I told a friend of mine recently that I didn't want to keep intensifying my meditation practice, because I felt like I'd disappear up my own ass if I further decreased my levels of stress and self-narrative. She said, "oh, isn't that like the Bodhisattva vow?" It's not, but I really liked that interpretation: the vow to engage with the world and remain capable of returning emails instead of choosing bliss states.
From David Loy's A New Buddhist Path - an interpretation of the vow that leads to eco-dharma:
'...the bodhisattva’s preoccupation with helping “others” is not a personal sacrifice but a further stage of personal development. Because awakening to my nonduality with the world does not automatically eliminate habitual self-centered ways of thinking and acting, following a bodhisattva
path becomes important for reorienting my relationship with the world. Instead of asking, “What can I get out of this situation?” one asks, “What can I contribute to this situation, to make it better?”
Thus the bodhisattva path is a way of emphasizing the important distinction between two basic ways of understanding the Buddhist path: do I follow the path only to end my own suffering, or to address the suffering of everyone?
That speaks directly to an important tension today between “self-help” Buddhism and socially engaged Buddhism.'
I clicked on the link "questioning the bodhisattva vow" and originally the article wouldn't load. In impulse I said "come on, don't...[not load]" which I am conscious is also an answer to the question. I feel I would have a lot to add to the conversation. Will think about joining. Thanks for offering this!
I am not sure if I count as a member of Evolving Ground right now but I might want to join this discussion group if there are still spots - how would one go about doing that?
It's open to all paying roles (https://www.evolvingground.org/roles) in eG. (I had to check about this; it changed at the beginning of this year.) That could be "Explorer," at $10 per month; or either of the others.
Oh, and then once signed up, you can go to the community site (you'll get a link to it), and in the left menu scroll to "Book Club" in "Online Events," click on the red "RSVP" button, and you'll get instructions on how to join. We'll be using the on-site video conferencing functionality for this.
Thank you very much! I'm excited for the book club. It turns out that I was still a member of Evolving Ground... on Patreon, where there hasn't been an update in years! haha. Anyway, now I'm fully switched over.
I was so interested in your list of questions that I somehow missed in my first read-through that this is a book club for Chodron's book. I'll try to read in time for the club! But I'm honestly just so happy and relieved to see people thinking about these questions in these ways.
What I know about the bodhisattva vow comes mainly from the work of Brook Ziporyn on Tiantai Buddhism, which has as its central text the Lotus Sutra. According to Ziporyn's interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, we are all already bodhisattvas who have taken the vow, even if we don't realize this. Actually, BECAUSE we don't realize this! I find this deeply inspiring. Here's how Ziporyn discusses it in his book "Being and Omnipresence: An essential introduction to Tiantai Buddhism":
«This is the situation in the Lotus Sūtra: We think we are striving to learn a technique to eliminate suffering. But in so doing, we are actually, unbeknownst to ourselves, learning something far more exalted: we are learning to become bodhisattvas. In fact, we are all bodhisattvas without realizing it, and our practice of the bodhisattva path is going on right now, not in spite of not realizing it, but because we don’t realize it. We have never known what we are doing, and it is only in this way that we have thus far been able to actually do it. The Lotus Sūtra itself is the news that allows us to know that we have not known in the past, to recognize our own bodhisattvahood in our own past lives of not knowing we were bodhisattvas, allowing us to take up this practice knowingly in the future.
This seeing ourselves as always having been an unwitting bodhisattva is what the Lotus Sūtra allows us to do. A bodhisattva, of course, is someone who transforms into all manner of different forms for the sake of instructing and transforming other beings. We are to see our present life as one of these forms that we have taken on as a consequence of our own forgotten bodhisattva vow, which we are now asked to reclaim. Regarding oneself as a bodhisattva is to regard all forms of being as forms in which one can and does take shape, out of our compassion for the world. And it is this recognizing of ourselves in other lives that is the true meaning of the idea of rebirth and of its constant invocation throughout the Lotus Sūtra; it means to see all the past, present, and future existences of all beings as varying bodhisattva transformations of ourselves, and to see it this way right now.»
and
«The great dramatic surprise of this chapter, and of the whole Lotus Sūtra, depends on this uncalled-for inflation of the Buddha’s status. For it is the setup for the big punch line: each living being is equal to a Buddha. The inequality is first stressed, the loftiness and breadth of the Buddha’s achievement, how much above the rest of us he is—and then we are told that, by the way, we are all just like that. To say “You are all Buddhas” would be meaningless, after all, if the meaning of “Buddha” were not first established by contrast to the ordinary state of human existence. The value is first established by means of a contrast, and then it is collapsed, not by leveling the Buddha down to us, but by bringing us up to his exalted level. He first makes a sharp and enormous distinction between the experience, knowledge, and perception of a Buddha and anyone else. The Buddha has great skillful means, which none of the śrāvakas or even the advanced bodhisattvas can possibly fathom. The main thing he knows about that others have no inkling of, however, is not simply “the way things are,” but, much more centrally, “the way living beings are, what living beings are really doing.” What are they doing, unbeknownst to themselves? They are becoming Buddhas. They are practicing the bodhisattva way. So another strange loop appears here: the Buddha alone knows that we are all Buddhas in training. The Buddha is completely unlike us: he knows; we don’t. But what he knows is this: that we are not as unlike one another as we think. So later in the same chapter he announces, “Long ago I made a vow to make all living beings equal to myself. And as of now that vow has already been fulfilled.”»
I find that this perspective fills me with a sense of benevolence and beatitude: benevolence towards my fellow beings, all of whom are fellow bodhisattvas, and beatitude in knowing and feeling that I am one of the myriad forms that Buddha's vow entails.
I told a friend of mine recently that I didn't want to keep intensifying my meditation practice, because I felt like I'd disappear up my own ass if I further decreased my levels of stress and self-narrative. She said, "oh, isn't that like the Bodhisattva vow?" It's not, but I really liked that interpretation: the vow to engage with the world and remain capable of returning emails instead of choosing bliss states.
I really like that too! (And it seems accurate.) Thank you (and your friend)!
From David Loy's A New Buddhist Path - an interpretation of the vow that leads to eco-dharma:
'...the bodhisattva’s preoccupation with helping “others” is not a personal sacrifice but a further stage of personal development. Because awakening to my nonduality with the world does not automatically eliminate habitual self-centered ways of thinking and acting, following a bodhisattva
path becomes important for reorienting my relationship with the world. Instead of asking, “What can I get out of this situation?” one asks, “What can I contribute to this situation, to make it better?”
Thus the bodhisattva path is a way of emphasizing the important distinction between two basic ways of understanding the Buddhist path: do I follow the path only to end my own suffering, or to address the suffering of everyone?
That speaks directly to an important tension today between “self-help” Buddhism and socially engaged Buddhism.'
I clicked on the link "questioning the bodhisattva vow" and originally the article wouldn't load. In impulse I said "come on, don't...[not load]" which I am conscious is also an answer to the question. I feel I would have a lot to add to the conversation. Will think about joining. Thanks for offering this!
I am not sure if I count as a member of Evolving Ground right now but I might want to join this discussion group if there are still spots - how would one go about doing that?
Yes, no limit on numbers!
It's open to all paying roles (https://www.evolvingground.org/roles) in eG. (I had to check about this; it changed at the beginning of this year.) That could be "Explorer," at $10 per month; or either of the others.
Oh, and then once signed up, you can go to the community site (you'll get a link to it), and in the left menu scroll to "Book Club" in "Online Events," click on the red "RSVP" button, and you'll get instructions on how to join. We'll be using the on-site video conferencing functionality for this.
Thank you very much! I'm excited for the book club. It turns out that I was still a member of Evolving Ground... on Patreon, where there hasn't been an update in years! haha. Anyway, now I'm fully switched over.
I was so interested in your list of questions that I somehow missed in my first read-through that this is a book club for Chodron's book. I'll try to read in time for the club! But I'm honestly just so happy and relieved to see people thinking about these questions in these ways.
Glad it is relevant for you!
To be clear, we'll be doing the lay vows in the first session, and then the bodhisattva and tantric vows in the second one (in March).
This is the form: https://www.evolvingground.org/community-signup
thank you!
What I know about the bodhisattva vow comes mainly from the work of Brook Ziporyn on Tiantai Buddhism, which has as its central text the Lotus Sutra. According to Ziporyn's interpretation of the Lotus Sutra, we are all already bodhisattvas who have taken the vow, even if we don't realize this. Actually, BECAUSE we don't realize this! I find this deeply inspiring. Here's how Ziporyn discusses it in his book "Being and Omnipresence: An essential introduction to Tiantai Buddhism":
«This is the situation in the Lotus Sūtra: We think we are striving to learn a technique to eliminate suffering. But in so doing, we are actually, unbeknownst to ourselves, learning something far more exalted: we are learning to become bodhisattvas. In fact, we are all bodhisattvas without realizing it, and our practice of the bodhisattva path is going on right now, not in spite of not realizing it, but because we don’t realize it. We have never known what we are doing, and it is only in this way that we have thus far been able to actually do it. The Lotus Sūtra itself is the news that allows us to know that we have not known in the past, to recognize our own bodhisattvahood in our own past lives of not knowing we were bodhisattvas, allowing us to take up this practice knowingly in the future.
This seeing ourselves as always having been an unwitting bodhisattva is what the Lotus Sūtra allows us to do. A bodhisattva, of course, is someone who transforms into all manner of different forms for the sake of instructing and transforming other beings. We are to see our present life as one of these forms that we have taken on as a consequence of our own forgotten bodhisattva vow, which we are now asked to reclaim. Regarding oneself as a bodhisattva is to regard all forms of being as forms in which one can and does take shape, out of our compassion for the world. And it is this recognizing of ourselves in other lives that is the true meaning of the idea of rebirth and of its constant invocation throughout the Lotus Sūtra; it means to see all the past, present, and future existences of all beings as varying bodhisattva transformations of ourselves, and to see it this way right now.»
and
«The great dramatic surprise of this chapter, and of the whole Lotus Sūtra, depends on this uncalled-for inflation of the Buddha’s status. For it is the setup for the big punch line: each living being is equal to a Buddha. The inequality is first stressed, the loftiness and breadth of the Buddha’s achievement, how much above the rest of us he is—and then we are told that, by the way, we are all just like that. To say “You are all Buddhas” would be meaningless, after all, if the meaning of “Buddha” were not first established by contrast to the ordinary state of human existence. The value is first established by means of a contrast, and then it is collapsed, not by leveling the Buddha down to us, but by bringing us up to his exalted level. He first makes a sharp and enormous distinction between the experience, knowledge, and perception of a Buddha and anyone else. The Buddha has great skillful means, which none of the śrāvakas or even the advanced bodhisattvas can possibly fathom. The main thing he knows about that others have no inkling of, however, is not simply “the way things are,” but, much more centrally, “the way living beings are, what living beings are really doing.” What are they doing, unbeknownst to themselves? They are becoming Buddhas. They are practicing the bodhisattva way. So another strange loop appears here: the Buddha alone knows that we are all Buddhas in training. The Buddha is completely unlike us: he knows; we don’t. But what he knows is this: that we are not as unlike one another as we think. So later in the same chapter he announces, “Long ago I made a vow to make all living beings equal to myself. And as of now that vow has already been fulfilled.”»
I find that this perspective fills me with a sense of benevolence and beatitude: benevolence towards my fellow beings, all of whom are fellow bodhisattvas, and beatitude in knowing and feeling that I am one of the myriad forms that Buddha's vow entails.