BA Mahayana Buddhism

Carmen Cochior - Plescanu

SOAS Ref. Number: 221618

Course Code: 158000037

Course Teacher: Tadeusz

Skorupski

Faculty of Arts and

Humanities

Department of the Study of

Religions

Analyse the Bodhisattva’s archetypal symbolism in the historical

and doctrinal context of Mahayana

“We should prostrate ourselves in veneration of the bodhisattvas,through acts of salvation and acceptance; cover all living beingswith their influence. Who could deny that this is the attainmentof the marrow of the truth?” Shobogenzo

1

The intellectual excellence, psychological refinement and the

mystical inspiration embodied in the Bodhisattvic archetype,

arouse continuous fascinations among the Buddhist scholars. This

paper represents a modest and thoughtful attempt to depict the

Bodhisattva ideal spiritual which I could only approach and

examine with the same fascination an artist regards its model.

It is of great responsibility and complexity to “sketch the

portrait of a Buddha”, taking into consideration the fundamental

philosophical axiomatic discrepancies between the Orient and the

Occident.

Two of the exemplifying interfering factors are that of

linguistic compatibility and of the interpretative concepts.

Agehananda Bharati explains that “it could be objected that

contemporary occidental philosophy may be unequal to the task of

providing adequate terminology for Indian thought patterns”, due

to an “anti-metaphysical, anti-systematic, and anti-idealistic”1

predilection in analytical thinking. Furthermore, we do not poses

yet a unitary vision about the historical metamorphosis of the

Mahayana, due to its complex dynamics and nor a full ontological

2

understanding of the Buddhist discourse, which was often labelled

as paradoxical and contradictory by the Western thinkers. While

contemporary occidental thinking is stigmatized by such

etiquette, whether it is philosophy or studies of religion, the

present attempt is one of following the logic of the predecessors

in the Buddhist studies for whom the “truth-seeking” dictum was

elemental to their work.

In order to arrive at the core of the inner philosophical and

psychological significance of the Bodhisattva as epitome of

spiritual awakening, I will attempt to explore it within the

historical, doctrinal, social narratives and the religious

milieu. The intent is to contextualize the bodhisattvic motif in

the historical frame, rather than employ a rigid scholastic

chronological detailing. The concern of the second division of

the essay is regarding the mystic tradition of the Bodhisattva,

the practices of meditation, of rapture and awakening, of

ascetism, contextualized in the universe of the Mahayanist

discipline and theology.

3

1. Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition, Riders Books, Guernsey Press Company, 1970, Preface, p. 11Any attempt we make in order to portray the bodhisattva as

central model of the utmost spiritual attainments, one is

naturally drawn to the nucleus of the Buddhist spirituality,

represented by the historical Buddha Gautama himself. Siddharta

Gautama gained identity as a Buddha after embracing the

aspiration of a spiritual path, culminating with awakening to the

universal and the eternal happiness, uncorrupted by the

sufferings of birth, illness, old age and death - which he later

postulated in what is known as the Noble Path.

“Buddha’s teaching was not a massive and monolithic dogmatic

structure” as the scholar Paul Williams asserts, but rather an

effective instrument, precise and subtle in the “aid of the

spiritual quest of all beings”2. As such, all religious and

philosophical schools which emerged after Buddha’s physical

dissolution were not single unitary phenomena. Searching behind

the linguistic unities, such as the Old Vehicle Hinayana, the

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Great Vehicle Mahayana or the “psycho-experimental”3 Vajrayana,

we discover a “common shared heritage of meditative practices and

ideas”4.

2. Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: the doctrinal foundations, Ch. Doctrinal diversity and moral unity, Routlege, 2004, p. 33. 1.Agehananda Bharati, The Tantric Tradition, Ch. Vajrayana, Riders Books, Guernsey Press Company, 1970, Preface, p. 214. Ibid 2, Ch. A preliminary study on meditation and the beginnings of MahayanaBuddhism, Soka University, Tokio Japan 2002, by Florin Deleanu

A historical journey towards the inception of the Mahayanic

tradition

The introspection into the dynamics of the history of Mahayana is

meant to emphasize the context in which the tradition was

established, particularly its configuration around the central

image of the Bodhisattva. It is not meant as a detailed

5

historical account, but as a descriptive narrative and an

extraction of the main historical sequences which are

representative in the examination of the topic.

The lack of unanimity among historians and religious experts

regarding the construct of the Mahayana tradition is due to two

and a half thousand years of religious and doctrinal developments

and social phenomena, such as absorption by Hinduism in India or

tendency to syncretism in the indigenous cultures. Little early

Mahayana literature is preserved in Indian languages (and most of

the extant works date from late sixteenth to seventeenth century

Nepalese manuscripts) 5. Thus any attempt to appreciate the

accurate dimension of the Mahayana dynamics in time, directs us

towards the large scriptural corpus preserved in Chinese and

Tibetan.

Reginald Ray in his work “Buddhist Saints in India: a Study in

Buddhist Values and Orientation”, assumes that out of the summum

of evidence, there must have existed two geographical Mahayana

cradles, specifically the northwest of India, Gandhara, a

6

monastic tradition, and the southeast, Andhra Pradesh,

respectively nonmonastic.

5. Alex Wayman, Untying the knots of Buddhism: selected essays, Ch. Date and Eraof the Buddha, Buddhist Tradition Series, 1997, p. 20

Early Mahayana could have initially developed in the Southeast as

nonmonastic tradition and later undergone a process of

monasticization and emerged as a monastic movement in the

Northwest, as reflected in the evidence brought forward by

Lamotte.6

Reginald Ray suggests that a self-conscious Mahayana identity

arose late in history, facilitated by institutionalization and

scholasticism, which helped galvanize the two main features of

the Mahayana tradition: firstly the cult of the Bodhisattva-

Buddha and secondly a unique institutional-monastic form7. It is

clear that all substantial historical evidence indicate that the

Mahayana of the forest was the primal configuration, “entirely

nonmonastic in character” 8, where the ascetic yogis, the

7

bodhisattvas simply continue a normative forest ideal established

by the Buddha, which they regarded as the highest teaching:

“For them, this is the original bodhisattva Buddhism, and they

understand it as nothing other than original Buddhism in its most

quintessential form [...] This way of looking at the evidence

suggests that of the various forms of the early Mahayana, the

forest saint in classical configuration is structurally the

simplest and probably historically the oldest.” 9

6. Reginald Ray, Buddhist Saints in India: A study in Buddhist values andorientation, Ch. Buddhist Saints in India, Oxford University Press, 2007,p.4077. Ibid 6, p.4168.Daniel Boucher, Bodhisattvas of the forest and the formation of the Mahayana,A study and translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra, Studies in theBuddhist Traditions, University of the Hawai’i Press, Honolulu,2008, Introduction VII9. Ibid 6 p. 406Bechert Heinz, who places the death of Buddha one century later

than the usual historical calculations , 370-368 BC, and thus

shortening the period between Buddha’s death and Ashoka’s reign,

suggests that the significant tradition of that will be later

8

labelled as Mahayana, was constituted under the contacts between

the laity (the secular arm) and the monastic order: “it is from

the time of Ashoka that the forces issuing in the Mahayana,

forces for an alternative conception of the spiritual path and

goal, begin to crystallize.”10 Etinenne Lamotte sustains this

theory when exposits that the Maurian period and particularly

that of Ashoka, marks the golden age of Buddhism.11

The Bodhisattva ideal is intimately associated with the

formation of the Mahayanic tradition; an interesting piece of

evidence on the early presence of the Bodhisattva motif is

written in Ashoka’s Eight Rock Edict: “In the past kings were set

out (nikkhamisu) on pleasure trips (viharayatta) ...but when king

Devanampiya Piyadassi had been anointed ten years he set out for

Sambodhi”. The interpretation of Leslie S. Kawamura, sheds light

upon the archaic and somehow cryptic language of the text: “The

aim of Ashoka’s resolve is not Nirvana, a concept nowhere

occurring in the Ashokan inscriptions, but Sambodhi, or

enlightenment. In this it corresponds to the Mahayana

Bodhisattva, who did not strive directly from Nirvana but rather

9

from Sambodhi, employing the merit, wisdom and power he had

accumulated from the welfare of other beings.”12

10. Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: the doctrinal foundations, Ch. Doctrinal diversity and moral unity, Routlege, 2004, p. 911. Ibid 10, p.1112 Leslie S. Kawamura, The Bodhisattva doctrine in Buddhism, Ch. Basham/Evolution (India), Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion,1981, p27The second temporal progression within the Mahayana tradition is

emblematic by what is named as “the decline of the Dharma”,

according to Edward Conze 13 200 BCE onwards, when the ideal of

forest renunciation is progressively abandoned and substituted by

“other lifestyles and preoccupations, including an emphasis on

pure behaviour, the scholarly study of the texts and worldly

involvements”. 14

The early Buddhist eschatology is a prolifically cultivated in

the pascimakala corpus of texts; the discourse on the decline of

the Dharma meticulously describes all the negative

transformations which Buddhism will undergo. Under the mundane

motivations and degraded behaviour, the renunciant will suffer

10

detachment from the concerns of the original tradition of

meditation and realization, as it is evoked in the Parapariya, a

song which echoes this theme:

“In this song, Parapatiya laments the change that is occurring

among Buddhist renunciants as the forest renunciant life is being

overshadowed and gradually eclipsed by settled monasticism.For

Parapariya, this is the time for evil characteristics and

defilements. He says, moreover, ‘because of the complete

annihilation of good characteristics and wisdom, the conqueror’s

teaching, endowed with all excellent qualities, is destroyed’.”

15

History, philosophy and mythology are mingling, revealing

laboriously crafted Mahayana, as an alternative conception of the

spiritual path and as a supreme alchemical transmutation of the

impure existence into the gold of enlightenment.

13. Reginald Ray, Buddhist Saints in India: A study in Buddhist values andorientation, Ch. Buddhist Saints in India, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.41914. .Reginald Ray, Buddhist Saints in India: A study in Buddhist values andorientation, Ch. Buddhist Saints in India, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.95

11

15. Ibid 14, p. 41

The doctrinal origins of the archetypal hero

The exposition which deals with the Bodhisattvic doctrine is

emphasizing the main features which revolutionized and reshaped

the interpretation of the Buddhist doctrine. The analogy between

the two models of spiritual attainments, the Bodhisattva and the

Arhat is explored in order to punctuate their subtle intimacy and

a second emphasis is put on the social aspects - the relation

between laity and renunciant monks - which reshaped and

determined the doctrinary shift within the Buddhist tradition.

What Paul Williams denoted as the “multiform religious

phenomena”16, Mahayana, traces its origins from the Dharma, or

the corpus of teachings inherited from the “Awakened One”. This

time the Dharma, or the Law set forth by the Buddha, was to be

interpreted in its spirit rather than in the letter: “Mahayana

portrays the Doctrine not as series of tenets to be accepted or

rejected but as medicine; it emphasises on compassion and

12

bodhicitta which led to a pragmatic view of the truth in

mindfulness of the cultural presuppositions.”17

In the Mahayana view, Buddha becomes a path in itself, whose

status has been changed – his death is regarded as a mere

appearance and out of compassion he remains to help the suffering

sentient beings:

16. 2. Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: the doctrinal foundations, Ch. Doctrinal diversity and moral unity, Routlege, 2004, p. 117. Ibid 16, p.2

“Beeing in all respects supramundane (lokkotara), hismanifestation in this world is an illusory phantom: what seems tobe a human teacher is a kind of mind formed apparition, whichbeing adapted to worldly conditions (lokanuvartana) and out ofconsideration for the limitations of the human mind, feigns to beborn, to suffer, to decay and to die, whilst preaching a doctrinewhich, essentially being a therapy (pratipaksa) is infinitelyvariegated to suit the various needs and various levels ofunderstanding of the hearers.”18

Mahayana strongly distinguishes through the great importance it

shows towards a “continuing Buddha”, which is personified in the

attribute of the Bodhisattva: “To set forth the path of Buddha as

the ultimate aspiration for all seems to be uniquely a Mahayana

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conception”.19 The quintessence Bodhisattvahood is not a mere

mimetic re-enactment of Buddha’s life, but adaptation to the

circumstances and conditions demanded by the ever revolving

“Wheel of Suffering”. The Bodhisattvas “put their Buddhist body

into practice; in an instant they totally transcend the limits of

experience and understanding; they sit erect as king of the Bodhi

tree; in one moment, they turn the great Dharma – wheel which is

the equalled state of equilibrium; and they expound the ultimate,

unadorned and profound state of prajna.”20 The Bodhisattva

represents the embodiment, through the practice of compassion and

the altruistic motivation, of a benevolent father of all living

beings: ”Seeing sentient beings afflicted and unhappy, tormented

by birth, sickness, old age and death, they prepare a boat of the

Dharma in order to ferry the world over the ocean of

existence.”21

18. Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist conquest of China: the spread and adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, Ch.The conversion of the barbarians, Brill Publications, 2007, p. 30919. Ibid 16, p. 2520. Heinrich Robert Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, Philosophies of India, Ch.The Way of the Bodhisattva, Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 552

14

21. Heinrich Robert Zimmer, Joseph Campbell, Philosophies of India, Ch.Buddhism, Princeton University Press, 1989, p. 542The linguistic terminology employed to designate the entity of

Mahayana has been long debated among the Buddhist scholars. The

rigorist interpretation such as “superior” for Mahayana in

contrast to the “inferior” for Hinayana, was originally promoted

during the internal development of rival Buddhist traditions of

interpretation and practice. The emergence of Mahayana was

thought of as leading to a major schism, a radical break from the

old tradition. In fact, one can rather speak of an emergent

evolution, a natural process in which the old values are

upgradated, refined and adapted to the new historical realities.

Many Buddhist scholars subscribed to the idea of an early

Mahayana schism, perpetuating the myth of the irresolute

consensus between two authentic religious-historical constructs,

ombilically tied to the same origin:

“In the academic study of Buddhism the terms Mahayana andHinayana are often set in contradiction to each other and the twovehicles are described as having different aspirations, teachingsand practices. The distinctions made between the Mahayana and theHinayana, however, force the schools into neat, isolated andindependent categories that often undermine the complexities thatexist concerning their beliefs, ideologies and practices.” 22

15

Mahayana - Hinayana dichotomy has been preserved in the

theoretical models that identify Mahayana Buddhism with the

bodhisattva-yana and Hinayana Buddhism with the sravaka-yana.. The

Bodhisattva postulates a model of spiritual practice for the

benefit of all sentient beings and “through this kind of

practice, one arrives not only at the experience of the

egolessness of the self or the individual but also the

egolessness of all phenomena, the complete experience of shunyata,

and therefore there is a difference as to the level of possible

accomplishment which merits this term Mahayana (superior vehicle)

being used”.23

______________________________________________________________________________22. Jeffrey Samuels, The bodhisatt va ideal in Theravada Buddhist theory and practice: a reevaluation of the Bodhisattva- Sravaka opposition, University Hawaii Press, 1997, p. 39923. Kalu Rinpoche, Foundations of the Tibetan Buddhism, Snow Lion Publication, 2004, p.16The subtlety of this explanation demystifies the often invoked,

over-simplified contradiction between the Arthatship and

Bodhisattvahood; it is not the qualitative factor that segregates

the two aspects in a manicheist sense, but rather a subtle

dissimilarity in regards of the temporal trajectory required to

16

“attainment of complete enlightenment” and “the ability of the

practitioner of any of these yanas or levels of practice to be

effective in helping others as well”.24

Furthermore, H. H. Kalu Rinpoche explains in the “Foundation of

the Tibetan Buddhism” that the relation between the two

typologies is a more profound and complex, if regarded from an

absolute perspective. He expounds a particularly intriguing and

fascinating theory regarding the figures in the lineage of the

early spread of the Buddhadharma , who even regarded as figures

of Hinayanic realization ,ultimately speaking were very advanced

Bodhisattvas manifesting in a particular form such as Mahayana

individuals, exemplifying this particular model of this spiritual

practice for the benefit of those people who found it easier to

relate to this kind of model.

“The awareness behind that expression was really much moreadvanced, much more profound than one might assume, looking atthe surface and taking these simply to be Arhats. In fact itwould seem that there was far greater realization and experiencebehind that which was expressing itself in the choice to manifestin a form which beings at that time and in those circumstancesfound beneficial.”25

17

Beyond the intellectual and theological climate that the Mahayana

evolved in, it is vital to also to emphasis the social milieu

which illustrates the relation of reciprocity between the monks

and the laity, of their mutual engagement in altruistic

activities.

24. Ibid 23, p. 1725. Ibid 23, p.18

According to Daniel Boucher, the spirit of Bodhisattvahood was “a

reactionary critique of sedentary monasticism in favour of a

return to the wilderness dwelling”: “All former Buddhas, the

Illuminators, took pleasure in the domain of the wilderness [when

they sought] the supreme, unexcelled state that is difficult to

obtain.”26

Etienne Lamotte brings forth a theory that the origins of

Mahayana “can be traced to the activities of the lay people, a

lay revolt against the arrogance and pretentiousness of the

monks.”27 The laity, endowed with the central assignment of social

18

and religious engagement and responsibility, has articulated the

lay order of Bodhisattvas. The intimately affiliated actors of

the early Mahayana movement, are represented by the lay

bodhisattva or the domesticated monk and the renunciant

bodhisattva: “The Mahayana Sutras were clearly the product of

monks, albeit monks whose vision of the Dharma embraced the

aspiration of the laity, and who used lay figures in the Sutras

to embody a critique of other monks seen as elitist or perhaps

ultra-conservative.”28 The renunciant Bodhisattva becomes the new

religious goal advocated for all Buddhist practitioners, a

resounding response to the “unbridled, haughty, proud,

disrespectful, arrogant, abounding in avarice, overcome with

defilement, callous and attached to property - persons very far

indeed from the highest enlightenment.” 29

26. Ibid 8, p.14727. Ibid 16, p.2028. Ibid 16, p. 2329. Ibid 8, p 143

19

Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra, a Buddhist text circulating in India

during the first half of the first millennium BC, depicts the

ascetic career and forest life as a normative for the

Bodhisattva, established by the Buddha, “to subvert their co-

religionists whose behaviour they regarded as a degenerate

version of the Mainstream tradition”30:

“A Bodhisattva Mahasattva dwells detached who passes his days andnights dwelling in this sort of detachment. If BodhisattvaMahasattva dwells in this state in lodgings in the hinterlands,abiding in the wilderness or forest, or in a mountain caves orcemeteries, that Bodhisattva Mahasattva dwells detached. ”31

The Jataka tales are a record of Buddha’s own bodhisattva career;

the sequence of tales of his former lives in pursuit of

enlightenment represented a immense inspiration for all who were

to embrace his noble ideal: “The Bodhisattva doctrine bears this

stamp of development: in the course of his inconceivably long

pilgrimage towards Enlightenment the future Buddha acquires the

power to adapt his doctrine to the special circumstances and the

mental characteristics of the persons to be converted.”32

Wilderness dwelling and reclusion becomes a strategy in the

practice of altruism and meditative discipline, a sine qua non of

20

spiritual cultivation (bhavana): “Many Mahayana sutras gave

evidence of a hard core ascetic attempt to return to the original

inspiration of Buddhism, the search for Buddhahood or awakened

condition” 33

30. Ibid 8, xiv31. Ibid 8, p.5732. Erik Zürcher, The Buddhist conquest of China: the spread and adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China, Ch. The conversion of the barbarians, Brill Publications, 2007, p. 30933. Ibid 4, p. 26

The appellation “rhinoceros”, is an often utilized metaphor to

symbolize the forest dweller bodhisattva and which, according to

Donald Frederick Lach, is also a metaphorical extension of

Buddha’s exemplar “pious reclusion”34: “He lives alone like a

rhinoceros; he is ever fearless like a lion. There is no abode in

the entire world for one who always seeks gnosis on the path

toward enlightenment.”35 Mahayana sutras gave evidence that at

the core of its formation there lie the ascetic attempt to return

at the original inspiration of Buddhism, the search for

Buddhahood or for the awakened condition. The archetypal

Bodhisattva manifests the aura of saviourship, exercising a self-

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assertive effort to become purified and perfected, his discipline

being entirely devoted to the universal benefit. As the scholar

Chogyam Trungpa articulates, the Bodhisattva “out of pity for the

sufferings of being in the ten directions - the deva world, the

world of gods, the asura (Titan) world, the human world, the

animal world, the world of pretas (the tantalized ghosts) and the

hells, he offers himself completely to save all those suffering

from agonies”.36

From the forest hermit who sublimated his lives in pursuit of the

Perfection of Wisdom, to the celestial maha-bodhisattvas such as

Amitabha or Avalokiteshvara (Mahayana cultic embodiments of

perfected beings), the Bodhisattva represents a quality in itself

rather than a doctrinarian nomenclature, a quality of having

conquered “the world root, the secret veiled reality of

indestructible diamond hardness”.37

34. Donald Frederick Lach, Asia in the making of Europe, Ch. India, TheUniversity of Chicago Press, 1998, p.38435. Ibid 6, An annotated translation of the Ratrapalapariprccha-sutra, p. 126

22

36. Chogyam Trungpa, The Collected Works of Chögyam Trungpa, Volume1,Ch. Crazy Wisdom, Shambala Publications, 2004, p.9837. Ibid 20, p.549

The mystical tradition of the Bodhisattva

The exposition which is aimed to explore in details the

Bodhisattva ideal, consists of interwoven parts laid into a

holistic scheme of presentation, due to a concentration rather on

the symbolic meaning of the topic than on the detailed linguistic

and religious technicalities: the Bodhisattva salvic mission, the

compassion and emptiness attained through the practice of

perfection of wisdom, the qualities which the Bodhisattva

embodies, and lastly the practices he engages in the pursue and

mastery of the utmost attainments.

Prajnaparamita, The Perfection of Wisdom, known as the second turn

of the wheel of Dharma, represents a religio-philosophical corpus

of Mahayana literature, which unfolds the fundamental concepts of

the Mahayanic ideology around the bodhisattva leitmotif. The

Prajnaparamita texts can be regarded as a combination of discursive

reflection and mystical realization, but maybe more strikingly

about its content, is “the exalted exposition of the new

23

cognitive mode of Bodhisattvahood, which ensures the attainment

of the supreme awakening”38:

“Good friends, the Mahaprajnaparamita is the most honoured, thesupreme, the foremost. It does not stay, it does not leave, nordoes it come, and all the Buddhas of the three worlds issue fromit. With great wisdom it leads to the other shore and destroysthe passions and the troubles of the five skandhas. Since it ismost honoured, the supreme, the foremost, if you praise thesupreme Dharma and practice according to it, you will certainlybecome a Buddha. Not leaving, not staying, not going or coming,with the identity of wisdom and meditation, and unstained in allthings, the various Buddhas of the three worlds issue forth fromit, and change the three poisons into discipline, meditation andwisdom. ” 39

38. Ibid 2, p.4939. Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Ch. ThePlatform Sutra, Columbia University Press, 1996, p148Before embarking of the analysis of the philosophical ideas

regulated in the Prajnaparamita, I would subtract an idea which is

essential and definitory in what regards the understanding of the

concept of Bodhisattva: the “full awakening” paradigm versus the

“salvic mission”.

The legend of the personification of the greatest Mahayana ideal,

the Maha-Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, extracts the essential

24

prospectus of the bodhisattvahood, that of delaying the entrance

to Nirvana or attaining Buddhahood (anuttarasamyaksambodhi) out of

immense compassion for the sufferings endured by all living

beings:

“His legend recounts that when, following a series of eminentlyvirtuous incarnations he was about to enter into the surcease ofnirvana, an uproar, like a sound of a general thunder, rose inall the worlds. The great being knew that this was a wail oflament uttered by all created things: by rocks and stones as wellas trees, insects, gods, animals, demons and human beings of allspheres of the universe- at the prospect of his imminentdeparture from the realm of birth. And so, in his compassion, herenounced for himself the boon of nirvana until all beingswithout exception should be prepared to enter in before him –like the good shepherd who permits his flock to pass fistthrough the gate and then goes through himself , closing itbehind him.”40

Thus, the mission of the Bodhisattva is to spiritually train

towards this ideal of universal salvation and towards the

attainment of Buddhahood, but attentive not to compromise the

former with a too premature accomplishment of the latter, as

written in the Astasahasrika Sutra:”the Bodhisattva should only

become familiar with them [samadhis] but he most not prematurely

realize (saksat-kr) them, he must not ‘fall’ (pat) into them”.41

25

40. Ibid 20, p.53441. Ibid 2, Ch. Mahayana Buddhism, p. 38For the Bodhisattvas, the requirements of this severe attitude

are severe not only in the quest of understanding the real nature

of his pure phenomenal personality, but also in the sense that he

carries within the responsibility of his own practice of the

perfection of wisdom for the universal benefit.

“So therefore the Bodhisattvas deliberately (this has apsychological implication) gives up the desire to become aBuddha, to become a perfected person, the desire to practicemindfulness and the desire to work and meditate in his ownpersonal way – he gives up completely; so whatever he doesbecomes for others.”42

The Bodhisattva’s paradoxical combination of attainment of the

perfection of wisdom- (prajna-paramita), the wisdom of the Sugatas

(sugatana-prajna) or the omniscience (sarvajnata) - and the non

departure is what is called by the scholar Michael Pye “the great

transformation”: “because of skilful means it outweighs the merit

which can be achieved by a Bodhisattva’s cultivation of giving

and because this transformation achieved by a Bodhisattva is what

is ensured by the prajnaparamita.”43

26

It is out of compassion (karuna) that the Bodhisattva assumes so

many forms to assist the ones afflicted by desire, fear, pain or

ignorance; the candidate of such knowledge is the one who

trespasses the dualistic understanding “by the way of truth

revealing acts.”44

42. Ibid 36, p. 45343. Michael Pye, Skilful Means: a concept in the Mahayana Buddhism, Routlege2003, p.10344. Ibid 43, p. 105

Compassion and wisdom, amalgamate as in a spiritual chemistry

with “nameless, absolute, unchanging, stainless, without

beginning or end, like space” non dual voidness45, as Akira

Hirakawa writes in his work “A history of Indian Buddhism: from

Śākyamuni to early Mahāyāna”: “The wisdom specified in

prajnaparamita is the wisdom of emptiness and nonsubtantiality,

through which the practitioner clings to nothing and is bound by

nothing”. 46

27

The Bodhisattva not only realizes the emptiness of mind, but he

also carries this realisation of intangibility of self and of the

mind, to all experiences and phenomena, as mere manifestations of

the empty mind and equally intangible. In the Prajnaparamita

literature such as the Heart Sutra one could find references to

the complete experience of shunyata such as:”There are no eyes,

there is no nose, there are no ears, there is no tongue, there is

no body, there is no form, there is no sound, there is no smell,

there is no taste, there is no touch [...]”47

According to Kalu Rinpoche, the Bodhisattva’s spiritual practice

is essentialized in these two aspects of bodhicitta (enlightened

attitude): the absolute through the understanding of the

emptiness of mind and all phenomena, and the conventional or

relative through the love and compassion which is generated

toward other beings.”48

46. Akira Hirakawa, Paul Groner, A history of Indian Buddhism fromSakyamuni to early Mahayana, Ch. Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, University ofHawaii Press, 1993, p. 27847. Ibid 23, p. 1348. Ibid 23, p. 15

28

Akira Hirakawa, explains the apparent paradox of the ontological

scheme of “relative-absolute truths” when he illustrates that

“what is transcendental is beyond any conceptualization and thus

absolute and which cannot be deciphered unless one uses the

mental instruments we deal with, within the relative sphere of

thinking and consequently of experiencing:”The Buddha’s

enlightenment is complete in and of itself; words cannot

accurately describe it. Thus, the Buddha’s enlightenment must be

explained by describing its causes, the Bodhisattva practices

that result in enlightenment and Buddhahood”.49

The Bodhisattva does not reject the relative aspect which is

postulated by the mind, but rather uses it as instrument in

practice, until its very own existence becomes understood in its

absolute emptiness and transcended. The absolute and the relative

are the two natures (rupa) of all phenomena. As described by

Prajnakaramati, in his commentary on the Bodhicaryavatara (the

Sanskrit text written by the Buddhist monk Shantideva), the

superimposed nature (relative) is inspired by ignorance and could

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not constitute the means for gaining liberation from the

impurities, where the non-superimposed (absolute) nature (tattva),

is gained through “nonperception” and is conducive to the

destruction of impurities and ignorance”. 50

49. Ibid 46, p. 236

50. Tadeusz Skorupski, Article The different categories of emptiness (Sunyata)

The highest attainments of the Bodhisattva’s practice, namely the

six perfections - stages the being engaged on the path of

enlightenment should accomplish, are laid down in the Avatamsaka

Sutra: generosity (dana), morality (sila), patience (kshanti),

exertion (virya), meditative stability (dhyana) and wisdom

(prajna), to which the authors of this specific sutra added four

more aspects to it respectively skill in means (upaya), vows

(pranidhana), strength (bala), and knowledge (jnana).

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If the first two of the paramitas, according to Kalu Rinpoche,

constitute the deportment of the Hinayana, then the last two,

meditation and wisdom reflect the view of Mahayana.51 The fusion

of dhyana and prajna is spiritually experienced by the bodhisattva

rather than understood purely theoretical. This binary design may

echo the relation between the ensatic meditation (samatha) and

the observational meditation (vipasyana), which Mahayana has

portrayed as being the sate of perfect balance and harmony.

Dhyana, according to Florin Deleanu, “can help the Bodhisattva

swallow the medicine of prajna”, the adjuvant in his mission of

austerities and severe spiritual training, while transgressing

the realm of desire (kamadhatu).52 The “ones to become a Buddha”

must master both dhyanas and samapattis (which are somewhat

equivalent in meaning) in order to attain the four consciousness

attainments: the consciousness of infinity of space, the

consciousness of the infinity of cognition, the concern with the

unreality of things and the consciousness of unreality as the

object of thought.

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51. Ibid 23, p. 1652. Ibid. 4 p.33

We may speak of a psychological virtuosity of those whose essence

(sattva) is enlightenment (bodhi). The practice of continuing

abdication or non-experience of the ego, in a view of absolute

wisdom incorporated through numberless lives, characterizes this

absolutely unconditioned being. Through these accumulated powers

the Bodhisattva elevates himself in a “spiritual sphere of

universal omnipotence, flashing forth for the benefit for all who

ask” 53

The nature of the truth that the practitioner attains, the

perfected state or the Buddha-gnosis, transcends the words and

resists the arguments of the reason; thus we find ourselves in a

conceptual vacuum, where solely the language of the metaphor,

which is the language of religion, can resonate as in the

mystical passage from the Prajnaparamita-hridaya-sutra:

“The wisdom of the Other Shore is the great magic formula, a

magic formula of great wisdom, the most excellent magical

formula, capable of allaying every suffering. It is truth because

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is not falsehood. A magic formula it is given in the wisdom of

the Other Shore. It sounds as follows: ‘O though art gone, who

art gone, who art gone to the other shore, who has landed on the

Other Shore, o thou enlightenment, hail’”. 54

The formulation resembles to a magical incantation, potent and

vibrant, which invokes the spirit of the truth and of the “great

transformation” encountered once arrived on the Other Shore, on

the sacred territory within.

53. Ibid 20, p. 54054. Ibid 20, p.542

The sutra also portrays the spiritual hero who through a

ceaseless ‘exercitia spiritualia’, becomes himself the mystical

vessel to hold the essence of perfection of wisdom:

“There are no obstacles of thought for the Bodhisattva whocleaves to the Wisdom of the Other Shore. Because there are noobstacles of thought, he has no fear. He has transcended allwrong notions; he abides in enduring nirvana All the Buddha of

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the present, past and of the future, cleaving to the Wisdom ofthe Other Shore, has awakened to the highest, perfect, completeawakening.”55

But to arrive at such attainments, the Bodhisattva follows a

rigorous set of spiritual practices, whether intellectual

understanding through deep meditative analysis or more profound

techniques such as meditative absorption. The discipline of

meditation endows the practitioner to achieve the quietness of

the mind, to appreciate the change and flux, the continual

impermanence and emptiness of all phenomena: ” through the

practice of shamata (calm abiding meditation) he will probably

start with the anapanasatti practice of counting breathing, or

concentration on the rising and falling of the breath, or

practicing awareness of actions , or mental concentration on one

of the thirty six parts of the body [...] then having developed

a firm foundation of quietness (abiding in peace) the Bodhisattva

develops insight , and that is the first entrance to the

bodhisattva work ”.56 The development of insight, which is an

equivalent of wisdom, is experiencing the essence, the state of

the “bodhi”.

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55. Jacob Needleman, Arthur Kalmer Bierman, James A. Gould,Religion for a new generation, Prentice Hall, 1977, p.57256. Ibid 36, p. 452

Through the discovery of the mindfulness, the practitioner gains

such a superior level of concentration, that “he doesn’t need to

concentrate anymore; the concentration develops within him. The

element of recognition of concentration, recognition of a natural

state of concentration, is what is known as the insight of the

bodhi”.57

The practitioner engaged on the path of the Buddha, through the

meditative attainments, becomes a living symbol, a living example

of stillness, of meditative serenity and of Nirvana. The

Bodhisattva knows the relativity of understanding through

reasoning, and that the experience of the completeness can be

attained only when the conceptual thought (kalpana) has come to

rest. The meditation is thus, a transformation of the deepest

levels of consciousness, and not a mere search after intellectual35

solutions; it is a breaking from the mental patterns, an

abandoning of the mental habits in order to reach the “Other

Shore”, “as it has been said not only in the Prajnaparamita-hridaya,

but already in the ancient Sutta - Nipata. A complete reversal of

spiritual transformation is required, a ‘turning about in the

deepest seat of the consciousness, as expressed in the

Lankavatara Sutra’.”58

The purification of the mind and that of the gross body are meant

to spiritually cleanse the practitioner, for what is polluted,

obscured or stained at the subtle or physical level to be

restored to its pristine nature. Samadhi occupies a sovereign

place in the practice of mental purgation and detachment from the

skandhas (the five objects of the sense enjoyment and of the

three worlds): the Rupa bhoomi (the five internal sense organs),

Kama bhoomi (the five external elements taken in through the five

senses) and Arupa bhoomi (the memory or the five aggregates).

57. Ibid. 36, p. 45358. Anagarika Govinda, The Lost Teachings of Lama Govinda: Living Wisdomfrom a modern Tibetan Master, Theosophical Publishing House, 2007, p.9

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The samadhis aim to detach the mind (citta) from contingencies. The

meditator who practises them, acquires the mental mastery

(citovasita), a mental aptitude (cittakarmayata) which render him

capable to behold the things in the way he wants to see them, and

even to transform them at will. 59

In regards to the body, the practitioner engages in yogic

exercises: a cleansing of the bodily channels which carry the

vital wind (nadis) and organs through advanced breathing control

techniques (pranayama). The yogic techniques are central to both

Mahayana Buddhism, particularly in its Tantric form, and the

Hindu-Yoga Vedanta tradition. In either of the religious

philosophies, the substance and the aim is common, respectively

the achievement of the pure awareness through a psycho-physical

cleansing of all obstructed channels and vessels of both body and

consciousness. The prana can move and act by radiating from the

focal points of concentrated nerve energy (chakras) and becomes

stimulated and intensified through the conscious awareness of the

whole psychosomatic webbing represented by the physical body of

the practitioner. The Bodhisattva becomes thus a clear mirror for

the other, a pure channel through which all the effort and energy

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of the utmost attainment of the Buddha mind could flow toward the

sentient beings in need.

59. Ibid.50

From the psycho-analytical approach, the Bodhisattva represents

“the awakening of the spirit” as Lama Govinda denominates it, or

the synthesis of the spirit whose body of consciousness extends

beyond the realm of individual experiences into the freedom of

universality and living relationships and “into the realm of the

beautiful, the creative action, aesthetic, enjoyment and

intuitive experiences.”60

The Archetypal Bodhisattva is not the historical personality but

rather the divine qualities which subsist in each being and

become apparent when striving after the highest qualities such as

love, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

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The transformation he partakes in, which takes place according to

the law set forth by the Buddha, finds its crowning climax in

what is called sotapan or “Stream Entering”. It is the

transpersonal quality that dominates the character of the

Bodhisattva, an endowment reverberated in compassion towards

fellow beings: “they are an exponent of the totality of the

universe, their compassion becomes the expression of that

universal law, which Indian philosophy calls ‘dharma’ and which

manifests itself in the human heart (or the innermost centre) as

realization of the highest spirit or the universal

consciousness.” 61

60. Ibid 58, p.2561. Ibid 58, p.23The concluding remarks and epilogue

39

This essay represents a novice’s effort to unveil the doctrinal

and philosophical substances which are embodied in the Mahayanic

concept of Bodhisattva. For the thinkers brought up in the

Western inheritance, it is of great value to be able to penetrate

and absorb the heritage of the East.

In a metaphorical sense, the Middle Way or the Mahayana is

symbolically breaking through limitations of mental antagonistic

patterns, proposing a sense of equilibrium and a concentration

upon the essentials which results in a greater freedom of

thinking and inherently, of existence.

Mahayana and its spiritual hero are not only subjects of debate

and analysis among the Buddhist scholars, but they also embody a

valuable pedagogy of the wisdom of the East. The journey

undertaken within the Mahayana doctrine defined the understanding

that the Bodhisattva’s ideal has adapted to the epochs and the

generations, on the same universal common grounds of ethical

values.

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The plethora of archetypal Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana

tradition, are prototypes for spiritual and ethical

transformation as much as they are doctrinal symbols. The ancient

Bodhisattvic spiritual and religious practices of the Mahayana

tradition and the transformative power of the ideal they

represent constitute a constant inspiration amidst a new

configuration of the spiritual and historical realities. The

embodied and the worldly dimension of the Bodhisattva ideal

inspires sympathetically social and political movements; the

entire goal of the Bodhisattva is to bring about the alleviation

of suffering, to awaken sentient beings to reality as it is, and

to affect the transformation of the conventional world: “All

forces impel the Mahayana towards the same conclusion –

principally the emphasis on morality and compassion, for the

attachment of these ideals to the figure of the Bodhisattva mean

that the universal requirements of goodness and self sacrifice

could be seen as presupposing the future Boddhahood of all

men.”62

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To put in a nutshell the whole vast path of the Bodhisattva, as

Patrul Rinpoche poetically asserts, I would evoke the Buddhist

sage Rigzin Jigme Lingpa’ s lyric - philosophical instruction to

forthcoming ‘Buddha-to-be’:

“Transcendent Generosity is found in contentment;Its essence is simply letting goDiscipline is not to displease the Three Jewels.The best practice is unfailing mindfulness and awareness.Diligence is needed to sustain all the other perfections.Concentration is to experience as deities al the appearances towhich one clings,Wisdom is the self liberation of grasping and clinging;In it there is neither thinking nor a thinker.It is not ordinary. It is free from fixed convictions.It is beyond suffering. It is supreme peace.Do not tell this to anyone-Keep it safe within your mind.”63

62. Ninian Smart, Ninian Smart on world religions: selected works, Edited byJohn Shepherd University of Cumbria, 2009, p.135  63. Patrul Rinpoche, Words of my Perfect Teacher, A complete translation of aclassical introduction to Tibetan Buddhism, Ch. How to follow a spiritual friend,Vistaar Publications, New Dehli, 2006, p. 225

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