Solitary Buddha”. This is a person who has reached awakening by his own efforts. He is usually a person of aversion, and the same reasons that led to his seeking awakening by himself, without aid, led also to his separation from the world upon accepting the Awakening. Theravadins call him a “Silent Buddha”, because he seeks his own world. By the nature of this solitary path towards Awakening, he does not develop any of the special powers (his self interest does not permit that development) and he does not develop or release in himself the natural Bodhisattva State. Thus we say that he bears one of the great final impediments to a fully Illuminated One or a Bodhisattva. This is one of the great dangers of the direct path of Chan (and Zen), for under poor masters, particularly in the West, there is a clinging to Non Existence, one of the two great final traps (the other is a clinging to existence).

The Sravaka Buddha is one who reaches awakening with the help of masters and the written and spoken texts. He actually, by virtue of his character in association with others, does help others, although he does not have the qualities necessary to reach awakening. Now why is that? It is because he is held in the other trap. The clinging to existence. His help is intellectual governed by is own clinging to the idea of his awakening. To really help others to an awakening that is complete, he needs to have gone past this point to the Bodhisattva awakening.  

I would like then to introduce the idea of two Awakenings at this point. Both are awakenings to the truth, but the full awakening is not merely awakening; it is the Bodhisattva awakening,

Now from the Theravadin point of view, the Pacceka Buddhas and the Srvaka Buddhas are also Arahats. They are those who have eradicated the mental impurities and have advanced to a place worthy of great respect and admiration. They are then disciples of Buddha who have reached the high levels of Liberation.

We hear often that a Bodhisattva is a person, -monk, master or layperson-, who, with the possibility of Buddhahood within reach, and because of his compassion for the sentient creatures of the world, renounces the realization of the Buddha State in order to help all sentient creatures. He then accepts continued existence in the world of Samsara, which includes rebirth in this world. Don’t get hung up with those concepts at the moment.

I prefer another definition which is used for a Bodhisattva: he whose essence is wisdom, who has not yet accepted the state of Buddha, but has satisfied all the requirements to do so.

We will return to this question in other lessons so remember the subtle difference in these definitions.

A Bodhisattva then has still mental impurities, small as they may be. Thus in category, he is ranked above the Sravaka Buddhas and the Pacceka Buddhas.

But one must not believe for a moment that the Bodhisattva is the same as others on the path. One can become a Bodhisattva (in the making) by taking the Bodhisattva precepts, no matter if one is Theravadin or Mahayana, and begin, while still on the path to awakening, to help all sentient creatures.

We know when a person takes the pledge and becomes a Bodhisattva fledgling, but when does he truly become a Bodhisattva? When he or she has liberated the perfections necessary. Note that I did not say reached or accomplished, for there can be no objective set to become a Bodhisattva. One takes the pledge with the idea to enter the path. To do otherwise is to awake the identity that prevents the acceptance.

The Theravadin texts mention the requirements necessary to be a Bodhisattva.

1)      The person needs to be human.

2)      The person needs to be masculine.

3)      He needs to have the capacity to realize the Arahat stage while he lives in this lifetime.

4)      He must realise the state in the presence of a Buddha.

5)      He needs to be a monk, an ascetic or a homeless one (forest dweller). He cannot be a layperson.

6)      He must have reached the stage of knowing the eight jhanas, the subtle jhanas  (rupavacara jhanas) and the four non material jhanas (arupavacara jhanas) and have accepted the extrasensory powers (abhiññas).

7)      He must dedicate his life to Buddha and not be a part of the mundane world except as a teacher.

8)      He needs to sense the great internal impulse to convert to the Buddha state. 

In the Theravadin path there are different types of Awakening. We have mentioned three: Full Awakening as a Buddha, (Sammasambuddha Bodhi) which is a special transcendental path. The first mundane path is Awakening as a silent Buddha (Pacceka Bodhi). The second is that of a Sravaka Buddha. But there are three more paths to Awakening. We have seen that the Pacceka Buddha and the Sravaka Buddha, neither in any way fully awakened Buddhas, cannot be Bodhisattvas.

But, furthermore, one must be clear about one thing that one can learn about when one is much more advanced upon the path. Once one converts into a fully realized Buddha, one cannot continue as a Bodhisattva after one’s death. In other words, in the common way of expressing it, there is no more transcendental rebirth. A Buddha, however, whilst on the path, can be a Bodhisattva.

There are very few, however, who can ever really be upon the Bodhisattva path.

So who then can be Bodhisattvas?  Those on the third, fourth and fifth paths. 

The third path is the path of the Aggasayaka, as a principle disciple of Buddha.  Each Buddha has four principle disciples, two masculine, two feminine. It seems then that a woman can become a Buddha but not a Bodhisattva according to the first glance at the Theravadin texts. 

The fourth path is awakening as a great Disciple of Buddha,  Mahasavaka Bodhi.

The fifth is the path of awakening of the ordinary disciple. Good news this.

There is further good news. The ordinary disciple can obtain awakening in this life, but not all can attain perfect and full Buddhahood. Thus it is not sensible for the Theravadin to make a pledge to become a Buddha. It is however quite sensible and highly wise to make a pledge to follow the Bodhisattva path.

But look at those eight conditions. All seem reasonable except that of the necessity of being a man.

I am afraid I must, despite all my years as a Theravadin master and with all great respect for the Theravadin way, reject that as a condition, as I know that even in Buddhism in the best councils available, to err is human. I must also applaud the other great innovation, which is the adoption of the concept of the Lay Monk, who certainly can attain awakening and aspire to enjoyment on the Bodhisattva path.

Now while the Theravadins propose eight conditions for the state of Bodhisattva and give ten Perfections, they have no real path delineated for Bodhisattva Progress. The Mahayana do. That is because there is great emphasis on the Bodhisattva role in awakening. The path has generally ten Bhumis (stages or levels).

The Ten Bhumis

The Stages of Bodhisattvahood

1. The first stage is called in Sanskrit Pramudita, or Very Happy. Bhumi means stage or ground. From the position of a Bodhisattva, to become a Buddha, one must go through the ten Bhumis, the ten stages or stations. The first is called the Very Happy station because in this first stage the Bodhisattva has recognized the Sunyata not only by thinking or just by visualization, but he has exactly and truly realized the Sunyata. Because he has recognized the Sunyata, he is in another world, a world of Sunyata, not a world of ignorance or selfishness. So he feels very happy, and feels joy at having overcome the former difficulties. So it is called the Very Happy Station.

2. The second bhumi is Vimala or Renounce the Defilement because as a Bodhisattva he knows how to get the Sunyata and abide in the Sunyata more and more. Within the Sunyata he knows everything is pure, while outside everything is defiled. Actually it may seem that the ‘Renounce the Defilement’ stage should be even before the first bhumi, but here ‘Renounce the Defilement’ means the very subtle, not the gross one. So the second bhumi is the stage of purity when the Bodhisattva experiences freedom from all possible defilement.

3. The third bhumi is called Prabhakari or Shines Light Stage because as the Bodhisattva's meditation goes deep, his Samadhi shines light, so this is called the Shines Light Stage or Enlightened Stage or Eminate Stage because a lot of light shines out from his Samadhi.

4. The fourth bhumi is Arcismati or Burning Wisdom. The Bodhisattva has burned up all sorrows in the fire of wisdom so this is called the Burning or Glowing Wisdom stage.

5. The fifth bhumi is Sudurjaya or Very Difficult to be Victorious by Others. That means that few others can suffer such a difficult practice and get to this victory stage. It indicates mastery of utmost or final difficulties.

6. The sixth bhumi is called Abhimukhi or Appearance Stage. The appearance referred to is not something very common but something very special which appears: It is the Sunyata itself. You know there is Sunyata conception, Sunyata thoughts, Sunyata visualization, Sunyata of Happiness, there is Sunyata of Light, of Sun, of Fire, but here is the Sunyata itself which appears in its very embodiment. This means from an abstract idea comes a concrete countenance.

7. The seventh bhumi is the Far from the World Journey Stage or Duramgama. This means the Bodhisattva keeps going further, far from the habitual karma, far from sentient beings, far from the Bodhisattva of the sixth stage. He is getting above ideas of self in order to save others.

8. The eighth bhumi is called Acala, or No Moving Stage. Such a Bodhisattva cannot be moved by any kind of sorrow, by any kind of false view, by any kind of love of money, of fame, or reputation, by anything, good or bad; he cannot be moved and is calm and undisturbed.

9. The ninth stage is Sadhumati or Very Good Wisdom Stage because whereas in the fourth stage he has attained wisdom of fire, here the Bodhisattva has the wisdom of goodness also, which means he can speak very well, he can promote the Dharma very well and can get very wide wisdom. In the Chinese language "Fa-Shih" means a teacher of Dharma who should reach this stage. When a Bodhisattva gets the goodness wisdom, the ninth stage, then he can begin to talk with others and give lectures, for he then has obtained the finest discriminatory wisdom and knows where and how to save others.

10. The tenth bhumi is called Dharmamegha or Dharma Cloud. At this stage a Bodhisattva is not only able to talk to promote the Dharma but really can make Dharma rain, so this is the tenth bhumi's name.

The Bodhisattva then, an Awakened being, develops certain attributes. Let us look

at some of these. Now there is something that one must realize and that is that a

master can only take one to the last door of awakening. One has to pass through

by oneself and actually locate for oneself the last key of the door for doing so.

That is why no master can tell you how to get that final key. It is a transcendental key and cannot in any way be described. The key, when one is ready, without words, just falls into your hands and the door opens.

But how does one begin upon the path? First having developed the Bodhi Mind, called Bodhichitta.

The Bodhi mind is the “Spirit of Awakening” It involves two aspects

1:  The determination to achieve Buddhahood

2:  The aspiration to rescue all beings.

Slowly one finds that the determination gives way to the natural pleasure to be upon a path which is coincidental with the natural ways of one’s Buddha Nature, and that there is a natural impulse not yet released to help all sentient creatures which includes all plants and animals. It then becomes clear that one’s sense of Unity with all things is deeper than one thought and that there is a drive more profound than simple rational cognition.

That is the time that it is correct to take the Bodhisattva Pledge, conscious that it is not an easy path, although it is natural, because Mara will be constantly waiting to challenge you and give you all sorts of excuses and rationalizations to throw you off course. These rationalizations are strongest when you are in the subconscious winning the battle.

This then is the path presented in the Avatamsaka Sutra.

1:  Ten levels of Faith (Ten Faiths)

2:  Ten levels of Dwellings (Abodes)

3:  Ten levels of Practices (Conducts)

4:  Ten levels of Dedication (Transferences)

5:  Ten Stages or Grounds (the Bhumis which we mentioned before)

6:  A level of Equal-Enlightenment

7:  A level of Wonderful Enlightenment

8:  A level of Supreme Enlightenment (Buddhahood)

Now lest we still think that a Bodhisattva way is easy to secure, though it is doubtful that we will, let us look at the ways of a fully enlightened person. Perhaps then you can see why Bodhisattvas must continue on the path while helping all sentient creatures which the impulse released on awakening urges them to.