The Meditations of a Bodhisattva

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The Meditations of a Bodhisattva

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

The religious fervor of the Great Vehicle was a major force in renovating the traditional structure of meditation. The concept of the path was extended to include an entire sequence of bodhisattva stages to enlightenment: the foundation of the path became compassion rather than personal virtue, and compassion led inevitably to the awakening of the thought of enlightenment, the vow to achieve Buddhahood for the sake of all beings.

The sequence of calm and insight remained the same, but insight meditation became the vehicle of the new metaphysics, the basis for the reaffirmation of the value of action in the world. The alert awareness of the meditator turns toward events in the world with a concern for ontology: he achieves his freedom metaphysically rather than psychologically, and in the metaphysics of his freedom lie the seeds of universal salvation. Skillful means must accompany his wisdom, as part of the ever increasing emphasis upon the immanence of enlightenment within the world.

Thus the structure of the path does not change, but rather than labeling events with the labels of suffering and impermanence, reality and unreality, the meditator wanders free in the unlabeled dream of the world. Dedicating himself to the salvation of all living creatures, he plunges into the swamp of the world, rather than letting the world go by. The experiential basis for this return to the world is the same ecstatic mode of intellectual penetration into reality, the same freedom and disentanglement amid events as in our previous selections; but the mood has changed from peace and tranquility to action and concern, from the joys of repose in the torrent of events to the joys of participation in a cosmic drama of redemption. Kamalaśīla's text on meditation, written in the eighth century A.D., remains the standard guidebook on this ordered contemplative process in the Great Vehicle. (Beyer, The Buddhist Experience, 99)

Citation

Beyer, Stephen. "The Meditations of a Bodhisattva." In The Buddhist Experience: Sources and Interpretations, 99–115. Encino, CA: Dickenson, 1974.

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Works related to this item

1 Partial translation of

Kamalaśīla (པདྨའི་ངང་ཚུལ་). bhāvanākrama [भावनाक्रम]. bsgom pa'i rim pa [བསྒོམ་པའི་རིམ་པ]. [Stages of Meditation 1 of 3]. Tengyur, RKTST 4228 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=4228&typ=2.

Classical WorksAbout this item

[I]n the first Bhāvanākrama, Kamalaśīla sets forth the three forms of wisdom (prajñā): the wisdom derived from learning (śrutamayīprajñā), the wisdom derived from reflection (cintāmayīprajñā), and the wisdom derived from cultivation (bhāvanāmayīprajñā), explaining that the last of these gradually destroys the afflictive obstructions (kleśāvaraṇa) and the obstructions to omniscience (jñeyāvaraṇa). (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 113. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

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Karuṇā - The profound wish for all sentient beings to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. It is a core virtue in Buddhism and, in the Mahāyāna tradition, develops into 'great compassion' (mahākaruṇā), the driving force behind the pursuit of enlightenment for the benefit of others. Skt करुणा  Tib ཐུགས་རྗེ་  Ch 悲  

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Puṇya - The positive energy or potential created through performing good deeds, such as generosity or kindness. In Buddhism, accumulating this positive force is seen as essential for finding happiness in future lives, and crucial as a foundation for following the spiritual path. Skt पुण्य  Tib བསོད་ནམས་  Ch 福;功德  

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Saṃprajanyam - Skt संप्रजन्य  Tib ཤེས་བཞིན་  Ch 正知  

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Prajñā - One of the key terms for wisdom or knowledge, most often having the sense of insight, transcendent knowledge, or perhaps gnosis. In some contexts it can also refer to cognition or intellectual understanding. Skt प्रज्ञा  Tib ཤེས་རབ་  Ch 般若  

Go to the page with the definition of 'wisdom'

Prajñā - One of the key terms for wisdom or knowledge, most often having the sense of insight, transcendent knowledge, or perhaps gnosis. In some contexts it can also refer to cognition or intellectual understanding. Skt प्रज्ञा  Tib ཤེས་རབ་  Ch 般若  

Go to the page with the definition of 'wisdom'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt बोधिसत्त्व  Tib བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ།  Ch 菩薩  

Go to the page with the definition of 'Bodhisattva'

Prajñā - One of the key terms for wisdom or knowledge, most often having the sense of insight, transcendent knowledge, or perhaps gnosis. In some contexts it can also refer to cognition or intellectual understanding. Skt प्रज्ञा  Tib ཤེས་རབ་  Ch 般若  

Go to the page with the definition of 'prajñā'

Prajñā - One of the key terms for wisdom or knowledge, most often having the sense of insight, transcendent knowledge, or perhaps gnosis. In some contexts it can also refer to cognition or intellectual understanding. Skt प्रज्ञा  Tib ཤེས་རབ་  Ch 般若  

Go to the page with the definition of 'prajñā'