The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion

by Chogyam Trungpa

  Taking the bodhisattva vow does not mean that you have solved the problems of the world, and enlightened society does not mean that everybody is going to eat marmalade and sugar all the time. But there could be at least a skeleton of a world that functions in terms of wakefulness. Because of wakefulness, there is a lot of space. There is room to become larger scale. There is a sense of goodness, arrogance, and wakefulness, all at the same time. The heroism of the bodhisattva is beginning to fulfill its role and become very real, because you are not trying to kid yourself or anyone else. You just do it. It is very simple.

  JUMPING INTO THE OCEAN OF DHARMA

  It is important to realize how precious the teachings are, and how extraordinary it is that out of millions and millions of people, you are able to study the dharma properly and fully. It is an extraordinary experience. Along with an appreciation of the teachings, it is also important to have an appreciation of the teacher. Without the teacher, you would not have the teachings. When you take the bodhisattva vow, it means that from now onward, until the attainment of enlightenment, you will have such an individual to refer back to. You have an unbroken lineage of companionship, and a friend whose example you can follow. You are working with your own buddha nature, with the spiritual friend, and with an unbroken lineage of goodness that has continued without interruption from the time of the Buddha until right now.

  When you meet a spiritual friend, you should trust in that situation. But in this case, trust does not refer to conventional trust. It is not like being a landlord and trusting that your tenants will pay the rent. Trusting in the spiritual friend and the teaching of buddhadharma is not a business deal. It is giving your whole being, and jumping into the deep ocean of dharma. Obviously, the first time you jump into the ocean, you need to work with the waves and tides. But as you learn to swim with the tide as it goes out, you can swim across the Atlantic.

  As you swim across the ocean of dharma, you do not have any reference points. I have done it myself, so I speak from firsthand experience. The dharma may seem to be full of reference points, but in crossing that ocean, there are no reference points. That contradiction is in itself a noncontradiction. When you find yourself without a reference point, you have the reference point of no reference point—the reference point of being without reference point. You keep going in that way—reference point, without reference point, reference point, without reference point—until you wear yourself out completely. When you become confused and you have completely run out of reference points altogether, you have reference point without reference point. But you have to do it, rather than talk about it, and you have to relax. That is why it has been said that words do not produce the awakened state of mind, only experience does so.

  Once you have committed yourself by jumping into the ocean, you can swim across the ocean. In doing so, you don’t use any means of getting across other than your own hands and legs. That process seems to be both good and necessary. Samsara may be quite bewildering, and it creates blindness, but at the same time, there are ways to get out of it. First of all, you have to give up trying to find a way to end samsara. You mustn’t have any goal orientation or goal-oriented scheme. Whenever there is goal orientation, that puts you back into the familiar cycle of samsara, and you spin around in the whirlpool of samsara again and again. It’s like working with a business: if you have too much goal orientation and you just want to become a millionaire, the business fails, whereas if you regard yourself as selling what is necessary and appreciating what you sell, then you might become a millionaire by seeming chance.

  ATTAINMENT AND NONATTAINMENT

  Your inspiration in the hinayana is to save yourself personally, which is a big jump. To do so, you need to make a relationship with suffering, impermanence, and a crude level of egolessness, and you need to have trust in nirvana. When all that begins to make sense and you begin to understand it completely, then based on that, you begin to develop a different viewpoint and larger thinking. In the hinayana, you transcend one form of goal orientation by understanding that you have to cut through your own personal ambition and aggression, and relate with egolessness and suffering. But having cut through that, you still have the goal of attaining enlightenment. That ambition has not been cut through. So the last ambition of the hinayanist is the desire to watch yourself attaining enlightenment. You would still like to see that. But that ambition is cut through at the mahayana level.

  The notion of the nonattainment of enlightenment is not a hinayana one. Hinayana teachers would say, “If you would like more peace and tranquillity, you better come to Buddhism because we know about suffering as well.” They would say, “Everybody wants to have happiness, but they have the wrong concept of happiness. If you want to attain better happiness, you better join us.” That is what you see in the pamphlets flying around: an emphasis on personal salvation. But even if someone were to attain enlightenment tomorrow, it would be very corny to proclaim themselves as the buddha of the age. That would not be such a good idea, even if it were real. Although you might respect such a person’s achievement, that style of proclamation is very crude.

  THE INSPIRATION TO GO FURTHER

  The basic hinayana attitude is based more on individual discipline than on social service. But when you begin to expand yourself to the mahayana, your shamatha experience begins to increase because you are more sensitized to the rest of the world. Your vipashyana experience also becomes greatly increased, because the particular world that you are working with is a much wider world than you ever imagined in the early stages of your sitting practice of meditation. Because of that, a feeling of inadequacy begins to come up, and you want to go further. Having heard of the bodhisattva path, you begin to be enormously inspired. You feel you are ready for the mahayana because you want to go on, rather than staying with one particular technique, one particular method, or one particular security. You begin to feel that you are willing to jump into the ocean of dharma and swim.

  Various signs indicate that you are ready for the bodhisattva path. In the yogic tradition of the practice lineage, two signs in particular appear in students who have been trained by a proper teacher: the mark of learnedness and the mark of meditation. The mark of learnedness is that you are tamed and peaceful rather than a snobbish intellectual or an angry scholar who makes enemies with everybody. The mark of meditation is that you are less distracted and temperamental. You have quick reactions, and you are watchful and aware. Someone possessing those two signs is an ideal person to begin to tread on the bodhisattva path.

  At this point you are not concerned with whether you can swim to the shore or not—you just want to do it. There’s that kind of heroism, openness, and inspiration. The path may be immense and wide and long, or it may be like an ocean, which is deep and endless. But you still would like to get into it. You don’t feel that the path is a threat, and you do not have the anti-bodhisattva attitude that you should preserve yourself as you are because you might not make it or that you might make a fool of yourself. You do not regard the path as a competition, and you are unconcerned with who is the best bodhisattva—you just want to do it. There is a hunger for the teachings.

  MAKING A FORMAL COMMITMENT

  The question then is how to go about it, how to enter the mahayana. Traditionally, the way you enter the mahayana is by taking the bodhisattva vow. You may feel that taking such a vow is redundant, that you are already following the bodhisattva path, but it is still necessary to have a place and time in which you could make a formal commitment to becoming a bodhisattva. It is also possible to fool yourself by thinking you need to wait until you are really ready. But that is like the play Waiting for Godot: nothing ever happens, and the play just ends.

  In addition to the bodhisattva vow, there are hundreds of thousands of other ways to enter into the mahayana. There does not have to be only one official way of entering, as long as there is a feeling of being awake and cheerful, and the inspiration to help others.

  If you a
re inquisitive about the bodhisattva path, if you have an interest in it and are not scared by it, it means you are already fertile. You belong to this particular family, and you have the right to join the mahayana. Taking the bodhisattva vow is like buying a ticket and reserving your seat. And once you have taken the vow, it is like stepping into the vehicle and actually taking the journey.

  When you take the bodhisattva vow, it is very personal and at the same time very public. What you are doing is becoming like one of the objects in a pawnshop: you have pawned yourself. You have sold yourself to others, and you are no longer your own property, but the property of sentient beings. You are public property, and you no longer have any privacy. That nonexistent privacy seems to be connected with a wider range of awareness. Concentration may need privacy, but awareness does not. In taking the bodhisattva vow, you are dedicating yourself to the benefit of others. You are not involved with first making yourself perfect; instead, you first make things perfect for others. If by chance any possible repercussions occur for you, it seems to be all right. We are not saying, as the Christians would, that charity begins at home—we say that charity begins in the neighborhood.

  In the mahayana, you begin to expand yourself, and all kinds of things happen. Finally you begin to realize that no ground exists for you to operate on two levels at once. You have been trying to operate on the public-service level, and at the same time trying to operate on the privacy level—but those both become nothing, and the whole thing begins to dissolve. You have already enlisted as a soldier, so to speak, and there is no way of getting out. You have already jumped out of your airplane, your parachute has opened, and you are suspended in air. You cannot say it is just a rehearsal and you want to go back to the airplane.

  There is a festive quality about taking the bodhisattva vow. You are celebrating the fact that you have found tathagatagarbha. It is not just that you are getting into a long-term commitment, which sounds very gray. You are inviting the sugatas and tathagatas to celebrate with you that you are pregnant with buddha nature, with compassion and wisdom. In taking the vow, you are acknowledging that.

  One of the very powerful and contagious things about the bodhisattva path is that you cannot waste your time at all. There is no chance of wasting time, or of regressing. In taking the bodhisattva vow, you are relating with somebody who has the bodhisattva lineage. You are relating with a person, teacher, guru, or spiritual friend who has already gone through that particular system.

  ASPIRATION AND APPLICATION

  The bodhisattva vow is a twofold process: aspiration and application. The first is the wish or aspiration to enter the bodhisattva path, which is called mön-pe sem-kye. Mönpa means “aspiration” and the inflected form mön-pe makes it “of aspiration”; sem means mind, and kye means “develop”; so mön-pe sem-kye means “developing the mind of aspiration.” The second is the application, or juk-pe sem-kye. Jukpa means “entering” and the inflected form juk-pe makes it “of entering”; sem means “mind,” and kye means “develop”; so juk-pe sem-kye means “developing the mind of entering.” Having already developed aspiration, you really want to commit yourself to this path. Mön-pe sem-kye is like desiring to take a journey, and juk-pe sem-kye is actually preparing for and taking that journey. You cannot take a journey before you have the aspiration and inspiration to do so. But as soon as you have the aspiration, you are already practicing. It is like ordering food in a restaurant: having ordered your food, you eat it. You don’t say, “I’m sorry, it was a mistake, I don’t want to eat anything after all.” It is as simple as that.

  The inspiration is real identification with the bodhisattva ideal of giving and surrendering. It is like signing up for the army: you are willing to give your name and to go through the physical examination. If your country is at war with another country, you feel that you might get killed or you might come back home, but it is still uncertain. There is a feeling of empty heart. You are leaving your friends and family, your house, your commitments, your hobbies, and everything else behind, and committing yourself to this particular discipline. As soon as you walk into the recruitment office, you see other young men and women like yourself doing the same thing, making the same commitment, so a whole atmosphere is built up. It is almost like walking into heroism, but it is uncertain if you will live through it.

  When you commit yourself to the bodhisattva path, there is a tremendous sense of “What have I done?” If a person is taking the bodhisattva vow properly and seriously, not just as a ritual, there is a feeling of empty heart. That sense of empty heart is the first aspect, mön-pe sem-kye. You want to take the journey, and you pick up the vibrations of emptiness, the vibrations of giving and opening, the vibrations of giving yourself for the benefit of all sentient beings.

  The second aspect begins as soon as you take the bodhisattva vow. It begins when you say, “I, so-and-so by name, am going to take the vow of a bodhisattva. From today onward, until the attainment of enlightenment, I am going to commit myself to the path of the bodhisattva lineage and practice the bodhisattva path. I am willing to be a bridge, boat, earth, water, or fire. I am willing to be a slave, physician, path, highway, taxi, bus, airplane, whatever is needed. I am willing to commit myself to having people walk on me, sit on me, and use me. I am willing for people to be inside me or outside me. I am willing to be like a big whale that could swallow somebody, swim across the water, and spit them out. Anybody could use any part of me, any part of my physical existence or psychological territory.”

  The bodhisattva vow is the statement that you are wholly committed to the bodhisattva path. For the first time in your life, you are no longer a nuisance, but a good citizen. That step of taking the bodhisattva vow comes from the inspiration that tathagatagarbha is already in you. That is why you could make such a commitment.

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  Becoming a Bodhisattva

  After taking the bodhisattva vow, there are possibilities of slipping or regressing. The bodhichitta that has been transplanted into your heart is at jeopardy, so you need to transcend goal orientation.

  HAVING TAKEN the bodhisattva vow and committed yourself to the path, the quality of doubt begins to become more benevolent, compassionate, and kind. That doesn’t mean that you develop complete tranquillity, or that you never lose your temper, or that you never think twice, but there is a sense of openness, warmth, and compassion. There are no grudges against anything, no grinding teeth.

  After taking the vow, you do not ask for reassurance from anybody. You have direction already; there is no need for reinforcement. Seeking reinforcement is the action of a coward. As Buddha said, liberation means individual liberation. Occasionally, when you are scared or feel limited, you may look for somebody else to save you. The function of the teacher is to encourage you to do it yourself, so the teacher’s business goes on.

  At this point, you know what you are; you have a sense of definiteness about yourself. You have doubt, and you work your doubt into compassion; you have joy, and you work your joy into wisdom and inspiration. So the whole thing becomes really workable and up-to-date. At that point, surprisingly, your practice of shamatha-vipashyana becomes much more spacious. You are constantly having flashes of awareness and mindfulness. Sudden glimpses, sudden flashes of awareness, come much more often.

  Having taken the bodhisattva vow and committed yourself, you may tend to get carried away. You get high and joyful and confident, but in the back of your mind, there is a faint fear that this effect might wear out. That fear seems to be necessary and good. In fact, that fear is the source of discipline. As a layperson, you could become a bodhisattva, as long as you meditate. You do not first have to become a monk or a nun in order to take the bodhisattva vow, nor do you have to be an arhat. You could advance on the hinayana path by sitting a lot and disciplining yourself, and you might find yourself being a bodhisattva before you know where exactly you are on the path. That is highly possible.

  Your sitting practice may be hinayana, while you
r daily living practice is mahayana. Sitting practice provides a guideline for the day-to-day living practice of the six transcendent virtues, or six paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation, and prajna, or knowledge.1 No matter how advanced your meditation practice, you can still apply the paramitas. And although your everyday actions may be on a small scale, the heroism of the bodhisattva still applies. By joining the choiceless quality of meditation practice with the heroism of paramita practice, you can bring the hinayana and the mahayana very conveniently together. The realization of tathagatagarbha is a combination of choicelessness and something happening, but if you stop sitting, you are wasting your time and you will not get anywhere. It is not dangerous to do so, but it is a waste of energy. It might be better to stand on a street corner and sell ties.

  EGOLESSNESS AND LONELINESS

  After taking the bodhisattva vow, there are possibilities of slipping or regressing. The bodhichitta that has been transplanted into your heart is at jeopardy, so you need to transcend goal orientation. Doing so brings an understanding of twofold egolessness. The lower yanas still have a quality of ambition and goal orientation: although they have understood the nonexistence of self, and have partly understood the nonexistence of dharmas, their understanding of nonexistence provides them with a feeling of glory or promise. So a kind of achievement orientation continues, which is a problem.

  So goallessness is important for the understanding of egolessness. Egolessness is not only realizing your own nonexistence, but also the nonexistence of the reference point. This happens in various degrees from the hinayana to the mahayana. The loneliness of the hinayana notion of egolessness continues in the mahayana, but at the mahayana level that loneliness becomes an exciting adventure, which could be a problem or a promise. In the mahayana, loneliness does not mean that you have to reduce or shrink yourself into dry meat—you can expand and share the greater vision of mahayanism. That actually creates a crescendo, immense drama, and sudden excitement. Up to this point, you have been involved with a smaller scale of thinking, and now you are exposed to a larger scale of thinking. You have all kinds of possible ways to relate to the world. Nevertheless, there is still your own loneliness.