April 11, 2017 by
Photo by Dean Hocham, Flickr C.C.
Bodhicitta is what the diligence of the Bodhisattva is based on. Bodhicitta means mind of awakening. It’s what helps us overcome the delusions that keep us from seeing our true nature. These delusions are things that we can overcome. They are impermanent like everything else. They may obscure our minds, but we can overcome them. Bodhicitta is our tool for doing this.
Relative and Ultimate
Relative Bodhicitta is engaging the world with compassion in a normal way. Being kind, giving to charity, helping others, teaching the dharma. It’s the manifestation of our basic goodness.
Ultimate Bodhicitta is based on engaging the world without a self. This is helping in a way that isn’t dependent on a giver or receiver. It’s foundation is Emptiness, based on dissolving the boundaries between self and other.
Bodhicitta combines emptiness, compassion, and wisdom. To engage wisdom we have to work out overcoming our attachment to ourselves. To engage compassion we have to work on overcoming our possessiveness and aggression. To engage emptiness we have to learn to relate to our basic goodness in a way that is direct and complete.
Bodhicitta is central to Mahayana Buddhist teachings. It is the basis of being awake and freeing our minds.
We don’t really cultivate the awakened state as something separate from ourselves or as something new. We are trying to realize that we already have this basic goodness as part of our being. It has always been there. Dwelling in Bodhicitta brings us greater vision and potential. It brings us to boundless compassion for ourselves and others.
When we engage Bodhicitta we stop being so afraid of and controlled by our suffering. We gain new levels of patience and diligence. We also develop a kind of bravery. We are like spiritual warriors, willing to see the suffering of the world and face it in order to save ourselves and others.
This is the way of the bodhisattva.
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