The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion

by Chogyam Trungpa

  Ultimate bodhichitta is very important and powerful. It does not refer to a process but to an experience that is beginningless. As in unconditional buddha nature, the idea is that you are already fully developed; you do not need to be awakened. The idea of relative buddha nature was formulated for those who have lost hope, in order to encourage them. It is like saying that you have George Washington–ness in you, rather than that you yourself could be president. Ultimate bodhichitta is saying that you yourself can become president. You don’t have to try to become like George Washington, and you don’t have to transplant George Washington–ness into yourself—you could do it on your own. The difference is one of aspiration as opposed to actuality. It is the difference between being a would-be buddha, and having the essence, the heart, and the mind of wakefulness in you already. Ultimate bodhichitta means that you are eternally awake. It means that fundamentally you have never gone to sleep. Whether you are asleep or awake, eating your breakfast, lunch, or dinner, whatever you are doing, you are always awake. That is ultimate bodhichitta, the heart of wakefulness.

  Conditional buddha nature is simply an encouragement, whereas ultimate bodhichitta is already there. The only obstacle is that you don’t believe it. You prefer to indulge in ignorance, and wallow in samsara. Even those who have heard the teachings still prefer to fall asleep and snore. That is rather shocking, and a big obstacle. We have to learn to cheer up; we are so meek and so poor that we have not yet touched our possibility of pleasure, our possibility of attaining enlightenment, or having even a little taste of what it could be. Although we might have problems with pain, we are more likely to have a problem with pleasure. We haven’t actually looked at the good side of things. We don’t want to hear about it. We don’t want to add an extra spoonful of sugar to our coffee; we prefer to drink it bitter, which is not so good.

  You could cheer yourself up very simply. You can make yourself happy by not indulging in the samsaric style of happiness. It is very real; I can assure you that this is not a myth. You can actually aspire to the level of bodhichitta. It takes tremendous guts, which makes the whole thing clean-cut. You can indulge yourself; there is no problem with that. It has been sanctioned by the bodhisattvas and the buddhas of the three times. In order to wake up your bodhichitta, that kind of self-existing celebration is okay.

  Not being able to open up is one of the biggest problems human beings have. In our society, we have been too involved with ourselves for a long time, and we do not want to give an inch. After the Industrial Revolution, people began to proclaim themselves. They created commonwealths and democracies, but they still clung to their individuality and would not give up their territory. Even missionaries, who acted with goodwill, did not have enough decency. They were too stiff and righteous, and the people they converted became even stiffer. That has been the situation right up to this very day. Decency means giving up our territory properly and fully, and becoming part of the big mind of bodhichitta. It is opening up to big vision, wakeful vision.

  Due to our confidence in buddha nature, we realize that obscurations are temporary, and we are able to appreciate our human birth, free and well-favored. Aided by our spiritual friend, we are inspired to realize and practice the disciplines of mindfulness and awareness. And as a result of mindfulness practice, we begin to develop pagyö, which means “bare attention,” or “heedfulness,” and tren-she, or “recollection.” We develop decorum and keen attentiveness, and an intrinsic kind of knowing.1 These are the prerequisites for arousing absolute bodhichitta.

  In the mahayana, in order to arouse absolute bodhichitta, we have to join shamatha and vipashyana together. Having developed the basic precision of shamatha and the total awareness of vipashyana, we put them together so that they cover the whole of our existence—our behavior patterns, our daily life, everything. So both meditation practice and postmeditation practice, mindfulness and awareness, are happening simultaneously all the time. Whether we are sleeping or awake, eating or wandering, precision and awareness are taking place. That is quite a delightful experience.

  Bodhisattva heroism is open and genuine, and it cannot be stained by anything because its own existence is so tough. With such openness and gentleness, you do not give in to any kind of aggression. Such heroism is unyielding and does not give away its secrets. Telling your secret to everybody and proclaiming it everywhere does not seem to work. You are making a fool of yourself by just giving it away like that; you are being cheap in telling people everything that you think. You are not only giving away your secret, but you are polluting the world.

  GENTLE WAKEFULNESS

  The Sanskrit term bodhi means “wakefulness,” and those who have achieved bodhi are called buddhas. Why are people awake, and why do they search for wakefulness? They are wakeful because they have decided to abandon aggression and its activities, both in themselves and toward others. That is the fundamental definition of bodhi, or wakefulness. When you are awake, you are no longer able or willing to cause harm to others. You are gentle, and the more gentle you become, the more wakefulness happens.

  The dictionary might say that an enlightened person is somebody who is brilliant, intelligent, learned, and ambidextrous in all kinds of ways. But as the translation of the word bodhi, the word enlightenment means “gentle,” and therefore capable. The more gentle you are, the more capable you become; and the more capable you become, the more you have the power to influence others. Buddhist logic works that way always. For instance, the meaning of dharma is passionlessness. Since passion means trying to assert one’s own energy or strength in the service of egohood, passionlessness is egolessness. Similarly, gentleness is wakefulness. That is how Buddhist logic works.

  Bodhi is the basis of the word bodhichitta. With bodhichitta, your heart is “gentle-awake.” You feel very homey about your world. Your world is workable, people are workable, and your senses are workable. Therefore, you feel very tender toward everything. Everything you touch, everything you experience, is tender. Because there is more tenderness, because there is no irritation, you feel very cheerful and very awake.

  At the same time, some kind of suffering is necessary. But there are two types of suffering. It is said in the texts that those who have attained the highest level of enlightenment suffer more than ordinary people. Their suffering is like the difference between having a hair in your eye as opposed to feeling a hair touching your palm. You feel much more. In other words, they are more in tune with how other people feel. That kind of discomfort is necessary in order to work for others. Positively speaking, it’s like the ache a mother or father would feel if their child cries. But there is another form of discomfort that arises from losing your grip on how to maintain your ego, which is not necessary. That kind of discomfort is an extra burden. So suffering could be very helpful or it could be somewhat of a nuisance.

  How can one become an enlightened person? How can you train the mind properly and fully? It is by arousing bodhichitta, the heart or essence of enlightenment. And having aroused bodhichitta, you can continue to practice according to the bodhisattva’s example. You can be an active bodhisattva.

  THREEFOLD PURITY

  The experience of bodhichitta is described in terms of threefold purity, or khorsum yangdak. Khorsum means “threefold,” and yangdak is “pure”; so khorsum yangdak is “threefold purity.” The three purities are the nonexistence of the actor, the action, and the object of the action. That is, there is no “you” as actor, there is no action, and there is no one to be acted upon.

  The principle of threefold purity applies to both absolute and relative bodhichitta. In terms of relative bodhichitta, your way of behaving toward others contains a lot of strength and warmth. In terms of ultimate bodhichitta, there is very little territorialism. If there is no territory, there is no boundary. Therefore, there is no you, no other, and no project. For example, if I am going to kill you, I don’t exist, you don’t get murdered, and the act of murder doesn’t occur.2 In any action, if there is
no giver and no receiver, we are one. Therefore, there is no action taking place: you can’t take action within yourself alone, because then you become two.

  Threefold purity is immediate, on the spot, simultaneous. It is not a practice, but an experience that arises as a result of practice. Throughout the mahayana, all practices are based on threefold purity. Therefore, actions come only from warmth and openness.

  With threefold purity, there is less territory, so there is more freedom. Because there is more freedom, there is a greater sense of obstacles because there are fewer obstacles. At the basic vipashyana level, territorialism still arises, but that experience of territoriality brings a greater version of vipashyana awareness, or the shunyata experience. The experience of territoriality reminds you that you are practicing at a primitive level rather than an enlightened level—and that reminder takes place constantly. Even the greater vipashyana, or mahavipashyana,3 experience of a glimpse of shunyata is territorial from the point of view of a bodhisattva.

  UNCONDITIONAL COMPASSION

  Relative bodhichitta is regarded as our starting point, and absolute bodhichitta is regarded as a further achievement, but one is not necessarily regarded as better than the other. You have to see the play of the phenomenal world first, and after that you can begin to see further reality. Ultimate bodhichitta is an exploration of karuna, the noble heart of compassion. In Tibetan, absolute compassion is yang-dak-pe nying-je. Yang means “perfect,” dak-pe means “purity,” and nying-je means “compassion,” or “noble heart”; so yang-dak-pe nying-je means “perfectly pure compassion.”

  Our state of being, our basic nature, contains our capability for compassion. So compassion is more than a potentiality. We do possess fundamental softness, which cannot be stained or diluted by aggression or ignorance. This softness is how we are. You could call it love, if you like, but probably the best word would be gentleness. Such gentleness possesses intelligence and brilliance.

  We might feel terrible, utterly hopeless, but if we look at ourselves fully and thoroughly, we will find fundamental goodness. There is something that makes us look up at the blue sky or the clouds or the sun, something that allows us to polish our shoes and press our clothes. When we wake up in the morning, there is something that allows us to brush our teeth, comb our hair, or use a bar of soap. Such actions may seem rather ordinary, but they come from a very powerful instinct. That sense of workability comes from ultimate bodhichitta.

  Ultimate bodhichitta is ultimate because that basic instinct exists in us as our natural state of being, or alaya. Nobody has produced or given us such a state of mind, which has enormous intelligence and capabilities. Alaya is the basis of our intelligence; it is what allows our sense perceptions to function. Alaya is the starting point of following the breath in meditation; without it, we could not begin. It is the discipline for attaining enlightenment.

  The process of developing absolute bodhichitta is dependent on the development of relative bodhichitta. That is to say, we have to begin by developing a quality of gentleness, softness, and kindness that permeates our whole life. We bring this about by developing mindfulness and awareness, and being thoroughly processed, or shinjang-ed.

  Relative bodhichitta is the basic understanding of how things work, how there is an omnipresent soft heart existing throughout our life. Out of that, we begin to go deeper into the experience of softness. As we do so, we begin to see beyond ego-centeredness and selfishness. We become loosened up to such an extent that it is very easy to develop absolute bodhichitta, which is free from reference point, free from struggle, and free from goal orientation. And from that experience of absolute bodhichitta, we begin to realize the ultimate meaning of compassion. So compassion does not mean feeling sorry for someone who is trying to sell pencils on the street corner. Compassion is the general willingness to open up and to regard any obstacles that might arise as stepping-stones rather than hindrances. Compassion is also a feeling of faith and trust in the kalyanamitra, or spiritual friend, the person who guides you and shows you the way.

  Compassion has the quality of existing in a state of nonreference point. You might wonder how one can understand anything if there is no reference point, but having a reference point does not necessarily help you to understand. Reference points can be helpful when you have lost your way, but by the time you realize you have lost your way, it is too late; you are already trying to find your way back. So reference points bring bad news rather than good news. In fact, any reference point becomes an obstacle to experiencing true reality.

  Entering the state without reference points is referred to as going into the state of alaya, the storehouse consciousness. This state does not have any particular hope and fear—it is just basic cognitive mind. Seeing yourself in that basic cognitive state of being brings a sense of relief and freedom, because you do not have to go through the usual bureaucracy of your psychological makeup. Then you can begin to go even further, beyond the cognitive state of being. You can begin to experience something beyond cognition or recognition. Instead of just going deeper, you begin to expand outward. Things perceived by the sense consciousnesses become very vivid, but you do not just store them in a memory bank—you expand beyond that.

  At that stage, you naturally begin to develop a sense of warmth and comfort. You experience freedom or liberation. That experience of freedom might be purely a glimpse, not necessarily long-lasting or euphoric. But you can receive that small glimpse of freedom, that glimpse of absolute bodhichitta, by faithfully cultivating relative bodhichitta. That short glimpse of absolute bodhichitta enables you to continue working with others and with yourself.

  With relative bodhichitta there is a reference point, and with absolute bodhichitta there is no reference point. Absolute bodhichitta is unconditional softness and gentleness, whereas relative bodhichitta may still be a conditional thing. Relative bodhichitta is like learning the alphabet, and absolute bodhichitta is like learning how to spell words. With relative bodhichitta, there is a question of who is helping whom. But with absolute bodhichitta, there is no such question; generosity simply pours out of your whole being.

  1. For more on pagyö and tren-she, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, chapter 34, “Cutting Thoughts and Short-Circuiting the Kleshas.”

  2. Although this example is quite extreme, it does not imply that killing one another is okay. The mahayana teaching of threefold purity is always joined inseparably with that of loving-kindness and compassion. Furthermore, the mahayana path altogether rests upon the strong ethical foundation of the hinayana.

  3. Mahavipashyana is the highest form of vipashyana, or awareness practice, described as “seeing things as they are”; that is to say, as empty of self-nature.

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  Planting the Moon of Bodhi in Your Heart

  The mahayana teachings are based on communication, openness, and being without expectations. When we begin to realize that the nature of phenomena is free from concept and empty by itself . . . there is nothing in the way. So . . . we could fill the whole of space with affection—love without expectation, without demands, without possession.

  IN THE mahayana, there is a lot of room for affection and love, and there is immense openness and daring. As long as you are generating affection toward other beings, there is no time to simply work on yourself or to come out clean. The hinayana path of individual salvation is based on not causing harm to others. You are becoming reasonable, good thinking, and polite. Such training is important, but how can you keep smiling on the basis of individual salvation alone, without doing anything for others?

  In the mahayana, by means of relative bodhichitta, and with the help of the four brahmaviharas and the four limitless ones, you finally awaken. Waking up in this way is known as planting the moon of bodhi in your heart. When you commit yourself to the bodhisattva path, you feel as if you have done it before and you have been doing it all along. It is like living up to your inheritance, or taking over your parents’ business. You fe
el that there is something quite natural and right about it.

  Relative bodhichitta practice begins with maitri, or loving-kindness. In the mahayana, you are learning to love one another and to love yourself. It is very difficult to learn to love. If an object of fascination or some kind of dream or promise is presented to you, you might fall in love. But it is very hard to love if it means purely giving love without expecting anything in return. It is very difficult to do that. We usually expect a person to fulfill our desires and conform to our hero worship, and we can only fall in love if we think our expectations will be fulfilled. So in most of our love affairs, our love is conditional. It is more of a business deal than actual love.

  To learn to love, to learn to open, is one of the hardest things for us, yet we are conditioned by passion all the time. Since we are in the human realm, our main focus is on passion and lust, yet we have no idea how to communicate warmth. When we begin to communicate warmth to somebody, it makes us very uptight, and when the object of our love tries to cheer us up, it becomes an insult. It is a very aggression-oriented approach. So in the mahayana, particularly in the contemplative tradition, love and affection are free and open love, love that does not ask for anything in return. Love is a mutual dance that takes place, and even if you step on each other’s toes during the dance, it is not regarded as problematic or an insult.