“Create Your Own Bodhisattva Vow”

It IS the mother of all compassion.

There are numerous forms bodhisattva vows can take, depending on which Buddhist tradition one practices, but the essence of all of them is the desire to devote one’s life (and all future lives) to helping other beings end their suffering and reach Enlightenment.

Most of us walk around thinking about gaining happiness for ourselves. You may even think, “I would really like other beings to be happy.” A wish for their happiness. In the Buddhist framework, this translates to engaging in virtuous action either so that you’ll have a good rebirth in your next life, or, to gain personal enlightenment.

What sets the Buddhist bodhisattva path apart from this orientation is that rather than simply wishing for others to be happy, you decide that you personally are going to take responsibility for creating others’ happiness, for leading them to Enlightenment. And you will keep being reborn in this human realm time and again, so that you can help beings achieve that. And only when every last being has done so will you, too, retire to your own Buddha paradise.

...the thing about bodhisattvas is that their every action, because it’s motivated by this boundless love for beings, is a help for beings. The ways in which they can help are endless. They say that even the bodhisattva’s act of giving a tiny seed to a bird becomes a seed for enlightenment because of that great compassion.

To give you a more poetic idea of the bodhisattva’s approach to his or her work, I’ll quote “The Way of the Bodhisattva”, by the 8th century Buddhist master Shantideva. This teaching, which Shantideva presented orally, lays out how the bodhisattva lives and practices and works. These verses, from the chapter “Commitment”, are my favorites from the whole book:

May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,

A guide for those who journey on the road.

For those who wish to go across the water,

May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.



May I be an isle for those who yearn for landfall,

A lamp for those who long for light;

For those who need a resting place, a bed;

For all who need a servant, may I be their slave.



May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,

A word of power and the supreme healing;

May I be the tree of miracles,

And for every being the abundant cow.



Like the earth and the pervading elements,

Enduring as the sky itself endures,

For boundless multitudes of living beings,

May I be their ground and sustenance.



Thus for every single thing that lives,

As boundless as the limits of the sky,

May I be their livelihood and nourishment,

Until they pass beyond the bounds of suffering.”

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“Create Your Own Bodhisattva Vow”