What is a Bodhisattva?

What is a Bodhisattva? We'll answer that question, looking at such things as the Bodhisattva Vows, the aim of the Bodhisattva path, and differing views on what one needs to do to become a Bodhisattva.

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00:00 Intro
00:57 Background
03:12 What is the Bodhisattva Ideal?
05:33 The Bodhisattva Vows
07:42 The aim of the Bodhisattva Path
08:22 Buddhas vs. arahants
09:55 The perfections
11:47 Non-abiding Nirvana
12:40 Dīpaṃkara and the role of a living Buddha

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[dc]

For me, a Bodhisattva is a being who sacrifices all of its energy for the benefit of all beings. Like our Sun. If you think about it, the Sun expends it's energy so that we might have life. What a beautiful gift!

[spiritualanarchist]

As a two time undefeated Bodhisattva myself, i can recommend this video. 😀

[smileyp]

"The bodhizattva knows that one can never truely be free until all souls are free"

[SnakeAndTurtleQigong]

Sending gratitude from a Daoist monastery near Seattle (USA)!
☯️🙏💙

[menghawtok]

I believe in the suttas, Bodhisattva is used to describe Prince Siddhartha before his birth & the 6 years after he left the home life, seeking Enlightenment/Awakening

[xiaomaozen]

Wonderful video (as always). Already looking forward to the sequel... 😊🙏🏻

As a Zen practitioner I've met a lot of people who considered themselves Bodhisattvas (helping all sentient beings). I came to the conclusion that almost all of them are but personified versions of the "helper syndrome" in disguise: strong and insincere identification with the idea(l) of being an unselfish/altruistic helper.
The Bodhisattva ideal is certainly not a bad thing per se, but it can embody the danger of spiritual bypassing to a great extent.

Ezra Bayda (Tricycle, Summer 2003) wrote a wonderful article about that subject. Here's an excerpt:

_The question is: Where in our life do we do good, at least in part, to subtly solidify the self? Where do we get in our own way? Where do we use even our identity as a spiritual seeker, or the comfort of being part of something bigger, to cover the anxious quiver of being?_

😊🙏🏻

[DustinHamiltonSituatedAction]

Thank you 🙏 Doug! I’m within the Korean Zen tradition (Seon) and I had thought the notion of the Bodhisattva was a Zen manifestation. I was so wrong - thank you once again for the ongoing education.

Right now I am in my Order’s ‘Dharma Guardian’ training and I plan on sharing this with the fellow Dharma ‘students’.

You’re the best, Doug; sending all my best from Chicagoland.

[nsbdnow]

One of my favorite stories (not sure how accurate, I learned it long ago) is of when Gautama was a Bodhisattva during a time of famine. He sees a mother tiger unable to generate milk to feed her cubs because she herself is starving. Out of compassion he removes his clothes, neatly folds them away, and allows the tiger to eat him so she can generate milk and feed her cubs. Sometimes I wonder if I'm starting to glimpse what and how that level of compassion can actually be...

[zelenisok]

In various Mahayana and Vajrayana schools there is a classification of three types of bodhisattva:
- king-like bodhisattva - aspires to become buddha and then help sentient beings in full fledge;
- boatman-like bodhisattva - to achieve buddhahood along with other sentient beings;
- shepherd-like bodhisattva - to delay buddhahood until all other sentient beings achieve liberation.
Some schools say the king-like is the best, some that the shepherd-like is the best, but also some say shepherd-like doesnt even exists as an option.

It should also be noted that the teaching of non-abiding Nirvana isnt actually a later one, being implied in the Mahasamghika teachings about how Gautama Buddha was already such a being.

[ItallMatters]

You’ve clearly come SUCH a long way. I particularly appreciate that in you I have yet again been signposted to Buddhism.

[ffederel]

Although Bodhicitta implies turning away from personal liberation, it is not defined as postponing one's enlightenment. Rather, it is the main mind associated with the two aspirations of achieving full enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings. The aspiration to benefit all sentient beings is the primary aspiration.

However, there are 3 types of bodhicitta: like a king (wishing to achieve enlightenment before sentient beings), like a ferry (wishing to attain it at the same time) and like a shepherd (wishing for others to attain enlightenment before oneself).

This being said, since the main object of abandonment of a bodhisattva are not afflictive obscurations but knowledge obscurations, I can imagine where you are coming from when you define bodhicitta.

Generally speaking, we say it takes 3 countless eons to achieve buddhahood from the time we enter the Mahayana small path of accumulation. But there are other approaches in Tantra as well as in Chan. It's not clear cut.

[UchihaMike]

I used to have a buddhist friend say that we are gods as we are in charge of our life. but I find it wrong to say we are gods as a god hardly ever incarnates but to help humanity, and is something people pray to.

[greymane]

thank you for the video. A few years past I heard the definition given as warrior of enlightenment. Which is to say a person who dedicates their life to battling the ignorance found in the world. perhaps even as seeing a kind word, a politeness given, and encouragement as a sword stroke cleaving negativity away in a persons life if only temporarily. devotion to seeing that with one's life they will for the sake of another's progression along the path to greater awareness. not for praise but for the simple joy of the act itself.

[Void-Star]

If anyone wants to understand bodhisattva in detail then I suggest reading Chandrakirti's madhyamakavatara Sutra. It has been explained in very detail about bodhisattva.

[savannahfecht]

This is extremely in-depth for a 15 minute video, thank you!

[stephenrizzo]

Not being a religious Buddhist, I view the bodhisattva as a reaction to the depraved indifference that some Buddhists fall into when they think they shouldn’t get attached to the suffering of others by helping or because they believe that the suffering of others is deserved because of what they did in a past life. Both of these are explicitly denied by the Buddha, but that does not stop people from thinking them.

[alexanderkoruga]

9:50 - yeah it does feel like a very VERY long path....

[Robert-vfdq]

Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation, never will I enter into final peace alone, but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the redemption of every living thing throughout the world.

[freedomnsurvival]

A bodhisattva is an enlightened being who temporarily delays Nirvana to help others . Look at it more as remaining in the worldly affairs after seeing through the illusion, rather than rejecting the world of illusion outright.

[buddhistsocietyofiowa]

Another excellent teaching, Doug! We appreciate, as always, your time and talent!