Want more Everyday Buddhism? Subscribe to my Substack articles and podcast, "Words From My Teachers."
The Bodhisattva Attitude and The Bodhisattva Vows
In the spirit of the holiday season, I am re-releasing a popular episode from 2019: The Boundless Heart - Bodhicitta. It is my wish that we all try to practice being a Bodhisattva during this holiday season … Starting with me! ;)
Stating the obvious, it's been a rough 7 years or so. Years marked by war, pandemic, social injustice, tribalism and, overall, something called "high conflict" made popular by Amanda Ripley's book of the same name, where conflict is the ruling energy and that leads to the stress, fear, anxiousness, and despair most of us have been feeling. She writes:
The challenge of our time is to mobilize great masses of people to make change without dehumanizing one another. Not just because it’s morally right but because it works. Lasting change, the kind that seeps into people’s hearts, has only ever come about through a combination of pressure and good conflict. Both matter. That’s why, over the course of history, nonviolent movements have been more than twice as likely to succeed as violent ones.
It with this in mind I offer the replay of this 2019 episode, a reflection on bodhicitta, the good heart—something we can all practice even if we don't participate in nonviolent movements or the "good conflict" Amanda Ripley refers to.
I know it's been far too easy for me to react in anger when I'm really just afraid and to dismiss instead of disagreeing, which is a dehumanizing activity. So, in the spirit of holiday peace, good will, and reflection, I will remember the bodhicitta.
Bodhicitta characterizes the path of a Mahayana practitioner. It is Bodhicitta that creates a Bodhisattva and it is Bodhicitta that ultimately creates a Buddha.
In Tibetan, compassion is translated as the nobility or greatness of heart which implies wisdom, discernment, empathy, unselfishness, and abundant kindness. Bodhicitta is compassion working with a mind awakened by right view. It is the joining of compassion and emptiness.
We'll examine how to use the Four Bodhisattva Vows to supercharge Right Intention with Right View and discover the same spacious freedom of a flower that blooms despite its circumstances.
Please join me as you listen to this "best of" episode.
Here are some great episodes to start with.
