Tag Archive for "Bodhisattva"
Last night my cat, Guru, brought a present in to the laundry room for my wife. Guru very proudly trotted in and at my wife’s feet dropped a field mouse. That alone is enough to cause my wife concern, but when this little brown mouse got up, scamped towards the door to the pantry my wife reacted in a way that endears her to me.
She screamed.
When my wife screams I pay attention, this time was no different, but I was in the attic cleaning out the dryer vent. So down I hurry, trying not to kill my self on the way, taking only a quick moment to make sure my flip-flops land on the rungs of the ladder as I go.
By the time I made it to the laundry room my youngest is in the room too, watching this little terrified mouse as it tries in vain to burrow in to the kitty litter… sad really.
I pick up the whole litter box, my wife hands me the scoop and I walk in to the garage with Guru in tow meowing that I am not to disturb his toy. I walk to the edge of the garage, staying out of the rain, and then I threw the little mouse out in to the darkness.
Of course Guru was not too happy with the turn of events, so I patted his little gray head and went back in to the house.
This morning my wife finds Guru sitting with the little brown mouse outside. The mouse is dead, probably from a heart attack. I am sure Guru played with it until his little brown mouse heart just gave out and he died.
I don’t think Guru meant to kill his toy. I don’t think he meant to do any harm at all. When Guru is sitting with me at night while I read he is noble. He is kind and sincere and loving sitting there on my lap, occasionally pawing the book to get my attention.
When he does this I say the Mani to him and then I go back to my reading. In my mind he is teaching me. Something. No idea what he is teaching me, but in my mind he is a guru and he has Buddha-nature.
He is Guru.
Do I actually know someone who could be considered a Bodhisattva? Some person who I might have contact with that is concerned with one thing only: teaching the Dharma and thereby helping others out of this suffering and into enlightenment. In doing so they must forgo Buddhahood to help others along that same path. Can you imagine seeing the goal, seeing complete release and true enlightenment, and then turning away to be there for others? To make sure others can achieve that with you or even before you?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU_iN6iQERU[/youtube]
If I was meditating tonight, and slowly the slices of reality opened before me, like a rose bloom in the dawn, would I walk away from that to bring others the same understanding? I would like to think I would be concerned with the welfare of others, how can you be enlightened and not be concerned with the all other sentient beings?
I hope that I am now someone who has ‘entered the stream’. A Sotpanna, literally one who enters the stream, as becoming Enlightened was considered crossing the stream. I have a firm understanding in the Judeo-Christian dogma and my recent readings on the subject of The Buddha and what we refer to as Buddhism or maybe what I think of as walking in the Buddhapada has given me an awful lot to think about.
Sometimes I think about Chenrezig, the blue skinned, four-armed incarnation of the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara of India. He is the ‘Lord of the World’ in Buddhist tradition, with many incarnations across the Buddhist lands of Asia and India. What if I was called upon like that? What if I opened my ears today and heard the suffering of the people, would I even want to take on a thousand arms to reach out to them and help them?
I quietly chant my mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, as I slow my mind and try to meditate at night, or in the office while I work and listen to something soft… trying to let go. But I never can let go.
I am not ready to take the vows of a Bodhisattva just yet, but soon, maybe even in this lifetime.