Compassion in Mahayana Buddhism

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

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Buddhism traces its origins to the life and ministry of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha Shakyamuni, who lived probably in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. He spent six years searching for a way that could help him to achieve liberation. In the end he was disappointed with the teachings and techniques of his Hindu masters, so he decided to discover his own method.[1] He achieved enlightenment and spent the rest of his life travelling throughout North India preaching his teachings, dharma.
      In his sermon at Banaras, the Buddha proclaimed the four noble truths, that would become the basis of Buddhism. The four noble truths are: 1. all existence is suffering (dukkha); 2. all suffering is caused by craving (dukkha samudaya); 3. all suffering can be ended (dukkha nirodha) by removing craving; 4. the way to end suffering is by practicing the noble eightfold path.[2]
      The Buddha soon attracted many disciples and organized a community, sangha. After his death, different interpretations of the Buddha's teaching and practice began to appear giving origin to different branches of Buddhism. The two main ones are the Theravada and the Mahayana, which were introduced to many places in Asia by the growing number of Buddhists.[3]
      Mahayana literally means "the great vehicle"[4] to enlightenment. The main ideal of the followers of the Mahayana path is not a solitary quest for nirvana[5] but to become a bodhisattva, a person who is a model of benevolence and compassion, and "who indefinitely defers his own deliverance in order to help in the salvation of others."[6]
      Nakamura Hajime says that the origins of Mahayana are not yet entirely understood.[7] It seems that since its beginnings lay men and women were also prominent in the Mahayana orders. The members of these orders called themselves bodhisattvas, which means that they wanted to achieve the state of Buddhahood itself. The virtue of compassion became central in their doctrine.[8]
      The main feature of Mahayana Buddhism is the commitment that every bodhisattva makes "to work ceaselessly for the benefit of other beings and to transmit to them the merit generated by his or her own religious practice."[9] They refrain from entering Buddhahood and prefer to dwell among the living to alleviate their suffering.[10]
      The bodhisattva is an ideal that can be achieved by every human being. It requires a process of meditation and practice, study and continued effort. In this paper I will concentrate my attention on the development of compassion in Mahayana Buddhism. I will present what are the main characteristics of a bodhisattva and then proceed to describe how that stage can be achieved. I will give particular attention to the role of reason and imagination and the practice of taking and giving. In sum, I am interested in finding out why the practitioners of Mahayana Buddhism want to develop compassion and how they do it.
      I will use the text A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life[11] written by Acharya Shantideva as the basic text. In it there are the practical guidelines, which everyone trying to become a bodhisattva should follow. The text also reveals Shantideva's spirituality, deep faith and literary imagination. It also shows clearly his intellectual ability to convince possible skeptic readers.[12] (Antunes da Silva, introduction, 813–15)

Notes

For the life of Buddha see F. Reynolds "Buddhism" in J. Fenton and others, Religions of Asia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983), 153-160.
The eightfold path is subdivided into eight factors: the right view, right purpose, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. See Amadeo Sole-Loris, Tranquillity and Insight (Boston: Shambhala, 1986), 14-19; W. Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1974), 16–50.
Theravada Buddhism is the dominant religion in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana is found chiefly in China, Tibet, Korea and Japan. For the expansion of Buddhism in Asia, see Reynolds, 187-215.
N. Hajime, "Mahayana Buddhism" in M. Eliade, (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 2 (New York: Mac Millan, 1 987), 457.
nirvana can be translated as "the state of complete liberation from samsara." Samsara, or the cyclic existence, is the cycle of uncontrolled death and rebirth that is powered by delusions and contaminated actions. It is the basis for experiencing suffering. Cf. G.K. Gyatso, Universal Compassion: A Commentary to Bodhisattva Chekhawa's Training the Mind in Seven Points (London: Tharpa Publications, 1988), 160.
Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 218. According to Mahayana Buddhism there have been many bodhisattvas who have taken the vow to delay the liberation from the cycle of existence, in order to help the salvation of other sentient beings. The most popular and famous bodhisattva is Avalokitesvara. He is the embodiment of all the buddhas' compassion. SeeN. Hajime, 459.
Ibid., 457.
Ibid., 458.
Ibid., 459.
It should also be said that the bodhisattvas are not only limited to earthly life. They also live in the pure land. A pure land is a realm outside cyclic existence. See G. K. Gyatso. Meaningful to Behold: A Commentary to Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (London: Tharpa Publications, 1986), 379, n. 76.
A. Shantideva, A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life (Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1979). When quoting or referring to this text I will use Roman numerals to refer to the chapters, and Arabic numerals for the stanzas.
Shantideva lived in the seventh and eight centuries CE. He was a monk at the monastery of Nalanda. His influence in Tibet is very important. For the life of Shantideva see A. Pezzalli, "Santideva" in M. Eliade, (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Religion, 13 (New York: Mac Millan, 1987), 67-68, or G. K. Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold, 1–3.

Citation

Antunes da Silva, José. "Compassion in Mahayana Buddhism." Revista Portuguesa De Filosofia 52, no. 1/4 (1996): 813-30.

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Works related to this item

1 Scholarship on

Śāntideva (ཞི་བ་ལྷ་). Bodhicaryāvatāra [बोधिचर्यावतार]. byang chub sems dpa'i spyod pa la 'jug pa [བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའི་སྤྱོད་པ་ལ་འཇུག་པ།]. [The Way of the Bodhisattva]. Tengyur, RKTST 3216 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=3216&typ=2.

Classical WorksAbout this item

An "Introduction to Bodhisattva Practice," the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra is a poem about the path of a bodhisattva, in ten chapters, written by the Indian Buddhist Śāntideva (fl. c. 685–763). One of the masterpieces of world literature, it is a core text of Mahāyāna Buddhism and continues to be taught, studied, and commented upon in many languages and by many traditions around the world. The main subject of the text is bodhicitta, the altruistic aspiration for enlightenment, and the path and practices of the bodhisattva, the six perfections (pāramitās). The text forms the basis of many contemporary discussions of Buddhist ethics and philosophy.