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Ramsses II
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(11/25/05 1:47 pm)
Reply 		The Bodhisattva Vow
Balder: Hi, Duncan,

I asked my question about the Bodhisattva Vow as an aside, and it is a bit off topic from this thread, but I'm glad you took the time to respond to it. I'll give a general response here, but will be glad to go into more detail if it seems appropriate.

quote:

However innumerable sentient beings are,
I vow to save them.

What does this mean in strategy and purpose?

From a subjective ("inner") perspective, defining this as a potentially infinite task -- saving innumerable sentient beings -- is an acknowledgement that the "ground" of your vow, and your activity, is and must be in the Absolute, beyond (but encompassing) all number and form. From an objective ("outer") perspective, it means that you vow to meet all beings where they are at (see my explanation of the third part of the vow), to help them not only achieve temporal relief from suffering, delusion, and their causes, but also to realize and manifest ultimate well-being in the ground of true nature, which is the Absolute.

quote:

However inexhaustible the defilements are,
I vow to extinguish them.

If these are equivalent to pathologies, how is this done? And why is it done?

Yes, defilements, or obscurations, are equivalent to pathologies. The word, "defilements," specifically refers to samsaric emotion and cognition, which have the tendency to obscure the natural clear light of universal creative intelligence (rigpa). On a relative level, which is the way you would address relatively immature and unstable beings, you would help heal pathology by applying "antidotes" -- training beings to cultivate and apply positive, compassionate, rational responses when confronted by typical selfish, delusive, "automatic" or unconscious emotions. On the "ultimate" level, this is done by helping beings to realize true nature (the clear light of rigpa, universal intelligence) and to integrate it in all dimensions of life. Dzogchen Buddhist teachings specifically and emphatically stress the need for engaging in this process of real world integration after the initial "direct introduction."

quote:

However immeasurable the dharmas are,
I vow to master them.

This seems very much to fit with the idea of 'obedience and ethics' and at its very best, possibly done as a filial act.

I would see that a morality which manifests from a generic motivator (agape/wisdom) with an infinite number of diverse pragmatic manifestations or expressions, is of a much higher 'order'.

I'm curious how you get "obedience and ethics" out of this phrase. Are you very familiar with Buddhist teachings, or are you just coming to this conclusion based on this particular phrase alone?

I referred you above to this third part of the vow, in terms of the practical working out of the vow. The idea here is not to study and follow all the rules in order to please somebody up above, or to study all the "laws" in order to be perfect, or anything of the sort. I will give a fuller explanation of this in a moment, but the "ground" of this part of the vow is in what is called "ultimate bodhicitta." One of the metaphorical numbers in Buddhism is 84,000, as in "84,000 gates of the dharma." Here, these "gates" are the defilements themselves. Each defilement, when entered fully and with enlightened heart-mind (karuna, agape), can be transformed and "self-liberated," realized in its fullness as a gesture or expression of rigpa -- universal creative intelligence. You vow to enter into the 84,000 worlds of samsaric confusion and reveal to sentient beings, right at the heart of each, the immediate door to the objectifying (self-ornamenting) but not objectifiable compassionate intelligence of the Absolute.

quote:

However incomparable enlightenment is,
I vow to attain it.

This is both very acceptable and at the same time does not (but really should) acknowledge the critical working plateaux of what could be described as kosmologically incorporating and integrating the other '3 Quadrants' and the rest of humanity) (Though the humanity bit is implicit in the first one?) And also it begs the question : Why?

In Buddhist thought, self-and-world are understood as a single movement, a unified enfoldment and unfolding. This receives especially clear elucidation in Dzogchen teachings, in my opinion, but you can find this understanding expressed in different ways in many Buddhist traditions and texts. Humanity is indeed implicit in the first part of the vow, but the vow is purposefully not anthropocentric: it embraces all beings, at all levels of existence, and thus explicitly acknowledges and calls for the "gathering up" of all realms of life into the transformative light of absolute universal intelligence.

Wilber, and other modern integral thinkers, have highlighted the four quadrants of existence in an especially lucid way, pointing to the inseparability of the four dimensions and providing ground for fuller realization of enlightened living. There have been examples in the past of "dharmic kingdoms" (Ashoka, a Buddhist king, was well-known for his altruistic style of governance in India), and of Christian non-dual realizers, but as I pointed out in a previous post, I think it is pretty clear that, to date, neither Buddhism nor Christianity (as religions) have realized the fullness of all-quadrant enlightened being. But, as I also said, this is changing.

quote:

What's missing in such an important vow, assuming that a bodhisattva is in fact equivalent to a christ, and it was indeed made by one, is the reference to the Pattern and Purpose of the Kosmos! No, here, I am not talking about devotional stuff, but in fact referring to a relationship with something much bigger and of higher Function.

The "pattern and purpose" of the Kosmos do indeed inform the vow, as I believe I have illustrated above: a condition of enlightened life for all sentient beings. Buddhism says, on the one hand, that there are actually no sentient beings, which is a way of countering the tendency toward simplistic reification of "parts" apart from the whole (which in Dzogchen may be called the thigle nyag-gcig, the patterning point-singularity of absolute creative intelligence); and yet Buddhism also teaches that all buddhas [realized beings] are, in fact, individual and unique. Mind transcends and includes "number" (multiplicity), so there is no contradiction here.

quote:

My strong impression here is that this was neither written nor dictated by a christ being. Even as a generic summary, its missing the right emphasis and significant points and in fact could be worked up by a devotee by assumption of what it might be like. This is definitely an AM description. However, did they actually hear of or about one? That is the question.

I wonder if you had not heard the Lord's Prayer and someone introduced it to you for the first time, whether you might also have a strong impression that it was not uttered by a Christ being. Just reading it, I venture that you would detect a lot of Blue, mythic, obedience-and-ethics overtones to it. Whether or not it truly is, I think if I were so inclined (and I'm not), I could make a strong argument that it is strikingly similar to other AM artifacts that "could be worked up by a devotee by assumption of what it might be like."

I make this point primarily because I question the "basis" on which you are evaluating the Bodhisattva vow. Might it be used as an AM motivator? Certainly. Just as the Lord's Prayer has been for centuries. Might it contain more depth than might be apparent on the surface? I hope you are not committed to an exclusivist position that, by its very nature, impels you to disqualify all "competing" traditions and teachings as inferior -- whether A/M or evil. I don't believe you are committed to such a dogmatic perspective, but I hope you will understand that, to the degree that you are dismissing something about which you apparently do not have much first-hand knowledge (your criticism is mostly about "general impressions" given by the words themselves, rather than the whole context in which they were uttered or are applied), this at least gives the impression that you are interested in dismissing alternate (non-Christian) perspectives.

This is longer than I intended, but I hope it is helpful.

Have a go at this!

Best wishes,

Bruce

P.S. I had intended to explain the difference between relative and absolute bodhicitta as the basis of the Bodhisattva Vow. On the relative level, the perspective of relative bodhicitta, the vow looks like something a single being is trying to do. But from the perspective of absolute bodhicitta (the "true nature" of universal intelligence), the Bodhisattva Vow represents the activity of the Absolute Intelligence itself. Taking the vow, it is not "you" who do it on your own; rather, you step out of the way to allow the heart-mind of universal wisdom and compassion to act in and through you for the benefit of all beings.

Edited by: Ramsses II at: 11/25/05 6:26 pm
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