3.1 (b): The Bodhisattva Ideal

[Full title: 3.1: The concept of Mahāyāna Buddhism (b): The Bodhisattva Ideal]

The key teachings in Mahāyāna revolve around the idea of the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva is a saint like individual who has advanced along the way of cultivation. Instead of deciding to move on to the final extinction of Nirvāṇa, the Bodhisattva decides to remain in the world of samsara, of constant rebirth, in order to help others achieve enlightenment. The Bodhisattva is motivated by a strong sense of compassion (karuna), and compassion is the primary religious emotion stressed in Mahāyāna writings. In juxtaposition is wisdom (prajñā). The Bodhisattva must develop karuna and prajñā equally during the cultivation process.

As the religious way of salvation for all sentient being, Buddhism holds the appropriate vehicle (yāna) to carry them from this sorrowful earthly existence to the yonder shore. ^[1] The first possibility of salvation is provided by the vehicle of the “hearers” (srāvaka). Hearers who comprehend the Buddha’s teaching and faithfully follow it acquire salvation for themselves through contemplation (samādhi) and become saints (arhats). All the disciples of early Buddhism followed Śākyamuni on this path and entered nirvāṇa. Mention is occasionally made in the Pāli Canon of self-enlightened Buddhas (pratyekabuddhas) who attained perfect Buddhahood through their own power. The third vehicle that of the Bodhisattva, is deemed superior to the other two by Mahāyāna devotees. It alone is called “great” (mahā) and assures all sentient being of perfect salvation. On the highest authority, the Mahāyāna sūtras reveal the perfection of the Bodhisattva vehicle.

Mahāyāna doctrine developed religiously and philosophically around the Bodhisattva ideal. The term Bodhisattva signifies a “being fixed on (sakta) enlightenment,” or simply a “being (sattva) of enlightenment.”^[2]

Although perfectly enlightened and in possession of the omniscience of a Buddha, the Bodhisattva forgoes final entrance into Nirvāṇa in order to aid sentient beings on their path to enlightenment. Indeed, all sentient beings participate in the Buddha nature and are thus able to achieve perfect enlightenment. The idea of the Bodhisattva is thus related to the other basic teaching of Mahāyāna, namely that of the Buddha nature within all living things.

Were the Bodhisattvas nothing but the image of the perfect follower of the Buddha, the way to enlightenment as a Bodhisattva, the “Bodhisattva career” (bodhisattvavacaryā), could be said to correspond to the Christian way of perfection. But the Bodhisattva plays a more farreaching role in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Because Bodhisattvas aid sentient beings on the way to salvation they enjoy a cultic veneration second only to that accorded the Buddha himself. Carried off into the realm of the miraculous, their phenomenal contours often give way to the cosmic.

Total dedication to the law of the Buddha is a condition for becoming a Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva career begins with the awakening of the resolve for enlightenment (bodhiciua-utpāda) and the taking of the vow (prandhāna) to ascend tirelessly through the perfections of all the stages until supreme enlightenment is attained, in order then to assist all sentient beings in their quest for salvation. The ten stages of the Bodhisattva’s career are described in various Mahāyāna scriptures.^[3] According to the description provided in the Daśabhūmika Sutra, the level of Arhat, at which the four dhyānas have been mastered, is reached in the first six stages. From the seventh stage on, it is the Bodhisattva who carries on (dūramgamā). The peculiarity of the Bodhisattva career in Mahāyāna is evident in the practice of the ten perfect virtues (pāramitā).”^[4] Originally, only six were mentioned, the first five of which–giving (dāna), morality (śīla), patience (ksānti), energy (vīrya), and meditation (dhyāna)–were directed toward the sixth–wisdom ( prajñā)–as the goal and fruit of all spiritual striving in Mahāyāna. Later, four other perfect virtues were added and the goal became excellence of knowledge (jñāna), which connoted intellectual cognition in contrast to the more intuitive, enlightened insight of prajñā. ^[5] Through the practice of these perfections, the Bodhisattva in the seventh stage has entered the sea of omniscience. From there he ascends, through contemplation of the emptiness and unbornness of all things, to the tenth stage, that of the “Dharma clouds” (dharmameghā).Where he achieves “all forms of contemplation.” Seated on a vast lotus flower, he possesses the composure known as “the knowledge of the Omniscient One.” The sutra describes the magnificent scene of his consecration (abhiseka), where he becomes manifest as a fully enlightened Buddha. At this point, however, he does not enter nirvana, but out of great compassion descends by skillful means (upāya) from the Tusita heaven back to earth to save all sentient beings.

The concept of the Bodhisattva is many-sided and comprehensive, in Theravāda Buddhism the term is applied in a more limited way only to the final stage before attaining perfectly enlightened Buddhahood; it is applied particularly to Śākyamuni during his previous existences and during the time of the ascetic practices that preceded his attainment of the great enlightenment, in contrast, according to the fully formed doctrine of Mahāyāna, the Bodhisattva is possessed of perfected enlightenment (prajñāpāramitā, literally, “wisdom that has gone beyond”).^[6] The detailed teaching on the Bodhisattva that developed in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras is already contained in the basic text known as the Astasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra, which consists of 8,000 ślokas (thirty-two-syllable lines and whose oldest portions date back to 100 BCE).^[7]

Without perfect enlightenment, as this sūtra states, all virtues and achievements are worthless:

Even if a Bodhisattva, after he has raised his mind to full enlightenment, would, for countless aeons, give gifts, guard his morality, perfect his patience, exert his vigor, and enter the trances... if he is not upheld by perfect wisdom and lacks in skill in means, he is bound to fall on the level of Disciple (śrāvaka) or Pratyekabuddha.^[8]

The “perfection of wisdom” (prajñāpāramitā) cannot be attained without total emptiness of spirit. Unenlightened persons hear talk of “emptiness” and try to express their understanding of it in signs, but the Bodhisattva is one who has “gained the path of emptiness” and “coursed in the signless.”^[9] The perfection of wisdom is beyond all concepts and words. But above all, the Bodhisattvas, who “find rest in one thought” (eka-citta-prasādam), are freed from all bondage to the ego. Their spirit is hampered neither by the concept of Dharma nor by its non-concept. Bodhisattvas do not grasp at ideas, they cling to nothing; their perfected knowledge is empty. This is the essence of supreme wisdom: “The Bodhisattva should stand in perfect wisdom through standing in emptiness.”^[10]

Although Bodhisattvas see through the emptiness of all things, they do not renounce the world, but rather renounce entry into nirvāṇa in order to work for the salvation of all sentient beings. They keep close to the “boundary line of reality” (bhūta-koti), without either taking so much as a single step into nirvana or continuing to cling to the unenlightened restlessness of samsāra. Aware of the nothingness of all things and the ultimate irrelevance of every spiritual effort, they nevertheless work ceaselessly for the benefit of all that lives. “This logic of contradiction,” D. T. Suzuki says, “is what may be called the dialectics of prajñā.”

It is not by chance that Suzuki dedicates the greater part of the third volume of his Essays in Zen Buddhism to a field marked off by the notions of prajñā and the Bodhisattva.^[11] There he finds the sources of Zen Buddhist enlightenment. For Suzuki, the psychology of the Bodhisattva is one of the greatest mysteries in the life of the spirit. He describes its “inbetween” attitude in similes and paradoxes reminiscent of Zen literature. The Bodhisattva “holds a spade in his hands and yet the tilling of the ground is done by him empty-handed. He is riding on the back of a horse, and yet there is no rider in the saddle and no horse under it. He passes over a bridge, and it is not the water that flows, but the bridge.” ^[12] The bond between enlightened insight (prajñā) and compassion (karunā) allows the Bodhisattva to strive continually for ever greater insight while at the same time working for the welfare of all sentient beings. Suzuki uses paradox to explain his understanding of this way of life: “It is like a master of archery shooting one arrow after the other into the air: he can keep all the arrows in the air because each one supports the one that went before. He does this for as long as he wishes.” ^[13] In such a description of the Bodhisattva way the proximity of prajñā to Zen enlightenment is unmistakable.

The ideal of the Bodhisattva stems from the Indian spirit, for which images, desires, wishes, and vows are as much realities as are humans and their deeds. This form–between Buddha and human, neither male nor female–is the product of creative fantasy. With their enlightened insight the Bodhisattvas embody the Great Compassion (mahākarunā). The attraction this image had for the common people proved enormous, in Mahāyāna Buddhism Bodhisattvas became the highly revered divinities of salvation for all errant humankind. Their compassion and miraculous power soon came to be esteemed more highly than the enlightened wisdom that was the source of their salvific acts.

Over the centuries, the concept of the Bodhisattva was broadened. In addition to the heavenly enlightened beings, great historical personalities like Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga were designated and honored as Bodhisattvas. In the end all holy, enlightened individuals, lay or monk, were referred to as Bodhisattvas because of their great knowledge and compassion. Yet the distinction between these three types of Bodhisattvas has remained in religious consciousness. In cultic devotion heavenly enlightened beings and historical personalities do not stand on the same level.

The Bodhisattva ideal has wrought a persistent influence on the whole of Buddhism, particularly in the dhyāna, where it has borne rich fruit. Even today, the vows of the Bodhisattva play an important role in the life of the dhyāna disciple.

They are pronounced at the very beginning of the journey and repeated constantly throughout the long years of practice:

However innumerable the sentient beings, I vow to save them all.

However inexhaustible the passions, I vow to extinguish them all.

However immeasurable the dharmas, I vow to master them all.

However incomparable the truth of the Buddha, I vow to attain it. ^[14]

In the last of the four vows, the initiates bind themselves to supreme enlightenment. By their omniscience, Bodhisattvas dwell in the realm of the Absolute. The dhyāna disciples commit themselves to follow the way of the Bodhisattva, whose goal is supreme enlightenment. In striving for this goal the image of the Bodhisattva is ever before them. Not a few Bodhisattvas are mentioned, and their fortunes vividly described, in Mahāyāna literature. The supernatural world is teeming with Bodhisattvas and heavenly beings. The dhyāna students are especially familiar with the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (Jpn., Monju) whose statue is to be found in every the dhyāna hall. The Bodhisattvas Avalokiteśvara (Jpn., Kannon), Ksitigarbha (Jpn., Jizō) and Maitreya (Jpn., Miroku), the Buddha of the future who is still tarrying in the Bodhisattva state, hold an important place in Japanese Zen. All these figures are objects of cultic veneration, but more important, they represent for Zen followers the incarnation of the Bodhisattva ideal.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Mahāyāna doctrine names the three vehicles: of hearers (śravaka), of those awakened for themselves alone (pratyekabuddha), and of enlightened beings (bodhisattva).

[2]:

Zen Buddhism: A History, Op. Cit., p. 29.

[3]:

The fullest treatment appears in the Daśabhūmika Sūtra, one of the Avataṃsaka sūtras. A piece of the same title in the Mahāvastu explains the ten stages (bhūmi) of the bodhisartva course from a Theravāda point of view. The two logographs of the title of the Mahāvastu in its Chinese translation literally mean “great deed” or “great event,” referring to the enlightenment of Śākyamuni. On the doctrine of the bodhisatrva ideal, see the massive Japanese work Dajjō bosatsudō no kenkyū (Studies on the Way of the Bodhisattva in Mahāyāna), edited by Nishi Yoshio (Kyoto, 1968).

[4]:

There is a list of ten perfect virtues in the Pãli Canon that differs from the ten perfect virtues of Mahāyāna.

[5]:

W. E. Soothill and L. Hodous, A Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms (London, 1937), p. 51. The Chinese characters of the transcription of the two Sanskrit terms point in the same direction.

[6]:

Zen Buddhism: A History p. 30.

[7]:

E. Conze, The Prajñāpāramitā Literature (The Hague, 1960), pp. 51-57.

[8]:

E. Conze. (trans.) The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and its Verse Summary, (Bolinas, Cal., 1975), 16:311, p. 196.

[9]:

E. Conze, The Perfection of Wisdom, 16:310, p. 195.

[10]:

Ibid. 2:35, p. 97. Also cited by Dīgha-Nikāya T. Suzuki in his Studies in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (London, 1930), p. 95.

[11]:

Dīgha-Nikāya T. Suzuki. Essay in Zen Buddhism, Vol. II., Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 2005, p. 75.

[12]:

Following Suzuki’s free translation in Essay in Zen Buddhism, Vol. III, p. 325.

[13]:

Dīgha-Nikāya T. Suzuki 2005: p. 268.

[14]:

Zen Buddhism: A History p. 32.