The Mahayana Bodhisattva Path

This typically begins with a vow to enter on the path upon becoming a novice monk or nun and some special spiritual exercises (in addition to the usual ones) aimed at producing a compassionate and enlightened heart and mind (bodhicitta) are entered into.

The idea is to go beyond the outer behaviour required by the vinaya and focus on developing more perfect inner behaviours which derive from more enlightened inner attitudes. This path began to be encouraged with the second turning and was, of course, strengthened with the humanism/everythingism of the third turning.

Meditation on the equality of everything was one method employed in this cultivation of compassion. This was, of course, aided by the idea that everything had a Buddha Nature and at the same time that ‘everything’ was ‘no thing’.

Meditating upon selfishness (perhaps the opposite of the intense compassion sought) and its results was (and is) also used or (perhaps ironically) on the teachings of the self-happiness that altruism brings (now borne out by Western science).

Equanimity can also be meditated upon (labels like ‘the other’, ‘friend’ and ‘stranger’ might be turned over in the mind, their usefulness questioned and the labels mentally discarded). ‘Self’ interest might thus be questioned and discarded as a useful attitude in the very real problematic nature of ‘self’ itself thus established. It may be noted in the meditation that at some time in a past life every single being may have been both the mother and the child (and perhaps also both friend and enemy) of every other single being (in extreme cases both sentient and non-sentient beings are included in this in some mystical sense). This was all expected to break down excessively self-cherishing attitudes as compared with attitudes to others.

You can guess that a lot of this was also done by pre-Mahayana monks and nuns seeking to be Arhats but this was clearly now more of a necessity as even more extreme unselfishness had to be cultivated in order to now go beyond mere (inherently relatively selfish) Arhat-thinking.

Only after this programme had proved successful would the ten bhumis I mentioned in an earlier post actually be entered into. Even to be considered to have attained the first of these is considered a great achievement within Buddhism. The formal attainment of each level gives a rank within the religious community and teaching rights with regard to ranks attained. The attainment of rank six is indicated by the honorific Aryabodhisattva (advanced Bodhisattva).