This evening, I’d like to talk about the Bodhisattva principle, the Bodhisattva ideal, and what this can mean in the lives that we lead.
Inevitably, it will be a personal perspective. Others who I respect in the practice – my dharma friends and siblings - will maybe express it differently. But that’s okay, because there’s also something universal that comes through within our individual expressions of it.
Zen practice is about harmonising the universal and the personal. It’s not about rejecting the personal to run away towards the universal. Nor is it about getting tangled up in the personal and its desires and dislikes that society naturally pushes us towards. It’s about harmonising these two principles within oneself. This harmonisation takes place naturally, unconsciously and automatically through the practice of Zen meditation - Zazen. It’s not something that we force to happen through our will. Rather through Zazen, we can connect with the Universal and allow it to manifest in ways in our own lives.
The Bodhisattva ideal is to encourage a movement together towards awakening, rather than seeing it as one’s own personal journey. Traditionally, the Bodhisattva is someone who says, ‘I will not step into Nirvana, into enlightenment, until all beings step together with me.’ It’s about a collective path. I use the words ‘enlightenment’ and ‘Nirvana’, which are inadequate. The words I use imply some kind of doing and getting - but from a Zen perspective, we are always already awakened, and the practice allows that awakening to manifest. This awakening manifests for the good of all, not just for one’s own personal satisfaction and one’s own personal well-being. Nonetheless, because we are part of ‘all’, then it is also for our own personal satisfaction, our own personal well-being. But not only for that.
The Bodhisattva ideal is captured in an image that’s used in sacred art in Asia. The Bodhisattva is represented as sitting on a stool with one foot firmly planted on the ground and the other foot in half-lotus. The foot on the ground represents engagement in the world of the relative. The foot in half-lotus represents engagement with and receptivity to the world of the absolute. The Bodhisattva ideal is to harmonise these two perspectives.
The question is, how does this manifest - right here, right now - in the lives that we lead, in the lives that we are given? It necessarily manifests through our own personal situation, our own personal karma, our own personal actions. So it is different for each of us. It is about letting go of one’s own personal wants and desires. Putting them to one side and allowing the actions that manifest through us to be the actions that are appropriate to the situation. It is an expression of the absolute in the system, through us in the place where we find it ourselves - more than expression of individual will.
Nonetheless, it is expressed through one’s own individual will. But at the same time letting go of personal desires, personal wishes and personal hopes. Noticing them and not taking them too seriously. We use our own power to attempt to make things happen, but endeavour to let go of at least some of our own wanting to accomplish, achieve, be better, get what we want. It’s not easy. That’s why, in Zen practice, it’s about noticing these energies. It’s about noticing the personal, the relative, the ego. Noticing the way it manifests in the moment - and through that act of noticing, it has less power.
For me personally, as I’ve got older I have stepped into more positions of responsibility and of power. In these, my practice is about finding ways to make space for others. Not only in the dojo, but also in my professional life, in my family, etc. It’s about allowing one’s energies to create space, rather than filling that space with one’s own thoughts, opinions, self. Creating space where selves can come together and struggle towards manifesting the absolute, whether we are conscious or unconscious of doing so. When our better nature arises, then some of that is manifest.
So when we take the Bodhisattva vows, we are primarily committing to two things. We commit to practice; to practice regularly; to practice with others. And we commit to practice to create spaciousness, to allow openness, to allow the universal to arise and manifest in our own life for the benefit of all, not only the benefit of oneself.
Taking the vows is to commit to putting this at the root of one’s life. The practice, and the experience that arises within practice, forms the root of one’s life. This then manifests through our friendships. Our professional relationships. Our romantic relationships. Our family relationships. And also everyday relationships such as with the person on the checkout - or even the automated machine on the checkout these days. These relationships are what net us together into what in Buddhism is called the jewelled net of Indra. It’s the relationships of the personal coming together in the absolute universal. This is what we aspire to through the Bodhisattva principle: simply manifest our local, personal aspect of this. We’re not grandiose. We don’t become the whole universe. But we reflect the universe within us in the actions that we take.