The Buddhist Messiahs

The Buddhist Messiahs: The Magnificent Deeds of the Bodhisattvas
Robert A. F. Thurman
The Christ and Bodhisattva Conference at Middlebury College with His Holiness the Dalai Lama (unannotated draft)
September 1984

I. The Bodhisattva as Messiah, or World-Savior
The "Bodhisattvas" are the Messiahs for all the Buddhist nations. He or she is an Anointed One, a liberator or savior whom the faithful prayerfully entreat to help them out of the mess of the samsaric life-cycle. In this sense a Bodhisattva is like the Christ, the unique Savior of the Christian nations. Both are born of higher, spiritual knowledge, (enlightenment or the mind of God, respectively) and both embody the all-powerful universal love that animates their heroic resolve to triumph over suffering and evil. But this is the extent of the similarity between them, at least in religious conception if not in actuality.

The Christ arose within the monotheistic Judaic culture, fulfilling the nation's longing for a liberating Warrior-King in a way so unexpected he was not accepted by many Jews. Martyred instead, he was eventually accepted as a spiritual Savior by an international community that grew steadily over the centuries. They consider him already to have saved those who have faith in him, while they also await his physical return as a warrior-king to save the world in his Second Coming at the End of Days. He is the only Son of the omnipotent Judaic Creator-God. No person or deity other than Christ can save the humans of all nations, and no other Christ is ever needed.

In contrast, there are innumerable Bodhisattvas, and their activity is not connected with any particular culture, though their cult arose in religiously pluralistic ancient India. The first Bodhisattva we hear of is Siddhartha Gautama, whose liberating role was recognized by many Indian nations when he became Shakyamuni the Buddha. His "Saviorhood" was expressly disconnected from any one nation's triumphal longings and was unwaveringly focused on teaching people how to achieve an "other-worldly" liberation in Nirvana. His Example, Teaching, and Community were accepted widely throughout India and the rest of Asia over the centuries.

The Buddha taught that his "Holy Dhar ma" is perfectly adequate to the task of liberating not only all humans but all living beings; on the other hand, each one of these beings is him/ herself responsible for his or her own liberation. There is no original Creation or beginning of the world, and no Creator God. Rather, individual and collective evolution, or "karma", operates beginninglessly to cause and condition particular destinies. Many individual beings have been Bodhisattvas and have already become Buddhas. There are countless Bodhisattvas present throughout the multiverse striving to save, free, and help living beings. Every single living being can and must him or herself eventually become such a Bodhisattva and ultimately even an Unexcelled Perfect Buddha. All Bodhisattvas wish to save the whole world, the infinite universes of numberless beings. But they do not only appear as warrior-kings for specific nations or even planets. They work for universal liberation in all capacities. There are f emale Bodhisattvas as well as male ones, there are deity or demigod or animal or infernal Bodhisattvas as well as human ones. There are beginner Bodhisattvas as well as highly developed ones. Advanced Bodhisattvas sometimes emanate themselves as inanimate objects such as food, conveyances, medicines, bridges or buildings, if they feel that beings need such things. From this brief initial comparison, several conclusions can be drawn at once about the concepts "Christ" and "Bodhisattva." But I will turn to comparisons later. First we must dwell in more detail on the Bodhisattva figure, since that ideal is not familiar to most of you.

Although the "Bodhisattva ideal" is the very heart of the Mahayana or Universal Vehicle of Buddhism, which emerges into prominence in India from ca. 100 B.C.E., Shakyamuni Buddha is introduced much earlier as the first Bodhisattva, in those Monastic Vehicle teachings known as Jatakas, or "Evolutionary Tales." In these discourses, he imparts to his audiences a rich sense of the evolutionary background of their present lives and actions by recounting similar yet subtly different events that took place in their former lives. For example, the five ascetics Buddha first taught were living in their former lives as a tigress and four tiger cubs.

There was a terrible famine, and the tigress in her madness was about to devour the cubs. The Bodhisattva, a young prince in that life, came along and saw the situation. He jumped off a cliff onto the rocks before the tigress' lair, wishing to feed mother and cubs with his own flesh and blood. He prayed that just as he fed them materially in that life he might feed them spiritually with the food of the Holy Dharma in a future life when he would be a Buddha. His wish came true at Sarnath where he turned for them the "Wheel of the Dharma." In other lives the Bodhisattva practiced all the transcendent virtues, generosity, morality, tolerance, effort, contemplation, wisdom and so forth. He gave away eyes, head, limbs, body, life, wealth, wife, children, kingdom, again and again. He acted morally toward others in both the most trying and the most tempting circumstances. He tolerated the terrible injuries and injustices imposed on him by others without anger and with love and forgiveness. He strove, he con templated, he learned and increased his understanding. He always multiplied his stores of merit and knowledge life after life, until he finally became a perfect Buddha.

I personally enjoy these marvellous Jataka Tales, and must restrain myself from using up all the time in telling them. If one reads them through and absorbs their atmosphere, one easily gets the feel of the Buddhist view of evolution -- that spiritual development, not survival, is the object of life, and that fitness is not simply short-term efficiency in killing and getting and be-getting, but rather longterm increase of gentleness, giving, caring and forbearing. This first Bodhisattva in the literature was a being consciously engaged in a moral, physical, and spiritual evolution toward the perfectly excellent, blissful, and boundless form of life that is called Buddhahood. The only reason these earliest Buddhist teachings through story do not themselves constitute a Mahayana or Universal Vehicle is that Buddha only tells what he did and what came of it; he never implies that all must also do the same, that everyone must attain not only the individual perfection of sainthood, but also the communal, evolutionary perfection of Buddhahood. Whatever our opinion of the historical origins of the Universal Vehicle, we can clearly see in the Jatakas of Monastic Buddhism an esoteric, indirectly intimated Universal Vehicle.

The Buddha's indirection falls away in the Universal Vehicle Scriptures, wherein the Buddha is presented as revealing his own magnificent vision of a world transformed, a world of egocentrism and its suffering transmuted into a Buddha- land of wisdom, love, and immeasurable bliss. The Vimalakirti Scripture opens with the basic messianic question of the Bodhisattva: "Lord, these five hundred young Licchavis are truly on their way to unexcelled perfect enlightenment, and they have asked what is the Bodhisattvas' perfection of the Buddha-land. Please, Lord, explain to them the Bodhisattvas' perfection of the Buddha-land!" The Bodhisattva's quest is not merely to free and transform him or herself; it is to purify, transform, perfect, and beautify an entire universe! II. The Invisible Kingdom of Buddha The objection should arise here, "If Buddha was a Bodhisattva, a World- Messiah, prophesied to save all beings from suffering as a Cosmic Spiritual Hero- King defeating the forces of chaos and evil and bring ing peace and light to the world, then how did he fail so miserably? How come he gave up the fight and sought an other-worldly extinction in Nirvana, advising others to do the same?" (The objection sounds rather similar to those western secular doubters who are incredulous about any physical Second Coming of the Christ, who are rather Roman in their attitude about Jesus' practical Messiah-hood.) In the Vimalakirti again, Shariputra reflects a similar concern, after he hears the Buddha describe the perfection and glory of his Buddha-land; "`If the Buddha-land is perfect only to the extent that the mind of the Bodhisattva is perfect, then, when Shakyamuni Buddha was engaged in the career of the Bodhisattva, his mind must have been imperfect.

Otherwise, how could this Buddha-land appear to be so imperfect?'" The Buddha then reads the mind of the unfortunate Saint and chides him for his doubt and for the superficiality of his perception, likening him to a man born blind who doubts the existence of a sun and moon he has never seen. The God Brahma also shows his disapproval of Shariputra's imperfect perception.

Finally, the Buddha exerts himself to create an unforgettable symbol of the invisible presence of his kingdom: "Thereupon, the Lord touched the ground of this billion-world-galactic universe with his big toe, and suddenly it was transformed into a huge mass of precious jewels, a magnificent array of many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems, until it resembled the universe of the Tathagata Ratnavyuha, called `Infinite-Virtue-Jewel-Array.' Everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder, each perceiving him/herself seated on a throne of jeweled lotuses." Shariputra is suitably awed by this dramatic gesture and, after emphasizing his point, the Buddha concludes, "`Shariputra, this Buddha-land is always thus perfect, but the Tathagata makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults, in order to bring about the maturity of inferior living beings...'" Then, he picks up his toe, and the assembly is back in ordinary India! The paradox contained in this symbolic event evokes the issue faced by theistic Christianity in its tenet that the faithful have already been saved by God's action through Christ which is held in tension with the all-too-apparent need to wait for the Final Day of Judgement. The Buddha disclaims any responsibility for any original creation of the world; each being's own karmic evolution plays that role. Yet the Bodhisattva's achievement in fulfilling his messianic mission must be to perfect the entire universe, turning it into a "Buddha-land", a realm wherein the power of the saving compassion of the Buddha overwhelms the power of karma. Thus, the ordinary "history" of a world, once a perfect Buddha has appeared in it, must be but the unravelling of its inhabitants' collective delusion, as their imperfect perception of reality is gradually absorbed into the Buddha's perfected vision. All the thoughts, words, and acts of a Buddha must be designed to optimize the process of absorption of ignorance, selfishness, and suffering by enlightenment, love, and bliss. And the instituti ons he founds are mechanisms to accomplish this Bodhisattva transformation.

Once we consider this possibility, i. e. that the Buddha's choice of teachings and design of institutions had a messianic, "this-worldly" aim as well as transcendent foundations, the history of Buddhism and the nations in which it flourished and acted as a powerful catalyst appears in a new light. The Buddha's gradual invention of monasticism emerges as an institutional innovation ideally suited to anchor in ordinary, delusional history his, at first, to most, invisible "kingdom of enlightenment," or Buddha-land. The "messianic," socially transformative, even revolutionary impact of Buddhist monasticism has been largely overlooked by western scholars, as they have assumed it to be merely an expression of Buddhism's typical "other-worldliness", hence without impact on society at large. As I have argued elsewhere, and shall briefly mention here, nothing could be further from the historical fact.

When the Bodhisattva Prince Siddhartha was born, legend has it that the sage Asita predicted that he would either be a "Wheel-turning Emperor," or a Perfect Buddha. A "Wheel-turning Emperor" is the usual type of Messiah, who establishes his nation in triumphal world-dominance, bringing world peace during his reign, a time of blessing and prosperity for all nations. Naturally, Siddhartha's father Shuddhodhana and the Shakya nation wanted him to be this first kind of Messiah, and all were bitterly disappointed when the Bodhisattva instead renounced the world and left his family and throne and political destiny to attain perfect Buddhahood. We also think of him as merely having given up the game of power, having abandoned effective historical action within his kingdom, and having come up instead with some spiritual otherworldly escape from the strife of reality.

But the Buddhists themselves seem to think that the Buddha established a much more powerful kingdom on earth by his Buddhaactivities, that his "Turning of the Wheel of Dharma" was much more efficacious in the long run than the "Turning of the Wheel" of imperial sovereignty would have been. The Bodhisattva himself told his father that he would be glad to rule the kingdom if only he could protect his subjects from sufferings of birth, sickness, old age, and death. As a Dharma-king, he felt able to return to teach his people just how to do that. Nagarjuna compares Wheel-turning Emperor and Perfect Buddha to fire-fly and sun respectively. The question then arises, is there a sense in which a Buddha wields worldly power, as well as spiritual power? Or, does spiritual power have any impact in the world? A reconstruction of the historical record of Buddhist institutions and their impact in Asian history provides strong evidence for an affirmative answer to this question. But a great deal of detail must be a ccumulated and carefully sifted to make the case irrefutably persuasive.

Before Buddha's time, the religious specialists in India were either ascetic wanderers (sramana) or priests (brahmana). The former were very much oriented to the "other-worldly" and the latter were a social service caste. Buddha himself was sometimes called "the Great Shramana," and he defined himself and his monks as truly "Brahmana" (meaning "spiritually pure"), more so than any Brahman by birth. But his "monks" or "mendicants" ( bhiksu), were a new kind of ascetic, representing a new middle way between priests and ascetics. They lived neither downtown nor in the wilderness, but in "Abodes" ( vihara) near the towns and villages. They daily entered the market places for alms, and lectured to the populace in exchange for a meal. They were missionaries to all castes and nations, considering their saving Teaching the greatest gift that could be given to any other being. They were forbidden by the Buddha to perform any priestly role for the people other than preaching the Dharma. They formed a new Commun ity within the old society, with new laws of ethical action, new codes of etiquette, new disciplines to educate body, speech, and mind. For the first time in world history, they included female ascetics as nuns within their community. Determination to attain freedom, celibacy, poverty, non-violence, and truthfulness were the only qualifying criteria for joining their monastic Community, the core of the larger lay following. They formed a sort of "peace corps," its constituency and scope being inter-national, inter-class, inter-religious, and inter-sexual, and they manifested a new pattern of utilization of the human lifetime.

A Wheel-turning Emperor conquers the world by means of his magic spacewheel and his powerful armies. The Buddha as Dharma-wheel-turning Dharmaemperor began a process of conquest by Dharma, "Truth-conquest," by means of his magic Wheel of Teaching of the Liberating Dharma, and his army was made up of the non-violent saints of his monastic Order. A World-emperor's power lasts only as long as his life, or at most for the few generations of his dynasty. The Dharmaemperor's reign lasted for millennia, and spread among all the nations of the planet.

The World-emperor's rule, though it can be benevolent once all opposition is quelled, is based on violent force, is secretly resented, and so commands only outward conformity. The Dharma-emperor's rule is based on non-violence, appeals to the reason and good will of the people, and so commands their inward allegiance through their understanding and faith.

So successful was the Buddha's monastic movement with its implicit messianic impact, that within two centuries, by the time of the Emperor Ashoka, the monastic Sangha had spread all over India. Toward the end of his life, Ashoka actually made a symbolic gift of the entire land of India to the Community, which they ritually (and diplomatically) sold back to his heir, who was understandably nervous about the growing social power of the "other-worldly" Community.

Although during the next centuries, the later Mauryas and the Shungas were often antagonistic to the Community, it had become a kind of religious, educational, and cultural "establishment" throughout India. A quite mundane cause of this was the Community's especially close ties to the merchant classes, who appreciated the Buddha Dharma as legitimator of their new status and power, which had steadily increased since Buddha's time at the expense of the old aristocratic warriors and their Brahmin priests. The Buddhist culture exerted a gradual though inexorable impact on life-style, literature, government, art, religion, and thought. The Shatavahanas of the Deccan and the Kushanas moving in from Afghanistan both took up Buddhism in a serious way. The time was such that a more overtly "messianic" form of Buddhism seemed required.

Truth-conquest could begin to move out from the monastic strongholds and assert itself more pervasively throughout the lay world, as well as internationally.

The Bodhisattva ideal was brought forward from its setting in the Jataka myths and advanced as a viable paradigm for personal action. Once their messianic idealism was engaged, men and women could progress toward enlightenment without becoming monks or nuns, could remain engaged in their duties in lay society and yet work to transform that society into a Buddha-land. After five hundred years of further progress on the cultural level, up through the Gupta into the post-Gupta and Pala eras, these Bodhisattva men and women branched out into the still neglected social and geographical areas with their taming mission, becoming the "Great Adepts" who brought the Dharma to the tribal, the uneducated, the provincial, even the barbarian.

I sketch in broad strokes this fifteen hundred year history of Buddhist India to indicate the way to discover the unfolding of the spiritual and social, though politically invisible,"kingdom of Buddha" through Indian history. That is, to evaluate the messianic impact of the Buddha, we should evaluate the kind and degree of transformation in India from 500 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E. as a result of the extensive campaign of "Truth Conquest" carried on by the Monastic, Messianic, and Apocalyptic Buddhists of the Individual, Universal, and Esoteric Vehicles. This is not how Indian history has usually been understood by most modern interpreters, eastern as well as western, as they tend to look through the lenses of their modernistic, nationalistic, and militaristic categories. But those historians who seek to trace the impact of love, intelligence, and good will in history instead of being obsessed with the impact of evil, stupidity, greed and violence, can read things in this new way, (a "Gandhian" way, one mig ht call it).

A social history of this fifteen hundred year period, not just the usual history of political events, does, I believe, reveal the highest, most gentle, refined, liberated, wealthy, fully blossomed society our planet has yet seen. It was closely paralleled by T'ang and Sung China, and echoed in the many smaller civilizations that kindled from these brilliant cultures, such as Tibet, Uighuria, Korea, Japan, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam. It has not yet equalled by our modern societies, as astounding as that may be to our own exaggerated self-image. This social and cultural reality of late first-millennium India was naturally very much obscured by the ravaging invasions of waves of Muslim Turks. They eradicated to the best of their ability all traces of the Buddhist institutions, arts, and literature, which constituted the main "establishment" of the era. They forced the Indian people either to accept the new universalism of militant Islam or to return to the village Brahmanism that had always peacefully co-existed with the urban, ancient universalism of Buddhism.

After the Muslims came the Christian British, and it is only now, with the independence of India, that we have the re-emergence of the forces of "Truthconquest," such as Mahatma Gandhi and his followers. Interestingly, through the heroic work of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the brave Tibetan refugees, the Bodhisattva teachings have returned to India from Tibet, where they were wellhidden since just before the Turkish conquest. And the Siddhartha Bodhisattva's "Wheel of True Dharma" is beginning to turn all over the free world today. But of course, the "Kingdom of Buddha," the Buddha-land, seems ever further away from the daily holocaust revealed all around us by the electronic media. It takes a special effort of courageous vision to penetrate the surface appearance of anguish, tragedy, greed and waste and folly, to see the jewelline potential shining there. Turning from this outline of the historical Kingdom of the Buddha, I wish now to explore the Sacred Scriptures of the Universal Vehicle and their analytical commentaries to glimpse the precise nature of the Bodhisattvas: their origin in the various conceptions of the spirit of enlightenment and the magnificent vision of their limitless deeds, ceaselessly performed throughout the multiverse, the vision beheld by those of Buddhist faith. There are so many types of Bodhisattvas, it is hard to organize the ocean of their types and qualities into some manageable patterns. Bodhisattvas are heroes for and of enlightenment, seeking to attain Buddhahood and to bring all beings with them into liberation. There are beginner Bodhisattvas, often human but sometimes even of other species. There are semihuman, semi-superhuman Bodhisattvas who are high up on the ladder of ten stages reaching to Buddhahood. There are divine Bodhisattvas who are somewhere between humans and Buddhas, like angels doing good from galaxy to gal axy.

There are even Bodhisattvas who are beyond Buddhahood, in a sense, having long ago attained Buddhahood in a previous eon, a previous universe, and vowed at that time to continue to emanate in myriad Bodhisattva forms to benefit numberless beings endlessly throughout a boundless multiverse. In what follows, I will begin with those varieties closer to us, and move on to the divine Bodhisattvas, so central in Buddhist faith.

III. Becoming a Bodhisattva
The classic formulation of the nature of the BodhisattvasMahasattvas ("Enlightening Heroes, Universal Spiritual Heroes") was written by the illustrious Shantideva in his Introduction to the Bodhisattva Career . He gave immortal form to the Bodhisattva's "conception of the spirit of enlightenment" ( bodhicittautpada). It so challenges current preconceptions about the cold aloofness of Buddhism, it must be read out fully and savored well to get some general idea of what we are trying to understand; "Thus by the virtue collected Through all that I have done, May the pain of every living creature Be completely cleared away! May I be the doctor and the medicine And may I be the nurse For all sick beings in the world Until everyone is healed! May a rain of food and drink descend To clear away the pain of thirst and hunger, And during the eon of famine May I myself change into food and drink! May I beconme and inexhaustible treasure For those who are poor and destitute; May I turn into all things they could n eed And may these be placed close beside them! Without any sense of loss I shall give up my body and enjoyments, As well as my virtues of past, present, future, For the sake of benefitting all! By giving up all, sorrow is transcended And my mind will realize the sorrowless state.

It is best that I now give everything to all beings In the same way as I shall at death! Having given this body up For the pleasure of all living beings, By killing, abusing, and beating it, May they always do as they please! Although they may play with my body, And make it a source of jest and blame, Because I have given it up to them, What is the use of holding it dear? Therefore I shall let them do anything to it, As long as it does not cause them harm, And whenever anyone encounters me, May it never be meaningless for him! Whether those who encounter me Conceive a faithful or an angry thought, May that always become the source For fulfilling all their wishes! May all who say bad things to me Or cause me any other harm, And those who mock and insult me Have the fortune to awaken fully! May I be Savior of those without one, A guide for all travellers on the way; May I be a bridge, a boat, and a ship, For all who wish to cross the water! May I be an island for those who seek one, And a lamp for those desiring light! May I be a bed for all weho wish to rest, And a slave for all who weant a slave! May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase, Powerful mantras, and great medicine, May I become a wish-fulfilling tree, And a cow of plenty for the world! Just like space And the great elements such as earth, May I always support the life Of all the countless creatures! And until they pass away from pain, May I also be the source of life For all the realms of varied beings That reach unto the ends of space! Just as the previous Sugatas Conceived the spirit of enlightenment, And just as they successively lived In the Bodhisattva practices, Likewise for the sake of all that lives Do I conceive the Spirit of Enlightening, And likewise shall I too Successively follow the practices." We could not ask for a more striking expression of the messianic drive of the Bodhisattva, the spirit of love and compassion called the "enlightening spirit," "spirit of enlightenment," or "will to enlightenment" ( bodhicitta). It is not mere ly the wish that all be well with all beings, but also the determination that one will oneself assume responsibility for others. One resolves systematically to attain Buddhahood, which is the ultimate form of evolution, the state from which one really can accomplish the benefit of living beings. The magnificent conception of this will to enlightenment is a central moment in the evolutionary career of a living being, the moment in which a new spirit of love and compassion pervades its whole life and destiny, and its further evolution becomes a purposive, creative progress.

From this moment, a living being becomes a Bodhisattva, worthy of honor by gods as well as humans. Shantideva states that as soon as a being conceives the spirit of enlightenment, he or she becomes at once a "Son or Daughter of the Sugatas," a Buddha-child. He or she should rejoice in the new-found fruitfulness of their very existence. In a sense, this "spirit" is a real "soul" for Universal Vehicle Buddhists. It is a kind of spiritual gene, a DNA molecule of universal compassion that marks the quality and tendency of one's further evolution life after life. Once one possesses it by conceiving the will to attain Buddhahood, the perfection of wisdom and compassion for the sake of all living beings, the quality of one's experience and even one's biological continuum is marked forever onward.

Let us dwell on this a moment: this enlightening will or spirit of enlightenment is a special form of love for all living. It has two forms, aspiring and actualizing. Its aspirational form is generated from insight and resolve; insight that there is such a thing as evolutionary perfection in enlightenment, that there are beings who have actually attained perfect wisdom and universal love towards all, and who are really competent to help all beings; and resolve that one could and should oneself become such a person in order to help all fellow beings. Once this aspirational enlightenment spirit or will has become stable and intense, one solemnly takes up the Bodhisattva vows, and then begins the actualizing spirit of enlightenment. The virtue of the actualizing spirit is even greater: Shantideva says that "for him who has perfectly conceived this mind, with the resolve never to turn away from totally liberating the infinite forms of life, from that time hence, even while asleep or unconcerned, an infin ite force of merit will never cease." The Mahayana Scripture Ornament supplies the traditional twenty two metaphors for the spirit; its first moment is the earth on which the Bodhisattva grows his stores of merit and wisdom and his Buddha qualities; with aspiration it is fine gold which never tarnishes; with application it is a waxing new moon ever on the increase; with high resolve it is fire that grows ever more intense; with transcendent generosity it is a rich and inexhaustible treasury for others' prosperity; with transcendent morality it is a jewel mine; with transcendent tolerance, it is an ocean, unruffled by winds of troubles; with transcendent effort it is an unbreakable diamond; with transcendent contemplation it is an immovable king of mountains; with transcendent wisdom it is the king of medicines; with the immeasurables of love, compassion, joy, and justice it is a great friend, never indifferent; with the clairvoyances it is a wish-granting gem; with the social virtues it is a sun, ripening t he harvest of disciples; with the intellectual insights it is a sweet angelic voice, teaching the persuasive Truth; with the four reliances it is a great king; with the stores of merit and knowledge it is a storehouse; with the thirty seven accessories of enlightenment it is a great royal highway; with quiescence and insight it is a vehicle to transport happiness; with the retentions and eloquences it is a fountain pouring forth undiminished the meaning of the Dharma-Truth; with the elucidation of Truth it is an enchanting sound; with the path of the Unique Way it is a river current, flowing effortlessly from the tolerance of uncreation; with liberative art it is a great cloud which pours forth the source of all life and wealth of all beings.

IV. Techniques for Conceiving the Spirit
There are two main methods of systematically conceiving this spirit of enlightenment, the sevenfold cause-and-effect precept, and the exchange of self and other. The lineage of teaching of the former descends from Shakyamuni through Maitreya Bodhisattva and Asanga (ca. 4th-5th century CE), and that of the latter through Manjushri Bodhisattva, Nagarjuna, Shantideva, and Atisha. Both have been carefully preserved in Tibet until today, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama specializes in teaching the latter.

The sevenfold precept has six steps of meditation leading to the seventh step, their cumulative effect. These seven are called 1) recognition of all beings as one's mother 2) remembering all their kindnesses 3) grateful resolve to repay their kindnesses 4) great love 5) great compassion 6) high resolve 7) the resulting will to and spirit of enlightenment.

This practice depends for its rationale upon the conviction that there are beginningless former lives of oneself and all other beings, the "belief in reincarnation." This "belief" is not effectual if it is merely an abstract dogma or tenet one holds as an article of faith, but must be felt as matter-of-factly as one feels a "belief" in the solidity of the earth under this building. Preliminary to the step of mother-recognition is the cultivation of justice or impartiality. One reflects on a friend, an enemy, and a neutral stranger. One sees the temporariness of their present relations and realizes emotionally their essential equality, as all three are living beings of limitless potential, each equally wishing happiness and equally dreading suffering. Once impartial justice is established at the ground of contemplation, one begins on contemplating the mother of this life, recognizing one's connection with her, that one has been conceived in and carried in and born from her womb. While feeling these de ep emotions of biological connection, one reflects that all other beings in at least some one other life, each bore one in her womb, since there have been innumerable former lives of oneself and all others.

One starts with human females like one's mother, moves on to females of other species, moves on to human and inhuman males, first recognizing that they have had many former lives as females. This contemplation must be continued until one can relate imaginatively to all species of living beings as a child to its mother, which culminates in a profound emotional experience of the biological unity of all living beings. Deep barriers in the "unconscious" must be confronted to succeed in this meditation, dread of spiders, snakes, insects, or even horrible sci-fi monsters, as well as strong Oedipal-type aversions to members of the same sex such as one's father for example. One must be able to experience one's father as one's mother too.

With the right teaching, in the right context, with the right resolve and effort, however, the aim of this step of the meditation is not that difficult to achieve.

The next step proceeds within such a sense of the biological unity of all living, and moves into the realm of limitless tenderness and kindness. One concentrates on retrieving the deep memories of the tender love and care of one's mother of this lifetime, reflecting on all her kindnesses until tears come irresistably and one's hairs stand on end with awe. Past these emotional limits, one then imagines all the living beings having shown one the same kind of tender kindness, and one lets flow the full sentimental appreciation of such wonders.

The third step moves from the sense of unity and deep emotional appreciation into the welling up of the strong wish to do something for all these "mother" living beings out of gratitude, to repay their infinite kindnesses. We want to help them, give them things, be kind to them, adopt them and mother them as well.

The fourth step is that of love, and it has the form of wishing for the happiness of all beings, contemplating all of them one by one and thinking of what it takes to make them happy, visualizing their great happiness as we do this or that for them. Here we begin to realize that there are so few things that can produce any lasting happiness, and we realize that they will only be really happy when they have achieved their own freedom and enlightenment.

The fifth step of compassion ensues from the moment when we open ourselves to the actual sufferings our mothers are constantly undergoing. We see them sick and injured, disappointed and bereaved, old and feeble and despondent.

We see them terrified and desperate facing death and torment. If a Buddhist, we see them screaming through horrendous between-state experiences, and suffering the pains of rebirth in various forms of life, or burning or freezing in hells, as pretahungry- ghosts, as insects, worms, or rodents. When we open ourselves to the detailed and immense tragedy of ordinary life-cycles, we feel a tearing grief, a rawness of agony, a shudder of the unbearability of the suffering of this infinite mass of living beings to each of whom we are intimately connected, as we have become aware in the earlier steps.

We now pass into a kind of rapture of agony or madness of over-sensitivity, a burning impulse to do something, anything, to lessen the great mass of suffering that is the ordinary life cycle. We take upon ourselves the great pressure, the unbearable burden of responsibility of doing something about the condition of our mothers. We almost take delight in its crushing intensity as a distraction from the feverish agitation of the empathetic hyper-sensitivity of compassion of the previous step. The pressure squeezes out of us all trivial concerns and we explode with the high resolve that we must achieve Buddhahood ourselves to help all our mothers to become finally free of suffering and permanently endowed with happiness.

Nothing else has any importance, nothing must deter us, we must become the sole parent of all helpless living beings. At the same time that we feel this determination, however, we also keenly feel our inability to carry it out. We realize we need complete freedom from afflictions ourselves, as well as virtual omniscience about the condition of others. We need to know the techniques to lead the sufferers to happiness. And we need a perfect impartiality towards all others, coupled with a complete selflessness. In short, we realize that we must ourselves become perfect Buddhas first.

The emotional crescendo of these six steps cascades upon us cumulatively, the earlier continuing to work in our psyches while the later are brought in. It finally leads us to the result, the seventh step, wherein insight and faith combine to calm us while keeping honed the sharp edge of our high resolve. The insight is that there have also been infinite numbers of beings who have come this way, who have realized the organic oneness of all life and have taken up the high resolve, who have practiced all the stages of the path and have already even attained Buddhahood.

They thus have already attained the ability to do that which we are resolved to do.

They have already seen the liberation and bliss of all beings in the timeless context of their inconceivable knowledge. With the sense of grace from their presence, the situation seems less overwhelming, less desperate, and one can calm the panic explosion of high resolve. One still focuses one's will toward the attainment of Buddhahood, to join the ranks of those competent to alleviate the sufferings of beings. But the intensity of will is now balanced with a sense of the grace and the blessings of the Buddhas, whose presence and good will is felt surrounding one in its luminous embrace.

The second major method of conceiving the spirit of enlightenment is called the "equal exchange of self and others," beautifully taught in Shantideva's masterpiece. As His Holiness has said, an advantage of this method is that is does not require at the outset a strong conviction about former and future lives. It begins directly by meditating on the equality, essential sameness of self and others. Just as one wants happiness and does not want suffering, so all beings want happiness and do not want suffering. We are all the same in this. So I should identify with all these equal beings and take all their sufferings as seriously as I do my own, just as I take pains just as seriously whether they occur in my hand, foot, or on my head, since I am used to identifying with all parts of my own body. When we object here that this is unrealistic since we simply do not feel the pains of others as we do our own, hence cannot automatically respond to them, Shantideva argues that we only feel our own pain because we appropriate it through habitual identification with our bodily senses as "ours." When we are in the heat of emotion or under hypnosis we can not feel at all a pain that would ordinarily be excruciating, because under those conditions we are temporarily not identifying with the pain as "ours." This shows that our own sensations are due to habit of identification, and habits can always be modified. We can gradually accustom ourselves to identify with other beings as well and we can come to feel their pains just as we now do our own. Thus we can feel the equality of self and others. Shantideva expresses precisely this arbitrariness and hence expandability of self-identification: Although the basis is quite impersonal, Through constant familiarity I have come to regard the drops Of sperm and blood of others as "I".

So in the same way, why should I be unable To regard the bodies of others as "I"? Hence it is not difficult to see That my body is also that of others.

Having seen the mistakes in cherishing myself, And the ocean of good in cherishing others, I shall completely reject all selfishness And accustom myself to incorporating others.

We did not begin as children to identify with our bodies automatically; we had to learn to do it and become accustomed to it. The genes of father and mother were transmitted in the semen and the ovum that formed a body for our consciousnesses in the womb. Such substances of others are repellent if found, say, spilled on sheets, or on the ground. And yet, just such drops, and the bodies grown from them have become familiar to us as "I." Ego-definition takes us long conditioning in infancy. Soldiers, athletes, citizens of nations and believers in religions and ideologies can easily be reconditioned to identify more powerfully with the group than with the individual self, as is proven by their willingness to die in battles, games, for national goals, or as martyrs to the faith and so forth. Cultural re-conditioning can even over-ride the supposedly all-powerful survival instinct.

Why then cannot the "Bodhisattva re-conditioning," the Dharma of the Universal Vehicle, cause one to expand one's sense of identity to include all beings as the other limbs on the single body of life? Does it not become not only not unrealistic but even compellingly practical that we should develop a natural, rational, instinctively powerful altruism? For there is nothing artificial about the cold fact of the essential equality of all living beings in their all seeking happiness and avoiding pain.

The psychology of the Bodhisattva is thus nothing wildly other-worldly or too far beyond the normal call of human beings. In fact, it is evident from experience that human beings are never happier than when they do transcend the narrow habitual ego-sense, when they lose the self-confinement, to whatever degree. Sense-pleasure reaches its heights when the experiencer loses ordinary boundaries, as in sensory distortions on a roller-coaster, in a 3-D movie, sky-diving, or during the melting sensations when carried away by beautiful music or by intense orgasm. Emotional pleasure is greatest through love when there is loss of self and union with the beloved. Aesthetic and intellectual joy can safely be defined as proportionate in intensity to the degree that beauty or truth take one beyond oneself into the expansive universality of bliss or transcendence. Shantideva spoke this immortal verse: Whatever joy there is in this world, All comes from desiring others to be happy, And whatever suffering there is i n this world, All comes from desiring oneself to be happy.

Once one has become well established in the re alization that self-identity is arbitrary and conditionable, that self and others are essentially equal, and that happiness comes from cherishing others and suffering from cherishing self, one becomes strongly motivated to practice the actual exchange of self and other. We have to condition ourselves to abandon the self-concerned attitude and to cherish others automatically, by reflecting on the grave consequences of self-concern and the immense benefits of altruistic cherishing of others. Shantideva explains in exquisite detail, turning around one hundred eighty degrees the usual short-sighted view of the practicality of selfishness. Many of his most powerful ethical arguments relate again to the multi-life perspective, such as how one gains well endowed human life from being correct with others, gains wealth from giving to others, gains beauty from being tolerant of the injuries inflicted by others, and so forth. But there are also down to earth consid erations of how even the smaller pleasures of life depend on the good will of others and arise when we forget about our self-concern and enjoy the pleasures of others.

If all the injury, fear, and pain in this world Arise from grasping at a self, Then what use is this great ghost to me? If I do not completely forsake it, I shall be unable to put an end to suffering, Just as I cannot help being burnt If I do not throw away a fire I hold.

Therefore to allay the harms inflicted upon me, And to remove the sufferings of others, I shall give myself up to others And cherish them as I do my very self.

The next step is to practice the exchange of self and others, first in imagination and then in action. One first imagines oneself to be someone one knows who is inferior to oneself in some respect and clearly jealous of one. One then concentrates on the feeling of sharp jealousy towards one's old self. Shantideva provides telling expressions of such emotions. Next one imagines oneself as someone else who is one's equal. One looks back towards one's old self and concentrates on the feelings of intense rivalry and competitiveness. Finally, one imagines someone superior to oneself in some respect. One then looks back at one's former self and meditates contempt towards him or her. These meditations can be startingly powerful in developing one's appreciation of others' perspectives, systematic exercises in "putting oneself in another's shoes." Shantideva formulates them beautifully.

In general, visualization can play an important part in generating and intensifying these practices. The "give-and-take" meditation is a good example.

One imagines all the beings one knows in a great field of space around one, surrounded by innumerable beings one does not know in this life. They all look toward one and one reminds oneself that all seek happiness and wish to avoid pain.

One wills to share with them every iota of happiness one may be fortunate enough to possess, and to relieve them of every suffering they may have. When one exhales, five colored rainbow light rays of pure happiness stream forth brilliantly from one's nostrils pumping light into the vast host of beings around one. When one inhales, one sucks a great cloud of darkness of sufferings, worries, and sorrows from all these beings and draws it into oneself. One may imagine a sapphire blue HUM-letter at the center of one's heart which is like a "black hole" of infinite compression which swallows up all the darkness in its sub-atomic fire, and which changes with exhalation into an inexhaustible "pulsar" of brilliant light emitted from the fusion of the suffering into the energy of happiness.

Daily practice of this visualization is a powerful method to intensify one's altruistic commitment to living beings. It is said ironically that the more one wishes to take upon oneself the sufferings of others and give them all one's happiness, the happier and happier one gets, and the more impervious to suffering. These two methods, the sevenfold cause-and-effect process from mother-recognition and the exchange of self and other, are very effective in practice in generating the altruistic spirit of enlightenment, at first its aspirational form. Of course, much more powerful than the aspiring spirit is the actualizing spirit. This is the spirit of enlightenment in action, and it is to this that we must next turn our attention.

V. The Actualizing Spirit and the Bodhisattva Vows
The actualizing spirit begins from the formal undertaking of the Bodhisattva vows and the ensuing deeds in keeping with them. The main Bodhisattva vow is of course to spare no effort to attain perfect enlightenment for the sake of all living beings. But on the ordinary level of daily life the Bodhisattva vows one can formally undertake are usually listed as the eighteen major vows and the forty-six accessory vows. It is worth while to go through them, as it gives us a sense of the limits of ethical actions a Bodhisttvas takes upon himself. When one takes up the Bodhisattva vows, which marks the beginning of the actualizing spirit of enlightenment, remember, you vow not to (note the negative as usual in restraining ethical codes); 1) praise yourself and belittle others to get gain, respect, fame as a teacher, and profit; 2) not give aid or teach Dharma to the destitute and suffering out of stinginess and selfishness; 3) not accept a sincere apology, but keep up a grudge; 4) condemn the Buddha Teachings and teach perverted views; 5) steal or appropriate offerings to the Three Jewels; 6) despise the Three Collections of Buddhist Scriptures and repudiate their authenticity; 7) evict monks from a monastery or from the Order, even if reprehensible, through not forgiving them (note in this case the presupposed power of the Bodhisattva lay person in relation to the monastic Order); 8) commit any of the five irrevocable sins, matricide, patricide, killing a Saint, making a Buddha bleed, and causing sectarian dissension in the Community; 9) hold wrong convictions; 10) destroy completely any place by fire, bombs, pollution, or black magic; 11) teach emptiness to those not ready to understand it; 12) turn people away from desiring Buddhahood and encourage them instead to seek their own individual liberation; 13) encourage people to abandon their vows; 14) attack the teachings of Monastic Buddhism, belittle them, denying that they lead to Nirvana; 15) practice, support, or teach the Dharma for profit or fame, while p retending to pure motivation and criticizing others for self-seeking; 16) pretend to have profound realization of emptiness ; 17) solicit and accept gifts originally intended for the Three Jewels; 18) take away from meditating monks and give to studying and praying monks.

These vows are self-explanatory, and show the complexity of the ethic of the Bodhisattva, implementing the messianic concern in small but important daily ways, while not neglecting the preservation of the society-taming monastic institution. The question of order of the vows should not trouble us if we realize that Buddhist lists such as this always arise from particular cases, being kept in the order in which they are set down. The forty six accessory vows are in the same vein, although their thrust is more positive; which is to say that, although they also are phrased as prohibitions in the negative, they use the double negative to indicate some positive course of action, thirty out of forty six vows being phrased as "I will abandon not doing such and such." The most interesting of these are those (10,11,46) that involve exceptional breaking of basic moral or disciplinary precepts in order to accomplish a higher aim. Thus, a Bodhisattva vows to abandon not committing one of the seven physical and v erbal sins, when motivated by the spirit of enlightenment in a special situation, and to abandon not using miraculous powers he or she may have if living beings need them, just because monastic Buddhists are not supposed to show their powers. These exceptions are unpacked by Asanga in his Bodhisattva Stages, where he states that a Bodhisattva should kill a killer if that is the only way to prevent him from killing many other people; should rob a tyrant of his country if that is the only way to deliver the people from oppression; should rob a miser of his treasure if that is the only way to help the destitute; should steal back wealth obtained by someone who despoiled the Three Jewels, as from looting monasteries, pillaging their lands and so forth; should commit sexual misconduct if that is the only way to save the life of a person so distraught by passion they will otherwise kill themselves or someone else; should lie if it saves lives and so on; should revile those who need strong criticism; should be fri volous with those who take themselves too seriously; and should separate disciples from a false and harmful Guru. These and other examples of exceptional license to break the basic rules of morality in special cases of altruistic motivation form the basis of complex Universal Vehicle ethical reasoning which I have begun to explore elsewhere.

A fortunate thing about these vows is that four perverse attitudes must be present in the Bodhisattva's mind for he or she to break any one of them completely; he or she must consider the action fully justified in spite of the vow, must have no resolve not to break it again, must be glad to break it, and must be completely heedless of all consequences. If any infractions occur with less than these four, it is still possible to mend and restore the vows and hence the actualizing spirit of enlightenment.

VI. Six Transcendences and Four Political Practices
Once the Bodhisattva is on his or her way, he or she begins the three incalculable eons of evolution on his way to Buddhahood. He accumulates the stores of merit and knowledge, by practicing the six transcendent virtues; 1) generosity, 2) ethics, 3) tolerance -- these three constitute the store of merit -- 5) contemplation, 6) wisdom -- these constitute the store of knowledge -- and 4) effort or industry -- which is causally essential to both stores. Of all of these, wisdom is said to be the most essential, the eyes of the others, as it were, in that none of the others can become a transcendence, more than an ordinary virtue, unless it is combined with wisdom. On the other hand, of course, true wisdom is automatically totally selflessly generous, ethical, tolerant, and industrious, and cannot come to be without totally transcendent contemplation. So all six interdepend. Wisdom is the wisdom of the twofold selflessness, the insight into the emptiness of all things with respect to any intrinsic identity, objectivity, or reality. Wisdom combines with all the transcendences by enabling the Bodhisattva not to perceive the three sectors of all actions, i.e., agent, action, and patient. Thus, transcendent generosity gives without even noticing the giver, the gift, and the recipient as separate entities.

In a similar way, wisdom combines with compassion to generate the great universal compassion which is unconditional, which does not perceive any object of its empathy, hence automatically perceives beings into liberation, sees them into freedom. The compassion of an ignorant, misknowing person is said to be "sentimental compassion," with a notion of loving others but totally incompetent actually to make any other being happy, as unaware of real suffering, its source, and its cure. The lowest level of real compassion is called, "compassion that sees beings," and is combined with the wisdom that knows impermanence. The middle level is called "compassion that sees processes," and is combined with the wisdom that knows subjective selflessness, hence understands beings' lack of intrinsically real, fixed self. Real great compassion is called "non-objectifying great compassion," and arises only with the wisdom that realizes objective selflessness as well as the initial personal, or subjective selflessness.

Although the six transcendences include the altruistic deeds that contribute to the fulfillment of "others' interests" and the "store of merit," they are still considered primarily part of the Bodhisattva's personal development. In order to serve others more directly, the Bodhisattva accomplishes the "four political activities;" that is, giving gifts, speaking kindly, serving beings' needs, and practicing according to the teachings. These four activities are said to build a following for a Bodhisattva, indicating how the Bodhisattva vehicle functioned as a social movement from its inception. Any successful politician could easily recognize his or her main activities in these four.

VII. The Ten Stages
Nagarjuna explains the ten stages in his Jewel Garland. "The first of these is called the Joyous...the giving transcendence becomes consummate. The Bodhisattva shakes a hundred worlds and becomes a great lord of the world. The second is called Immaculate...he becomes a Universal Monarch...The third is called the Luminous because the pacifying light of wisdom arises, the contemplations and clairvoyances are generated while totally desire and hatred are extinguished. ..He becomes a great wise king of gods. The fourth is called the Radiant..he becomes a king of the gods in the Yama heaven -- skilled in the ceasing of the futile views. The fifth is called the Hard to Conquer... he becomes a king of gods of Tushita heaven... The sixth is called Confrontation...through familiarity with quiescence and transcendent insight he attains cessation...He becomes a king of the gods of Nirmanarati heaven. The seventh is the Far-going. ...he becomes a lord of the gods of Paranirmitavashavartin heaven...The eighth is the Immovable...He becomes a Brahma, lord of a thousand worlds, unsurpassed by Saints and Hermit Buddhas....The ninth stage is called Good Genius...He becomes a Brahma, lord of a million worlds...The tenth is called Raincloud of Dharma, because the rain of the excellent teaching falls, and the Bodhisattva is consecrated with light by all the Buddhas. He becomes a lord of the gods of the Pure Abodes, a supreme great lord of the sphere of infinite wisdom." The ten stages fit with the "ten transcendences," comprised of the six mentioned above and "technique," "vows," "strength," and "intuitive wisdom." When a Bodhisattva reaches the consummate development of one of these ten transcen dent virtues, he or she attains the corresponding stage or dimension. To summarize the transcendences and stages: (transcendence) (stage) generosity joyous morality immaculate tolerance luminous effort radiant contemplation hard-to-conquer wisdom confrontation technique far-going vows immovable strength good genius intuition Dharma-cloud It is said that it take an incalculable eon for the Bodhisattva to mount up through the stages to Buddhahood, sometimes thought of as the eleventh stage. It becomes quickly apparent that this is an exoteric teaching, if we reflect on the fact that from the time of attaining the first Bodhisattva stage, he or she has the ability to travel to different Buddha-universes, to meet the Buddhas there and receive their teachings. It is inconceivable that a Bodhisattva, who is intensely driven by impatience and intolerance of others' sufferings, would fail to take advantage of the opportunity to receive the esoteric teachings of the Unexcelled Tantras, thereby drastically accelerati ng his or her development toward Buddhahood.

There are many other lists of Bodhisattva powers, special qualities and so forth, which fill the "ocean" of Mahayana Scriptures.

VIII. The Esoteric Bodhisattva Adepts
It is said that the Bodhisattva reaches a stage where he becomes mad with compassion, no longer able to plod along for three incalculable eons until Buddhahood and actually being able to do something about the horrible sufferings of all beings, his or her mothers. For this kind of Bodhisattva, the Buddha is said to manifest himself or herself as Vajradhara or Vajradakini, the male or female emanations that teach the esoteric Tantra Vehicle or Vajra Vehicle, what I call "Apocalyptic Buddhism." Here the Bodhisattva abandons the "gross" world of the gross senses and their objects, and enters a sub-atomic, subtle and extremely subtle, dream-like, magical realm where eons can be moments, universes are contained within atoms, and this universe is an atom of a larger dimension Buddha-land. The Bodhisattva here adopts the personal role called " Maha Siddha," or "Great Adept," wherein he or she manifests extreme iconoclasm, non-conformity, radical determination on the immanence of fruitional time, fruitional sp ace, fruitional revelation. These Adepts are clearly the fore-runners of the Zen Masters of East Asia, the founder Bodhidharma clearly exhibiting the signs of the Great Adept tradition of India and the frontier lands.

This role exists in the exoteric Messianic Buddhist Scriptures, especially in the Garland Scripture type, but found in small passages throughout the literature.

For example, the Vimalakirti contains a teaching called the "Inconceivable Liberation," which talks of the inconceivable powers of Bodhisattvas in their enterprise of liberating all beings. There is one marvellous song, which is perhaps the most ancient Adept song in all Buddhist literature. "Of the true Bodhisattvas, The mother is the transcendence of wisdom, The father is the skill in liberative technique; The Leaders are born of such parents.

Their wife is the joy in the Dharma, Love and compassion are their daughters, The Dharma and the truth are their sons; And their home is deep thought on the meaning of voidness.

Their disciples are all the passions, Controlled at will...

Their companions, ever with them, Are the six transcendences.

Their consorts are the political activities, Their music is the teaching of the Dharma.

The incantations make their garden, Which blossoms with the flowers of enlightenment-factors, With trees of the great wealth of the Dharma, And fruits of the intuition of liberation...

These fearless Bodhisattvas can manifest All in a single instant, The forms, sounds, and manners of behavior Of all living beings...

They play with magical manifestations In order to develop living beings, Showing themselves to be old or sick, And even manifesting their own deaths... They may become suns or moons, Indras, Brahmas, or Lords of Creatures, They may become fire or water Or earth or wind...

Well trained in liberative technique, They demonstrate all activities, Whichever possibly may be a means To make beings delight in the Dharma." Vimalakirti himself does some rather strange things, such as pick up another universe in his hand, miniaturize it, and show it off to his audience, tens of thousands of whom he has already squeezed into his small room, seating them on thrones that are thousands of miles high! These extravagant miraculous, or perhaps we would prefer to say "symbolic," deeds are all designed to bring home to people the transformability of the world, and the overwhelming liberative power of the messianic love of the Bodhisattvas.

There is a semi-legendary set of Bodhisattva Adepts who number eighty four, who are constantly performing inconceivabilities in their enterprise of worldtransformation.

They have often been seen as "anti-monastic," even "anti-Buddhist," because of their occasional iconoclasm, but that is a simplistic characterization. In fact, they were Bodhisattva missionaries who reached out from the monastic establishment, from powerful positions in society such as those of King, Queen, wealthy merchant, Brahmin priest, and so on. They brought the Dharma to the illiterate members of the lowest castes within Indian society, to outcaste tribals, and to people in savage frontier lands such as the Tibetans, Cambodians, Japanese, Indonesians, and Mongolians. They were often persecuted by the people they came to save, sometimes most of all by the most pious Buddhists among them; and they would delight in being burned at the stake or stoned, just so they could turn the roaring fire into a giant lotus in the middle of a lake. The morning after the big execution, the people would discover them enhaloed by rainbows, united with a consort god or goddess. They would smile in glorious resurrec tion to the now repentant populace who were thus forced to acknowledge their error.

As in the case of Jesus the Christ, their resurrections were their most important teachings, showing the triumph of love and goodness over hate and stupidity -- the martyrdoms are but the messy preliminaries used to demonstrate the horrific depths of peoples' sinfulness and stupidity and the inconceivability of the Bodhisattvas' love and ability.

The Bodhisattvas Mekhala and Kanakhala were two female Adepts whose story is of interest here. They were the daughters of a householder in Devikota.

They were about to be married to the two sons of a powerful merchant of the city.

The two were extremely beautiful, and attracted envious gossip, although they were quite virtuous. They were unhappy with the pettiness of worldly people. And decided not to get married after all, causing a great scandal in the town. The Great Adept Kanhapa came through the town. They went to him, received instruction in the Mother Tantra of Chakrasamvara, or Great Bliss. They were initiated into the yoga of the female Buddha, Vajravarahi. After twelve years they had attained perfect Buddhahood (not just sainthood or even Bodhisattvahood, but Buddhahood), and once again they met their Guru Kanhapa. He pretended he could not remember who they were. They told him the story. He then demanded his fee as their teacher. He asked them for their heads. Without a moment's hesitation, sharp swords emerged from the mouths of the two women Adepts. They took hold of these swords, and each cut off her own head and presented it to the Master, saying, "We are repaying the Great Word of the Teacher." They began to da nce with their heads in their hands, singing joyously: We have cut off the illusion of samsara And have crossed over through Total Integration Of the Creation and Perfection Stages.

We have cut off the illusion Of acquisition and renunciation By the total Integration of insight and activity.

We have cut off the illusion of self and other By the total Integration of space and intuition.

With this gesture, we give you the illusiuonless.

The Teacher Kanhapa was pleased and congratulated them, urging them to work for the benefit of all beings. He restored their heads leaving no trace of a wound, at which the whole town was amazed. Mekhala and her sister Kanakhala became famous teachers, and helped innumerable beings with the Dharma. After many years of service and teaching, they rose bodily into the Heaven of the Dakini Angels.

There are many other stories of the Great Adepts, delightful and instructive, which must be saved for another occasion.

IX. The Supernal and Divine Bodhisattvas
Turning now from the ordinary level to the archetypal, mythic, superhuman, or divine level, the Bodhisattva vow can take the form of a resolve to create a specific form of Buddha-land, as in the case of the Bodhisattva Dharmakara, the Bodhisattva former life of Amitabha Buddha recorded in the Creation of the Land of Bliss Scripture: "O Lord, if in that Buddha-land of mine there should be either hell, realms of pretas, beasts, or demigods, then may I not attain unexcelled perfect enlightenment... O Lord, if in that Buddha land of mine the beings born here should not all be of the same color, the complexion of gold, then may I not attain unexcelled perfect enlightenment. O Lord, if in that Buddha-land of mine there should be perceived any difference between gods and men, except when people count and tell, saying, `these are gods and men, but only in common, superficial parlance,' then may I not obtain unexcelled, perfect enlightenment...O Lord, if in my Buddha-land the beings born there should not posses s the supreme transcendence of magical power, so that they could in an instant of thought cross over one hundred thousand million billion of Buddha-lands, then may I not attain unexcelled perfect enlightenment...O Lord, if in my Buddha-land the beings born there should form any idea of property, even with regard to their own bodies, then may I not attain...O Lord, if after I have attained enlightenment the very concept of sin should exist for the beings born in my Buddha-land, then may I not attain...O Lord, if, when I shall have attained enlightenment, those beings who in immeasurable and innumerable Buddha-lands hear my name and direct their thoughts to be born in my Buddha-land and for that purpose ripen their store of merit, if those should not be born in my Buddha-land, even those who have only ten times felt that wish, except those who have committed the five irreversible sins and have obstructed and abused the Holy Dharma, then may I not attain...O Lord,if, after I have attained enlightenment, those beings born in my Buddha-land should not all be limited to one more birth before perfect enlightenment, barring always the special prayers of those very nobleminded Bodhisattvas who have put on the whole armor (of effort), who understand the welfare of all beings, who are devoted to all beings, who work for the attainment of Nirvana of all beings, who wish to perform the duty of a Bodhisattva in all worlds, who wish to serve all Buddhas, and to bring beings, in number like the grains of sand in the Ganges River, to unexcelled perfect enlightenment, and who besides are turned towards the higher practice and are perfect in the practice of the Samantabhadra discipline, then may I not attain unexcelled perfect enlightenment!" Dharmakara has quite a number of other vows, too numerous to recite here.

The discovery of these vows in this Scripture by the great Japanese Saint Shinran, his existential encounter with their living reality in the achievement of Amitabha through the word of the Scripture, was the source of his remarkable foundation of the presently largest Buddhism denomination left on the planet, the Pure Land school that still thrives in Japan today. These vows are what eventually create the Buddha-land of a Bodhisattva, as Shakyamuni said in the Vimalakirti passage mentioned above. There are many Scriptures that recount how a specific Bodhisattva vowed he or she would have a certain type of Buddha-land, or else not accept any personal liberation and Buddhahood.

Or the Bodhisattva vow may take the form of the vows of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, Universally Good, who vows to offer everything conceivable to all Buddhas everywhere imaginable, and to do everything conceivable for all beings everywhere imaginable, all at the same time. This famous set of vows of Samantabhadra occurs in the context of the visionary realm of the Garland Scripture. "Faithful in body, speech, and mind, I bow to all the Human-Lions Of the past, present, and future In every world in the ten directions.

By power of the vow of the ethic of goodness, With bodies as many as the atoms of the universe, I bow to every Victor in his own Buddha-land, Mentally confronting him in every atom.

As many Buddhas as there are atoms Seated in each atom, surrounded by Buddha-children; I believe thus the entire Realm of Reality, Is filled with all these Enlightened Lords.

I praise all these Blissful Lords, Hymning their virtues as Victors With the oceans of words and melodies, Inexhaustible oceans of praises....

Cycling in all states of existence, May I gather endless stores of merit and wisdom! May I become an inexhaustible treasury Of art, wisdom, concentration, and freedom.

Those lands, of which there are as many In one atom as there are atoms everywhere, In each sitting inconceivable Buddhas and sons: May I always behold them in their deeds of enlightenment! Thus may I completely practice in every direction, In perfect awareness of the oceans of Buddha-lands, And oceans of Buddhas in oceans of eons, all three times, All present in the infinite space of each hair-tip..." The essence of Samantabhadra's vow, its infinitely inter-imploding visionary nature, comes from his mastery of the Bodhisattva samadhi called "immanent body of the illuminator of thusness of all enlightened ones." This is described in the Flowery Ornament, as follows: "It enters everywhere into the equal essence of all enlightened ones, and is capable of manifesting myriad images in the cosmos, vastly and immensely, without obstruction, equal to all space. All the whirling oceans of universes flow along into it; it produces all states of concentration, and can contain all worlds in all directions.

The oceans of lights of knowledge of all the enlightened ones come from here; it can reveal all the oceans of all conditions everywhere. It contains within it all the powers and liberations of the enlightened ones and the knowledge of the enlightening beings. It can cause th4e particles of all lands to be universally able to contain boundless universes. It develops the ocean of virtuous qualities of all Buddhas, and reveals the ocean of great vows of these enlightened ones. All the cycles of teaching of the Buddhas flow through it and are guarded and maintained by it, and kept without interruption or end. As in this world the enlightening being Universally Good entered this concentration in the presence of the World Honored One, thus in the same way throughout the realm of space of the cosmos, in all directions and all times, in a subtle, unhindered, vastly expansive light, in all lands visible to the Buddha's eye, within reach of the Buddha's power, manifested by the Buddha's body, and in each atom o f all those lands, there were Buddhas as numerous as atoms in an ocean of worlds; and in front of each Buddha were Universally Good enlightening beings numerous as atoms in an ocean of worlds, each also entering into this concentration in the immanent body of the illuminator of thusness in enlightened ones." Samantabhadra thus is the "micronaut" of supernal Bodhisattvas, carrying on his Bodhisattva messianic activity within the endless multi-dimensional universes within the very atoms that are the fabric of our realities. As his name states, he is the "Universal Goodness" that is the "strong force" that holds together our orders of reality, in the Messianic Buddhist vision.

Finally, we cannot discuss supernal Bodhisattvas without mentioning the Bodhisattva par excellence, the Bodhisattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, one of whose incarnations is among us today, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Just as it is a hopeless task to try to comprehensively discuss all the Bodhisattvas, so is it a hopeless task to try to talk about all the manifestations and visions and magnificent activities of this Bodhisattva. In some sense he is the prime example of a divine Bodhisattva, a being who already got beyond Buddhahood and is as a Bodhisattva, more Buddha than all the Buddhas. He is said to be the quintessence of the universal compassion of all the Buddhas. He appears in many Scriptures. He has at least one hundred and eight forms iconographically. He can appear as a female, in the form of Arya Tara, or as a female terrific such as Bhrkuti or Shri Devi, and he can appear in male terrific form, as Hayagriva. His most famous forms are the twoarmed thoughtful form who utters the Heart Su tra, the quintessence of the Transcendent Wisdom teaching of selflessness and emptiness, the four-armed pacific form that dwells in his paradise in south India, Potalaka, and the thousandarmed form of the resurrected Avalokiteshvara. It is with the story of this Thousand-Armed, Thousand-Eyed, Ten-Headed Lord of Great Compassion that I will conclude, fittingly, as His Holiness here with us today is believed by Tibetan Buddhists to have a special connection with this form.

Avalokiteshvara stands at the right hand of the throne of the Buddha Amitabha in the Sukhavati Buddha-land. He is a personification of "great compassion," the dynamic reflex of Buddhahood, the active side of wisdom. He takes a vow before Amitabha that he will help sentient beings on earth without ever relaxing his commitment, his main seat being Potalaka in South India. Looking north from there, into the wilds, he picks Tibet as his special sphere of influence, taking up a second seat at the Red Mountain near Lhasa. "Here I will meditate, radiating love and compassion to all beings to ripen them towards liberation and enlightenment. If ever I grow weary and discouraged, may my body be torn into a thousand pieces, and my head be split into ten!" The Lord Amitabha acknowledges this vow by silence.

After this he incarnates again and again in Tibet, coming to the Red Mountain and meditating and teaching living beings. Finally, it seems to him that the Tibetans are so incorrigible, they persist so energetically in their lustful, violent, wicked ways, that he truly does become disheartened. He weeps and mentally gives up his resolve. And then his vow comes true. He is totally torn apart, dismembered, strewn all over the mountain. His cries of agony are heard by Amitabha, who appears to him saying, "All things are created by circumstances.

You should always be careful of what you wish for, as sooner or later you will get it." So saying, he blessed the shattered Bodhisattva and the thousand pieces became the thousand arms, with an eye in the palm of each hand. The ten pieces of broken skull became ten heads, one for each Bodhisattva stage, and on top of the tenth a figure of Amitabha himself became his permanent crown. His resurrected form is radiant with billions of rainbow light rays, and he has shone in the icons and imaginations of all Asian peoples for millennia as a symbol of the triumph of good over suffering and despair. He is only resurrected by the grace of the Buddha Amitabha, the Transcendent Lord of Boundless Light and Boundless Light.

Each element of his arisen form is deeply significant. The thousand arms are the arms of warrior kings, messiahs of the human nations, competent to reach into every area of life to help, heal, and protect all living beings. The thousand eyes add to such power the wisdoms of the thousand Buddhas of this "Eon of Goodness," the temporal name of our universe. The ten heads symbolize that he encompasses all the stages of realization of all Bodhisattvas, that he can thus appreciate the perspectives of all beings empathetically. The topmost head is fierce or "terrific" in aspect, blue-black, with gnashing fangs, three bloodshot eyes; just like the face of Yama, the Indian Lord of Death, or like Yamantaka, the "Killer of Death" form of the Bodhisattva Manjushri. This indicates that the Bodhisattva's compassion can manifest fiercely in exceptional cases, quelling evil by showing that love can be even tougher. It also shows the empathetic omnipresence of the resurrected Bodhisattva, in that he now has been abl e to deal with the evil of egocentric delusion by identifying it within himself, not just thinking of himself as pure and good and judging others as evil and incorrigible.

Goodness incarnate cannot be a perfect Savior, a real Messiah, if he or she fails to save those caught in evil. The triumphant Christ must ultimately redeem even Lucifer, must empty the hells, must catch the unbelievers -- or else his victory must remain incomplete.

Obviously we are still awaiting the Second Coming of Christ the Messiah. If the Bodhisattva Messiah Avalokiteshvara's helping hands and illuminating eyes are everywhere, we still have not been able to acknowledge it. The ultimate Resurrected One, the Messiah Triumphant remains with us a symbol of hope, an icon of indomitable love, a sign to avert despair. Why insist on some insuperable problem, some inalterable difference between these universal Messiahs of humankind and all living beings? Love conquers death in each sacred myth, the broken individual will makes room for the anointment with the healing balm of grace emerging from the boundless inconceivability. Just as Ricci used to teach of the love of Mary, referring for convenience to an icon of Kuan-yin, the Chinese form of Tara, any Buddhist teacher here today could refer to the golden icon of the Resurrected Lord to teach of the compassion of Avalokiteshvara! Let us hope that this meeting of the Christ and the Bodhisattva, here at Middlebury in this golden autumn of history, can ignite the visions of both Messiahs in the minds of the billions that between them they have touched. Let them rise again together in a Sun of suns, the two-armed, delicate, wounded, broken, crucified embodiment of self-emptying, self-sacrifice, simultaneously bursting into the thousand-armed, powerful, omnipresent, radiant, triumphant embodiment of the deathless energy of love.

Christ and Bodhisattva OM The Jewel in the Lotus MA The Cross in the Sun NI The Vajra in the Cross PAD Broken and anointed ME Anointed and arisen HUM Arisen not unbroken HRIH Inconceivable and brilliant SVA Shine your sun of joy! HA!

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