Lama Surya Das: The Bodhisattva's Vow

"Bodhisattva (Skt; Pali, Bodhisatta). The embodiement of the spiritual ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, in contrast to the earlier Arhat ideal advocated in the Hinayana. Bodhisattva literally means 'enlightened being' but the correct Sanskrit derivation may be 'bodhi-sakta' meaning 'a being who is oriented towards enlightenment'. The ideal is inspired by the lengthy career of the Buddha before he became enlightened, as described in the Jatakas. A Bodhisattva begins his career by generating the aspiration (prajnidhana) to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings, often in the form of a vow, which according to many Mahayana texts is often accompanied by a prediction of success (vya-karana) by a Buddha. He then embarks on the path leading to enlightenment (bodhi) by cultivating the Six Perfections (sad-paramita) and the four means of attracting beings (sam-graha-vastu) over the course of three immeasurable kalpas. The spiritual progress of a Bodhisattva is usually subdivided into ten stages or levels (bhumi). Many Mahayana sutras state that a Boddisattva foregoes his own final enlightenment until all other beings in samsara have been liberated, or else describe a special form of nirvana, the unlocalized nirvana (apratistha-nirvana) by virtue of which a Bodhisattva may be 'in the world but not of it'. Earlier Mahayana sutras are specific in their belief that a Bodhisattva can only be male but later texts allow the possibily of female bodhisattvas."

-- Damien Keown --
("Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism")

"How," asks best-selling author, Lama Surya Das, "do we apply impeccable intentions to the mundane, dog-eat-dog world that we perceive around us?"

"A real Bodhisattva," he notes, "has pure intentions toward everyone and everything. There is no selfishness, no neurosis, no rough edges and no hidden agendas. This is the ideal we strive to cultivate when we take the Bodhisattva's selfless altruistic vow. This is what we are hoping to achieve as we work on ourselves and set about purifying our intentions."

"Our internal thoughts and intentions ideally could reflect a purity of heart and a sincere sense of interconnectedness with all humanity," Surya Das points out. "Our lives can reflect generosity, tolerance, hope, forgiveness, honesty and commitment. This is true," he notes, "whether we're thinking about the survival of the rain forest, the person in the next room, or the snail struggling across a blacktop driveway."

However, he cautions the would-be post-modern Bodhisattva, "(s)ometimes its easier to feel this high-minded purity of intention toward the world as a whole than it is toward those in your own immediate environment."

[Lama Surya Das, "Awakening the Buddha Within," pages 146-147.]

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Below, Lama Surya Das reads the Bodhisattva's vow from his book: "The Mind Is Mightier Than the Sword".

"Home," An Ecological History of Humanity and the Earth

In his best-selling environmental study, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed," author Jared Diamond speculates about what went through the mind of the person who chopped down the last tree on Easter Island. One wonders what will go through the mind of the person who ploughs under the last hectare of tropical rainforest on Borneo, harvests the last fish off of Greenland, or burns the last gallon of gasoline in Los Angeles.

In the must-see documentary, "Home," (trailer attached, below) we are given a deep history lesson of life on Earth, our evolution, and the role that we are each now playing in changing the face of the Earth, perhaps irrevocably, And time is running out, we are warned, for us to ameliorate the collective damage we are doing.

An evocative film with spectacular aerial footage, and as poignant in its message as "An Inconvenient Truth," it directly addresses the horrendous impact mankind as a species is having on our shared environment and on each other, citing the following statistics:

• 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of its resources.
• The world spends 12 times more on military expenditures than on aid to developing countries.
• 5,000 people a day die because of dirty drinking water.
• 1 billion people have no access to safe drinking water.
• Nearly 1 billion people are going hungry.
• Over 50% of grain traded around the world is used for animal feed or biofuels.
• 40% of arable land has suffered long-term damage.
• Every year, 13 million hectares of forest disappears.
• One mammal in 4, one bird in 8, and one amphibian in 3 are threatened with extinction.
• Species are dying out at a rhythm 1,00 times faster than the natural rate.
• Three quarters of fishing grounds are exhausted, depleted or in dangerous decline.
• The average temperature of the last 15 years have been the highest ever recorded.
• The ice cap is 40% thinner than 40 years ago.
• There may be at least 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

"The costs of our actions are high," we are shown. "Others pay the price without having been actively involved."

"Must we always build walls to break the chain of human solidarity, to separate peoples and protect the happiness of some from the misery of others?"

And yet the message of "Home" is not pessimistic, but hopeful. "It is too late to be a pessimist," we are warned. . . . "(A) single human can knock down every wall. It is too late to be a pessimist. Worldwide, four children out of five attend school. Never has learning been given to so many human beings. Everyone from richest to poorest can make a contribution."

"It is time to come together," we are told. "What is important is not what is gone, but what remains. We still have half the worlds forests, thousands of rivers and lakes, and glaciers, and thousands of thriving species. We know that the solutions are there today. We all have the power to change."

"So what," we are asked, "are we waiting for?"

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To view the full documentary, click here.

Ram Dass: On Witnessing Life and Death

"To me," says Ram Dass in the attached video, "death is a process of just leaving what you thought you were - not what you are, but what you thought you were."

For Dass, witnessing the presence of simple being, of witnessing the spaciousness of what is, is the key to helping those approaching death. Dying to self in such an instance, it seems, is truly the process of dying. It is the awakening to the eternal life of what this moment is.

"For you to be of any use to someone who is dying," Dass notes,  "there is one simple rule: you work on yourself, you don't work on the other person."

"Every moment of your life, once you understand the purpose of it," he points out, "is your vehicle for awakening. This moment is your vehicle for awakening. If you are uncomfortable at this moment, okay. You are uncomfortable. Allow it. If you're fascinated, be fascinated. Allow it."

It is through being present for the person making the greatest transition, that one allows that person the freedom to be present to the whole process.

Alan Watts: A Modern Vedantist Examination of the "I"

In "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are," philosopher Alan Watts examines the delusionary way in which each of us looks as him or herself as a separate "ego" or "self" and the implications this has for society's development and its future. Critically examining the way that all of us are conditioned in this belief, Watts presents an Advaita Vedantist view on the question of our consciousness with a decidedly modern twist.

"The sensation of "I" as a lonely and isolated sense of being is so powerful and commonsensical, " Watts notes, "and so fundamental to our modes of speech and thought, to our laws and social institutions, that we cannot experience selfhood except as something superficial in the scheme of the universe."

"I seem to be a brief light that flashes but once in all the aeons of time," he observes, "a rare, complicated and all-too-delicate organism on the fringe of biological evolution, where the wave of life bursts into individual sparkling, and multicolored drops that gleam for a moment only to vanish forever. Under such conditioning it seems impossible and even absurd to realize that myself does not reside in the drop alone, but in the whole surge of energy which ranges from the galaxies to the nuclear fields in my body. At this level of existence "I" am immeasurably old; my forms are infinite and their comings and goings are simply the pulses or vibrations of a single and eternal flow of energy."

 "As the ocean 'waves,'" notes Watts, "so the universe 'peoples.'"

For more on this topic: See "Einstein to Alan Watts and Beyond: Who Are We?"

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