Bodhisattva Vow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtKhakSmwhA

There are of course any number of explorations as to what it means to take the Bodhisattva vow, such as our little gift from the Beastie Boys. It is the vow of Great Way Buddhism to forgo final enlightenment until all achieve that bliss together. In Zen this is considered an inside joke, as it is the Zen view we are already all awakened. So what to worry about, how can we act in any other way? Of course as we encounter this world with our normally divided hearts, it is also very much a world of hurt, whatever else may be true. And, let’s face it, from the view of division this undertaking is very hard, very nearly impossible. Therefore making this vow is a powerful undertaking. And it is the heart of much of what Buddhism is about.

And, one other thing. From my perspective, this sense that we’re all in this together in the deepest possible sense is one of the signal places that Unitarian Universalism and Buddhism meet.

That said, I was reading the most recent newsletter from the UU congregation in Belmont, Massachusetts, where their interim minister, Dr Doris Hunter wrote of how she found herself thinking of the Reverend Frank Robertson, a beloved UU colleague who has only recently died. She suggested he spent much of his life inspired by that sense of we-are-all-in–this together and I-dedicate-my-life-to-this-project-of-making-our-interdependence-clear.

Doris went on to say how she thought Frank’s life was very much described in that Bodhisattva vow, and particularly in the version called Shantideva’s vow. It appears I am not the only one to see these Buddhist and UU connections. She said Frank was a luminous example of that vow manifest. Here’s the text she used in her newsletter column.

May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.

May I become an inexhaustible treasure
For those who are poor and destitute;
May I turn into all things they could need
And may these be placed close beside them.

May I be a protector for those without one,
A guide for all travelers on the way;
May I be a bridge, a boat, and a ship
For all who wish to cross the water.

May I be an island for those who seek one
And a lamp for those desiring light;
May I be a bed for all who wish to rest
And a slave for all who want a slave.

May I be a wishing jewel, a magic vase,
Powerful mantras, and great medicine;
May I become a wish-fulfilling tree
And a cow of plenty for the world.

And like space
And all the great elements such as earth,
May I always support the life
Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain
May I also be the source of life
For all the realms of the varied beings
that reach into the ends of space.

I’m much taken with the complexities within this vow. On the face of it, it is a call to an ultimately unhealthy state, a complete surrender of self to another. You can’t say something more against the grain of our culture and our ideas of what we should be doing with our lives. And I agree. But, I more than suspect there is something deeper here, something revealed in that Zen family joke: we’re really all one in this, and what is done for one is done for all.

Maybe, actually, I really believe, this is a pointing to our true calling, our true health.

Anyway, I too, find myself thinking of Frank. And, I agree with Doris, he was a pretty good example of one who made the vow and in many ways became the vow, and in many more ways revealed the vow as a truth beyond all names and categories…

Thank you, Frank, and good voyaging!