Spent the last few days doing a lot of thinking about the idea of arhatship as a goal vs. the Bodhisattva ideal. If you know me much at all you know that the idea of 'saving all beings' speaks to me deeply, and so the Bodhisattva vows in particular have always meant a great deal to me. There were days where I found myself wondering 'how exactly is sitting on a pillow helping to save any beings, let alone all beings?" For the most part, though, it meant something to me to engage with the world in a compassionate way and feel that it was a part of my practice. Coming from that side of the aisle, the idea that I should focus on liberating my own mind so that I can be an enlightened being is a little jarring. Arhat or Bodhisattva??
The conflict essentially arises as a result of conceiving the arahant and the bodhisattva in terms of self-view. When there is no clinging to any view, the picture radically changes. The Buddha said, “Held by two kinds of views, some hold back and some overreach; only those with vision see.” The former means some people are life-affirmers, delighting in the things of the world. When teachings refer to letting go and cessation, their minds recoil and hold back. By “some overreach,” he means nihilists who rejoice in the idea of non-being, asserting that when the body dies, this self is annihilated. They feel this will be true peace. “Those with vision” see what has come to be as having come to be. They cultivate dispassion toward that and are at ease with its cessation.As long as self-view has not been penetrated, the mind will miss the middle way. The “ending of rebirth” ideal will tend to get co-opted by the nihilist view, whereas the “endlessly returning for the sake of all beings” ideal will tend to become permeated with the eternalist view.
When the sense of self is seen through, the middle way is realized. Whether we talk in terms of emptiness of the arahant of the Pali Canon, or in terms of the absolute zero of the Heart Sutra or the infinite view of the four vows, these are merely modes of speech. They all derive from the same source, the truth of the way things are. They are simply expedient formulations that guide the heart to attunement with the reality of its own nature. That attunement is the middle way.
The View from the Center
There are many teachings that illuminate this perspective; for example:
As long as space remains,
As long as sentient beings remain,
Until then, may I too remain
And dispel the miseries of the world.
—Shantideva, Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life
To the average Theravadan, this verse by Shantideva might seem antithetical to the path. It appears to run completely counter to that principle to get out of the burning house as soon as one can. However, the practice of the middle way involves taking up compassion teachings along with their partner, the emptiness teachings. These two elements are like the wings of a bird—they can’t function properly without each other.
If we reflect closely on this verse, another layer of meaning opens up: as long as space and identity are held to have substantial reality, the mind has not realized enlightenment. True insight involves recognizing that space, time, and being are imputed qualities that have no absolute existence.
Thus the Southern idea of “me going” and “others left behind” must be missing the mark. Similarly, the Northern view of “this individual being will persist through infinite time for the sake of other beings” has also fallen into wrong view. The practice of the middle way dissolves the illusion that “I” can “go” and “others” can “stay,” or vice versa. It radically reconfigures the concepts of time, space, and being.
So the aspiration can validly be as it is in the verse; but if space no longer remains, if no beings remain, if their nature is recognized as conditioned and therefore empty, what does that say about the “I” who would be “staying”?
The irony is that upon knowing that time, space, and beings have no substantial reality, the “I” is “gone” too—gone to suchness, come to suchness: Tathagata.
Sri Ramana Maharshi once remarked, “A good man says, ‘Let me be the last man to get liberation, so that I may help all others to be liberated before I am.’ Wonderful! Imagine a dreamer saying, ‘May all these dream people wake up before I do.’ The dreamer is no more absurd than this amiable philosopher.” His analysis astutely sums up the issue: only when the heart is free of all self-view can it attune itself to reality; a precise balance is needed.
In The Vajra Prajna Paramita Sutra, we find passages that voice a similar understanding:
Subhuti, what do you think? You should not maintain that the Tathagata has this thought: “I shall take living beings across.” Subhuti, do not have that thought. And why? There are actually no living beings taken across by the Tathagata. If there were living beings taken across by the Tathagata, then the Tathagata would have the existence of a self, of others, of living beings, and of a life. Subhuti, the existence of a self spoken of by the Tathagata is no existence of a self, but common people take it as the existence of a self.
We save all beings by realizing there are no beings. The perfection of wisdom is to see this fact: ultimately, the truth is not self and not other; there is no arahant, no bodhisattva, no birth, no death. Though the heart might incline to compassion, it’s only when we cultivate this wisdom element as well that there is going to be true spiritual fulfillment.
Experience shows that in order to realize a fulfillment that maximally benefits all, we need to know our traits and learn how to balance them out. If we’re a wisdom type—intent on realizing nibbana to get out as quickly as possible—then it’s necessary to develop compassion. We need to lean toward people and things. Or, if we’re an altruistic type, feeling, “I’ve got to stay around until everyone else has been saved,” then we need to incline toward the emptiness of things.
In the equipoise of the middle way, the infinite and the void are sustained. They complement each other; they balance each other out.
Helpful.