Bodhisattvas

Bodhisattvas are beings who are dedicated to the universal awakening or enlightenment of everyone. They exist as guides and providers of succor to suffering beings and offer everyone an approach to meaningful spiritual life.

Here we explore seven major bodhisattva figures of the Mahayana tradition who represent various aspects of enlightened activity and awareness and are forces for well-being in our lives:

Each of these bodhisattva figures and their stories are valuable psychological and spiritual resources. The archetypal bodhisattva figures are living and evolving as dynamic embodiments of spiritual life and activity and are not the property of any particular tradition or religious institution.

The bodhisattva ideal

The teachings of Buddhism are about your life, about being the person you are. The practices of Buddhism are about being willing to be intimate with yourself, with your idiosyncrasies. So when we talk about compassion and the ideal of the bodhisattva, we are talking about how we as ordinary people—with this body, this mind, this life, these problems—can find generosity, effort, and wisdom right here and now. We realize that they are always available.

Bodhisattvas as archetypes

We will be looking at the lives of seven bodhisattva figures as psychological and spiritual models in order to see how we can live wholeheartedly. The bodhisattvas presented here are considered as archetypes, models of psychic aspects of the enlightening being.

These bodhisattvas overlap in their qualities, but each one emphasizes particular aspects of awakening, and each one reveals a character and style that practitioners may align with at different phases in their practice. They exist as external forces to provide encouragement and support, as internal energies to be fostered, and as examples of awakened practice to emulate. They are forces in the world and in us; we couldn’t see them out there if they didn’t resonate with something inside.

Although for historical reasons most of the bodhisattvas are depicted as male, all the archetypes are manifested by both women and men. As the bodhisattvas enter our culture, they will find new guises and evolving qualities. Each of us may bring them to life in our own way.

Bodhisattvas are beings who are dedicated to the universal awakening, or enlightenment, of everyone. They exist as guides and providers of relief to suffering beings. We will be learning about the lives of some bodhisattvas who are well known in the Buddhist tradition. They are models who exemplify lives dedicated to eradicating suffering in the world. But as we go along, it is important to remember that as soon as you are struck with the urge or intention to take on such a bodhisattva practice, you are included in the ranks of the bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas can be awesome in their power, radiance, and wisdom, and they can be as ordinary as your next-door neighbor. Bodhisattvas appear wherever they can be most helpful.

• A buddha, or awakened one, is a being who has fully realized liberation from the suffering of delusions and conditioning. This awakening is realized through deep experiential awareness of the undefiled nature of all beings and all phenomena, which are seen to be essentially pristine and clear. Buddhas see that everything is all right, just as it is. This insight in some sense liberates all beings, who may not yet realize this truth of openness and freedom themselves because of their own confusion.
• A bodhisattva is a being who carries out the work of the buddhas, vowing not to personally settle into the salvation of final buddhahood until she or he can assist all beings throughout the vast reaches of time and space to fully be free. A bodhisattva is a buddha with her sleeves rolled up.

On the bodhisattva path, we follow teachings about generosity, patience, ethical conduct, meditative balance, and insight into what is essential, so we can come to live in a way that benefits others. At the same time, we learn compassion for ourselves and see that we are not separate from the people we have imagined are estranged from us. Self and other heal together.

Each of these bodhisattva figures and their stories are valuable psychological and spiritual resources. The archetypal bodhisattva figures are living and evolving as dynamic embodiments of spiritual life and activity and are not the property of any particular tradition or religious institution.

The inconceivable vow

A key aspect of bodhisattva practice is the commitment or dedication to the way of awakening and to carrying out this commitment for the benefit of all. The aspiration to care for and to awaken all beings (in Sanskrit bodhicitta, literally “enlightening mind”) is considered mysterious and auspicious. This heartfelt care for suffering beings and fundamental questioning into the meaning of life seems to arise unaccountably, amid the pettiness and self-centeredness of our lives. This initial aspiration of beginners seeking the Way is said to be identical in nature and value to that of an advanced bodhisattva.

The commitment to awakening is expressed by the practitioner taking bodhisattva vows. Many of the bodhisattva figures we will discuss have their own particular vows. But there are also general bodhisattva vows common to all Mahayana practitioners. The best known are the four inconceivable vows. They are:

These vows seem impossible in terms of the conventional human perspective on the world. But the bodhisattva viewpoint demands and is activated by this thorough, universal level of commitment, while simultaneously encompassing the ordinary kindness and helpfulness that we all may perform in our everyday lives.

• We free beings by helping others to express their own distinct awakened nature. The commitment of the bodhisattva is to join the fellowship that will eventually carry this serene and dynamic awareness to all dissatisfied beings. The job of bodhisattvas is to nurture and finally bring out the kindness and clarity of all humanity.
• We cut through our delusions about self and others by becoming aware of the attachment and grasping that grow out of our desires. Living simply, needing less, increases the richness of our lives as surely as, if not more than, accumulating wealth. We are caught by delusion when we become attached to objects of attraction or aversion, when we seek to hold in our grasp the things we have imagined will guarantee our happiness, or to repel what we fear will harm or displease us. We can acknowledge our feelings of likes and dislikes without trying to escape from ourselves, yet without having to reflexively act them out in the world. We can also experience that these objects of desire and aversion are not ultimately separate from ourselves and do not have independent reality or power over us.
• We enter the boundless dharma gates by engaging in beneficial practices and teachings of how to live most fully. “Dharma gates”—teachings or entryways into reality—are boundless because the opportunities for finding teaching are as numerous as the people or events we encounter. Each person and every situation has something to teach about how to be more fully ourselves. When we see every encounter as a potential teaching and source of awakening, regardless of the apparent status or position of those encountered, we are fulfilling this vow
• We accomplish the unsurpassable Way of awakening by embodying and personally fulfilling concrete expressions of bodhisattva intention in our own situation. We may humbly recognize our present shortcomings and lack of awareness, but we can also forgive ourselves and dedicate ourselves to actualizing universal awakening.

Ascending and descending bodhisattvas

We can see the bodhisattva path as ascending to buddhahood. Step by step, over many lifetimes, the bodhisattva develops enlightening understanding and practice, and skillfulness in helping beings, until at some time he is ready to realize the “unsurpassed complete perfect enlightenment” of a buddha.

We can also describe the bodhisattva as descending from buddhahood. The story goes that it was only at the urging of the Indian deity Brahma that Shakyamuni Buddha agreed to stay in the world to help teach those beings who were ready to enter into the way of awakening.

Although a buddha teaches and demonstrates this awakening, a buddha is also one who already sees the world as whole and perfected. In this sense, a buddha does not need to do anything and has nothing to accomplish. Bodhisattvas, on the other hand, do the work of the buddhas in the world, acting to relieve suffering and liberate all beings.

All the bodhisattvas that we will discuss as archetypes are considered to have the same understanding as a completely awakened buddha, but they take on the job of helping all suffering beings to actualize, or make real, this awareness. Although they may have realized the equivalent awareness of a buddha, they return to the state of bodhisattvas to perform beneficial work for beings.

The descending bodhisattva practices in order to enact and express enlightenment, not to achieve it. There is nothing to gain; it is only a matter of all beings reconnecting with their own fundamental, inherent buddha nature. When bodhisattvas descend and return to delusion for the sake of beings, usually they actually return to delusion. A bodhisattva manifesting in the limitation of a particular body, in a specific time and place, necessarily is fooled by the world of delusion. He does not just pretend to be in that world, but actually takes on and is gripped by delusion for the sake of demonstrating awakening in the midst of it.

Bodhisattvas engaged in their beneficial work in the world take on whatever roles may be helpful. They may be female or male, lay person or priest; doctor, scientist, or fortune-teller; king or beggar; engineer, bus driver, architect, or laborer; musician, magician, teacher, or writer. Any of these may be great bodhisattvas.

In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha says that bodhisattvas are right here. He points to the ground, and out of the ground spring hundreds of enlightened beings. When people ask where they came from, Shakyamuni says they are always in the open space under the ground, practicing intently in order to help awaken

Opening to your life

How can you allow these bodhisattvas to emerge around you? How do you open up reality and return to the source?

You can draw energy and inspiration from awakening beings, but that only happens when you’re willing to join the club, when you’re willing to see the bodhisattvas in your own life, in your difficulties and limitations. It happens when you are willing to listen, to be open to the suffering in the space within and without you. Just this listening is already an act of compassion. The bodhisattvas are manifested out of this space, this facing up to reality.

First just pay attention. It’s easy to feel spacious and generous when things are going well. But when you’re in a tight spot, you can be willing to just be present and willing to feel the space of your own body. This is a yogic practice, a bodhisattva practice—letting a little air into the restriction. It’s like seeing the knots and tangles of your situation and then gently, slowly, letting go of holding them. You follow the stream back to its source again and again.