The Bodhisattva Path

The word Bodhisattva is a transliteration, through Chinese characters and then into Vietnamese, of the Sanskrit Bodhisattva, meaning a sentient being with awakened wisdom. The meaning of the word is simple, but the value of the Bodhisattva in Buddhism is very great.

1. One who is heading towards Buddhahood

In the early scriptures, especially the Jātaka tales that recount the Buddha's previous lives, we see that the Buddha was then called a Bodhisattva. For many lifetimes he toiled through birth and death, sowing conditions to liberate beings; finally the Bodhisattva was born in the palace of King Suddhodana (Tịnh Phạn), then left home to practise and attained Buddhahood.

In principle, the Buddha still regarded himself as an Arhat like other Arhats; the only difference is that the Buddha surpassed his Arhat disciples in the work of enlightening the world, in wisdom, supernormal powers, appearance, merit and so on. But as time went on, many treatises appeared that made the distance between the Buddha and the Arhat as great as heaven from earth. Many treatises even set out to disparage the Arhat's fruit as inferior. This is quite contrary to the Buddha's original view.

In many Nikāya sutras, the Arhat is a perfect saint, full of compassion and love for beings, but hiding it in a quiet, gentle manner. Later, Mahayana treatises held that the Arhat is dry, passive, and that once he enters Nirvana everything is over. But the story of Master Hư Vân, who dreamed of ascending to the Tusita (Đẩu suất) heaven and saw Ānanda assisting the Bodhisattva Maitreya (Di Lặc) in teaching the heavenly beings, opens a different way of understanding the Arhat.

Not satisfied with the four noble fruits, many Mahayana treatises set up many more complicated stages for the Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva who, through countless lifetimes, both practises and liberates beings will advance through many stages before appearing in his final life and attaining Buddhahood. According to the Avataṃsaka (Hoa Nghiêm) Sutra, the Bodhisattva passes through 52 stages, comprising the Ten Faiths, Ten Abodes, Ten Practices, Ten Dedications, Ten Grounds, and the last two stages, Equal Enlightenment and Wondrous Enlightenment.

Everyone agrees on the character of a Bodhisattva: they must give themselves tirelessly to teaching beings. The only question to be discussed is what the Bodhisattva's level of realisation then is.

But in any case, both the Southern and Northern schools must agree that a Bodhisattva is one heading towards the Buddha's state of Great Enlightenment, that is, one who must become the founder of a religion of liberation at some point in time, on some planet, and not a disciple guided by a teacher who came before.

The Mahayana scriptures, for their part, teem with Bodhisattvas in the ten directions of the world, with countless different practices and vows although they share the same wish to liberate beings.

2. People with a vast heart

In fact, in Buddhism the word Bodhisattva is understood in a fairly broad sense, not only the Bodhisattvas of great supernormal power who appear and disappear everywhere in the lofty realms, but also people with a generous, kind heart who live in this real world. It is because of this broad meaning of Bodhisattva that the image of Buddhism is so close, beautiful and alive.

A person called a Bodhisattva is one who loves everyone around them, is ready to help whenever they can, and seems never to be angry with or hate anyone. Such qualities of heart are very much in keeping with the standard of someone who has attained the noble fruit of Stream-enterer or higher.

But if such a Bodhisattva also shows signs of having attained some spiritual ability, that makes everyone all the more convinced that this is a true Bodhisattva. In any case, a Bodhisattva is first of all required to be a person with a vast, kind heart; the standard of spiritual supernormal powers comes afterwards.

A Bodhisattva must understand and soothe the pain of those around them in practical, concrete ways. Beings in this world must endure countless sufferings, from great matters to trivial ones. Many of beings' petty troubles sound very funny. Beings are ready to be sad and distressed over things that a Bodhisattva sees as trivial and not worth it, but the Bodhisattva still listens and finds ways to help, and does not laugh or look down on them.

However, a Bodhisattva differs from a professional charity worker in that the charity worker only goes looking for people in suffering to help, by giving out food, caring for people with leprosy, caring for orphans and so on. A Bodhisattva, by contrast, quietly helps beings understand wrongdoing and merit, cause and effect, so that beings create merit for themselves and build their own dignity without needing anyone else's help any more. At first glance a charity worker may seem more prominent and become known to more people. But in terms of long-term benefit, it is the Bodhisattvas who quietly help beings gain wisdom who make the great contribution to the world.

A Bodhisattva also differs from someone who likes to do good deeds in order to gain merit. A person who does good deeds to gain merit appears to help everyone from the outside, but inside, selfishness grows greater and greater. A Bodhisattva helps beings only out of unconditional love. So to call someone a Bodhisattva, we must find out the real motive behind that person's charitable work; not everyone who seems rather good should be called a Bodhisattva.

3. The Stream-enterer Bodhisattva

According to the Nikāyas, a person who has attained the fruit of Stream-enterer (Sotāpatti) must return to the human realm many times before attaining the final fruit of liberation, Arhatship. During the many rebirths in the human realm, the Stream-enterer carries a heart of altruism, having broken the fetter of the view of self (that is, selfishness), and lives a life of dedication, helping the world and other people. Having both the root of a noble fruit and a life of dedicated sacrifice, this Stream-enterer truly has the heart and conduct of a Bodhisattva.

Such a Stream-enterer Bodhisattva has gradually accumulated merit and slowly washed away karmic obstacles. They still have to bear many ups and downs in life, because at times they have accepted taking a hard attitude when they had to defend what is good for the world. But the noble fruit of the past is always present deep within, so that they go in the right direction and their merit grows ever greater. They always thirst to practise meditative concentration, and often do not depend on the guidance of teachers, because they already have the seeds of realisation from the past.

Sometimes the Stream-enterer Bodhisattva climbs to the very summit of glory as a king, but at other times must suffer wandering and hardship. Yet absolutely they never fall into the three evil paths of hell, hungry ghosts and animals. Their altruistic tendency, thirst for what is right and dream of liberation always push them upward rather than letting them sink into the ordinariness of worldly people. Sometimes they may still make mistakes, but in the end they find their own way out. It may be said that the Stream-enterer Bodhisattva is the most moving image, because they must struggle very hard and cannot be as easy and free as the other, higher Bodhisattvas.

4. The manifesting Bodhisattva

The manifesting Bodhisattva (Bồ tát thị hiện) is a class of Bodhisattva with a high noble rank and full merit in the heavenly realms, not bound by the human realm, but who sees they have the conditions to do good for the Buddha Dharma and for beings in the human realm, and so vows to be born into the human realm at some point in time.

The manifesting Bodhisattva is free to choose the parents and family line to be born into. If the Bodhisattva's level of realisation is not yet transcendent, they accept the veil of ignorance of the aggregates, that is, on emerging from the womb they temporarily forget their divine origin. Some years later, as they grow up, the brain develops, the spirit opens, and the level of spiritual realisation naturally recovers after a period of practice, the Bodhisattva will remember their origin as well as the vow they brought with them to the human realm.

The manifesting Bodhisattva is freer than the Stream-enterer Bodhisattva because their level of spiritual realisation is higher and their merit greater, and so they fulfil their aspiration more easily.

Many extraordinary Zen masters such as Phổ Hóa, Đạo Tế, Diệu Thiện (Kim Sơn temple) and Minh Không (Vietnam)… can all be regarded as manifesting Bodhisattvas. The image of elder brother Ngọc Lam in the story Thoát vòng tục lụy (Escaping the Bonds of the World) by the monk Tinh Vân is also representative of manifesting Bodhisattvas. Many Bodhisattvas need not appear in Buddhism. Sometimes they take form in another religion in order to bring that religion closer to the right path. Such beings also have extraordinary supernormal powers and transcendent conduct, and their teaching is always in accord with the Buddha Dharma, even while they appear in the form of another religion.

Sometimes a manifesting Bodhisattva appears as a king, official, general, wealthy man, philosopher, gifted person and so on, to carry out their aspirations. But usually they conceal their identity very carefully, and it is hard for anyone to know their divine origin. The philosopher Socrates (469–399 BC) of the city of Athens in ancient Greece is a typical example. His philosophy is very much in keeping with the Buddha Dharma. He could enter absorption while standing for a day and a night. He calmly accepted death by forced poisoning. The mathematician Pythagoras (582–500 BC), of the same era as the Buddha, also in Greece, taught meditative concentration to many disciples and had many supernormal powers. Pythagoras spoke a great deal about the cycle of rebirth, as Buddhism does.

There is one important thing we must remember: a Bodhisattva never uses supernormal powers to change the fate of beings. They only help beings learn to create good causes so that the karmic results come of themselves, lasting and stable. A Bodhisattva must be a person of wisdom with deep understanding of karmic cause and effect, so they always use the law of cause and effect to adjust people's lot. Supernormal power is only temporary help, not permanent.

5. The Great Bodhisattva

These are Bodhisattvas who are almost Buddhas, who almost never appear directly in the world but remain in the heavenly and noble realms to observe and save the world. A case like the Bodhisattva Maitreya appearing as the monk Bố Đại (the Laughing Buddha) is rare.

We have famous Great Bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteśvara (Quán Thế Âm), Mañjuśrī (Văn Thù Sư Lợi), Samantabhadra (Phổ Hiền), Kṣitigarbha (Địa Tạng), Mahāsthāmaprāpta (Đại Thế Chí) and so on… Avalokiteśvara in particular is admired and worshipped by the masses to an extreme degree because of the vow to rescue beings in moments of danger and urgent need. Truly very, very many people in trouble who recited the name of Quan Âm were delivered, in a most wondrous way. We may wonder why a Bodhisattva's supernormal power can intervene in beings' karma. In fact, people who know to recite the Buddha's name in the moment of trouble have already had a connection with the Buddha Dharma and have at least done some good deed in their lives. When they call on the Buddha in trouble, the Buddhas and Great Bodhisattvas will use supernormal power to carry that person through the calamity, which also means lending that being their own merit, and a Bodhisattva's merit is limitless. Later that person must do meritorious deeds to repay it. That is why we see many people who do a great deal of good yet do not prosper, simply because they must repay the Buddha. The more a person has asked for, the less merit they will enjoy later when they do good.

In fact, Bodhisattvas have no names or titles, and even less do they make distinctions between this Bodhisattva and that. It is only beings who like to make distinctions for richness and variety, and the Bodhisattvas simply go along with it.

The Bodhisattva's mind covers the Dharma realm with limitless great compassion, like sunlight shining equally on all things. For a person who turns their back on the light, the sun can do nothing. In the same way, if beings do not turn towards the Buddhas, the Buddhas can do nothing. But all beings who know to turn towards the Buddha are always given the Buddhas' help and protection. The Buddha's great compassion is a subtle resonance that never ends, and beings will be soaked and refreshed by it if they have the heart.

We can understand that the boundless manifestations of the Buddha or of the Great Bodhisattvas are precisely the mind responding everywhere to all beings, without any need to take concrete form. The state of such Great Bodhisattvas is truly beyond thought, just as the Bodhisattva Maitreya is no different from a Buddha, yet remains in the Tusita heaven teaching the heavenly beings while waiting for the time to appear in the human realm and attain Buddhahood.

Question: Let each person name a concrete method for helping those who do not yet know the Buddha Dharma come to love and respect it.