Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte by our teacher, Sangharakshita, is titled and#8220;The Bodhisattva Pathand#8221;. Can the Eternal be reached by following a path in time? Excerpted from the talk and#8220;The Buddha and the Bodhisattva: Eternity and Time,and#8221; part of the series and#8220;Aspects of the Bodhisattva Ideal,and#8221; 1969.
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
The Bodhisattva Path
[Music] Dharma Vites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. Now that's a rather rapid survey of quite a lot of ground, but it should suffice to prepare the way for what we have to say this evening. And this evening we are still concerned with the bodhicitta, this will to enlightenment, this will through the salvation, the emancipation, the liberation of all. But again we are concerned with the bodhicitta in a somewhat different way. So far in the course of this series we've dealt only with the relative bodhicitta. You may remember that quite early in the series the distinction was introduced as between the absolute bodhicitta and then the relative bodhicitta, but the absolute bodhicitta was just briefly mentioned. And we have in fact all the time been dealing in detail, especially with the relative bodhicitta. Now today we are going to deal with the absolute bodhicitta. As I've said it's been mentioned briefly in a very general way before, but we haven't really, we haven't truly said anything about it. The subject has been anticipated slightly last week in speaking of the bodhisattvas of the Dharmakaya, and the connection may become obvious a little later on. Now obviously it isn't easy to approach the subject of the absolute bodhicitta. The relative bodhicitta is difficult enough to deal with, difficult enough to get a glimpse of, even from a far off. But obviously the absolute bodhicitta is very much more difficult indeed to approach. It's difficult even to get a glimpse of a glimpse of the absolute bodhicitta. So perhaps we should work our way into the subject gradually, little by little, step by step, until perhaps we have some, however remote, however indirect perception of the nature of the absolute bodhicitta. And also have some perception in the words of the title of today's lecture, some perception of the Buddha, as well as with the bodhisattva of eternity and time. Now in the course of the previous lectures, one cannot but have received certain impressions. You know how it is when you go along to lectures, you don't usually go along with your notebook. You just get a general impression, something sort of sinks in, something settles down as it were, within you from the lecture. But you may not remember very much in detail, and if you were questioned, you might not be able to reproduce very much in detail or even in outline. But at the same time there are these broad, general impressions that persist, that remain. And one of these is surely that as a result of hearing, as a result of listening to these talks, these lectures, you'll think of the bodhisattva as following a certain way of life. You'll think of the bodhisattva or the would-be bodhisattva as performing, for instance, the sevenfold puja. You'll think of him as developing the bodhicitta, the will to enlightenment for the sacral sentient beings. You'll think of him as making his four great vows, practicing the part of mittas, and so on. You'll think of him as living and working and unfolding in this way. In other words, you'll think of him as trading a certain puff, and in the same way you'll think of him undoubtedly as aiming at a certain goal. The goal of enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings, the goal of supreme bodhuhut. These at least are the sort of impressions with which one will be left after sitting through after listening to this course of lectures. And these impressions, though very general, and not to say vague, as far as they go are, of course, perfectly correct. It's true to say that the bodhisattva follows a puff. What we call the path of the bodhisattva, and it's true that the bodhisattva does aim at a goal, the goal of enlightenment for the sake of all living beings. But though this is true, though these impressions are correct, there is at the same time a sort of danger. And the danger consists in the fact that these expressions, as when we speak of the bodhisattva as following a puff, arriving at a goal, these expressions are, in fact, metaphorical. We don't always realize that. We don't always realize how much of our thought, how much of our speech, how much of our communication is metaphorical. It's not, for they can literally suggest it. It's meant to stimulate. Even in spite, it's not meant to communicate in a clear-cut scientific sort of quasi-mathematical fashion. So there's the danger that we may forget this, and there's the danger that we may start taking these metaphors, these metaphors with the help of which we try to make clear what is going on in the spiritual life. The danger that we may start taking these somewhat too literally and trying to press them to logical conclusions. Now let us look into this just a little more closely. Suppose that we are walking along the road, something that often happens to us. So in due course, having covered a certain distance, having covered a certain ground, in due course, we arrive at our destination, which is, say, a house. Now there's a simple enough sort of situation, a simple enough sort of experience, but what are the facts involved? What are the facts of the situation? The facts of the situation are that we've changed our position, but we've changed it on the same plane as it were, on the same level as it were. And the house, therefore, is in a sense a continuation of the road, because it's on the same level, the same plane. Now it's only too easy, too fatally easy, to think of the Bodhisattva's path and the Bodhisattva's goal in the same sort of way rather literally. It's only too easy to think of the Bodhisattva's path leading up, as it were, to Buddhahood, as though to the door of a house. We think of the Bodhisattva as going along step by step, and one day he comes up against his great and wonderful door or gateway of nirvana, or glistening and pearly and golden, and there he is, just like coming to the door of a house, and he just enters, he just goes in. This is the way in which we think of these experiences, and we can't, in a way, help it, but it isn't really like that at all. When you come to the end of the Bodhisattva path, when you come in fact to the end of the spiritual path, you don't find a gate, you don't find a doorway, you don't find any sort of house, any sort of spiritual, any sort of celestial mansion waiting for you, so what do you find? When you get to the end of the path, you don't find anything at all, you don't find anything at all, there's just nothing there. The path just ends, the path just comes to an end, the path just stops, and there you are, at the end of the path, with nothing there. The path as I've said just ends, so you find yourself, as it were, again a metaphor, so don't start taking it literally, you find yourself at the edge of a precipice. The path has gone on nicely, step by step, step by step, mile after mile, and you'd counted all those milestones and you were expecting to arrive in comfort, at the door, at the entrance of a great house mansion, but no, you find the path ends, right at the edge of a precipice. And there you are standing, right on the edge of the precipice, and the precipice goes down, or not just a few feet, or even a few muddies, goes down to infinity. Now, what is one to do? The Zen people, who are also involved here, the Zen people put it another way. The Zen people say that the spiritual life is like climbing up a flagpole, climbing up a flagpole, so eventually with great effort, and the flagpole is supposedly rather slippery, if not deliberately greased by fate or circumstances. Eventually, with a lot of effort and struggle, you get to the top of the flagpole, and it goes up a very, very long way, we're told this particular flagpole. So, when you get to the top, what happens? Well, when you get to the top, you can't go any further up, obviously, and it's also impossible to come down. Why is it impossible to come down? Because, beneath, below, there's the Zen master standing with a big stick, so you dare not come down. And you can't go up, and worst of all, at the top of the flagpole, there's no cozy little platform on which you can settle down, like St. Simeon's stylites, or anything like that. There's nothing there, there's just empty space. So, you're a phrase to jump, of course. So, you can't go up, you can't go down, you can't stay there, and you can't jump up. So, what is one to do? Well, this is what the Zen people put to one. Well, it's quite impossible to say. When it can't say, no statement is possible, so I'm afraid I should have to leave you all on the top of the flagpole. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. And thank you. [MUSIC] [BLANK_AUDIO]