The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “The Bodhisattva Ideal”
Is the Bodhisattva unafraid? Heck no! The Bodhisattva is afraid just like anyone else. Why not? Nobody wants to be challenged. Nobody wants to have difficulty or obstacles. Nobody wants to suffer. The Bodhisattva is not less afraid than anyone else. But what is fear in the face of the needs of the many? What is fear, knowing that what I might collect out of my fearfulness will ultimately lead to my unhappiness and disappointment?
I’ve been practicing the Bodhisattva Path for some time. I am afraid of everything. Everything frightens me. I’m a jellyfish by nature. But I don’t stop, because it doesn’t make any sense to stop. Does the Bodhisattva no longer want anything or need anything? No! I want and need everything! Anything you want to give me would be much appreciated! But I do not concern myself with gathering such things. I concern myself with the liberation and salvation of all sentient beings. That’s what I concern myself with.
I’m not a perfect Bodhisattva, but there have been perfect Bodhisattvas. And I can tell you that with the understanding that the Bodhisattva naturally obtains through this kind of conduct: There is a natural kind of internal ease or lightness of being, a kind of quiescence that is a natural byproduct of that lack of emphasis on self-concern and increased emphasis on the well-being of all sentient beings, and the reasonableness of accumulating only those virtuous characteristics which can benefit in all future times. There is a reasonableness about that and, as we emphasize that reasonable method, and do not emphasize ego-cherishing and ego-clinging, there is a natural lightness of being that occurs that, even while if someone punches us we will be punched and we will roll over, it isn’t so heavy because, as a Bodhisattva, although you may experience phenomenal reality in the same way that others do, there is not the suffering of suffering, which only actually occurs when one is filled with desire, just like the Buddha taught—filled with self-cherishing and ego-clinging, filled with hatred, greed and ignorance. The deep neurosis of acting inappropriately according to what you actually are, the suffering of suffering, comes from that. It comes from acting like something that is death-oriented, that is contracted, that is separate and limited as opposed to acting as though you understood that you are that primordial wisdom nature, that ground of being, that Buddha nature, that state of innate wakefulness, that quiescent light. That is the great Bodhicitta that is your nature.
If we could act in accordance with that, that deep neurosis that is characteristic of samsara, that suffering of suffering, could not exist in such a life. So then, for such a one who practices in that way, all efforts become a benefit to sentient beings, no matter what they appear like. Ultimately they will result in benefit. This is the life of the Bodhisattva and this is the practice of the Bodhisattva, and this is what each one of us must attain to because I will tell you, no matter how good you are at sitting in the lotus position or how good you are at looking like a meditator or how many of the rules of meditation you know or how many of the books on spiritual practice you have read and can memorize, if you do not have the Bodhicitta, if you are not alive in love, you have no path. If you do not consider others before you, you have no path, because the path is love.
Copyright © Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo. All rights reserved
