What Makes a Bodhisattva

Many people think that helping others or doing our best to help others will make us a bodhisattva, but it is not the case. That’s not enough, and it’s too simple. The main thing that makes a bodhisattva is being willing to accept and take on suffering oneself in order to give well-being and happiness to another. There would be no fear of doing that. However the great suffering may be, however long lasting it may be, we are unafraid of it. We take them on without regret. We’re able to forebear the suffering if it’s going to be helpful to another. This is the Bodhisattva view. Just helping alone is not enough. Giving a little help here or there is simple, but it’s not enough for true bodhichitta or for that person to become a bodhisattva. Because when someone has the view, i.e. I will give up my own happiness, my own well-being, I will take on the suffering without any fear, this is the view, and with that view, the person is practicing Mahayana dharma.

If we look at the past life-stories of Buddha (the Jataka Tales), we see that the Buddha in his past lives was not planning to help others alone, but in helping others he sacrificed himself. He sacrificed his life and he gave up his body. Because of it, he was counted among bodhisattvas. For example, we all know of Namo Buddha (Tibetan: Tagmo Lujin, meaning: the place where he gave his body to tigers). He did not only help the tigers, but he sacrificed his life, and because of that he was considered a bodhisattva. To give up one’s life is not easy.

There was also an account of when the Buddha very first gave rise to bodhichitta (generated the awakening mind), he was in hell pulling a cart, and he had a companion who was also pulling this cart. They worked with great hardship pulling this cart and suffering. He said, I will take on the suffering for both of us, there’s no point you suffering, you take it easy, give me your rope and I will do your work as well, so you will be without suffering. So he took the other hell being’s suffering upon himself. That’s what meant by he ‘generating the awakening mind. This is what it means to be a bodhisattva; it is not only helping others, but it’s being able to take on the suffering, to be able to forebear the suffering. With that mindset, to help.

When we look at what is a bodhisattva, the emphasis is not on the help that is given. In Namo Buddha, the Buddha gave his body, in doing so he saved the tigers’ lives. But the emphasis is not on the fact that he saved their lives, it was on the fact that he sacrificed himself in order to do that.

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We have ways of helping, but the motivation is concerned with our own well-being. We have our own reputation in mind, basically we don’t give ourselves. We do not forsake our own wellbeing or anything ourselves in the help that we gave. It is not the Mahayana approach and it is not the bodhisattva mentality, because the bodhisattva mentality is not focused on helping alone.

Most people think that helping is having bodhichitta, but there needs to be two areas, and one of those areas is that we give up ourselves, we sacrifice ourselves in order to help, which is dangerous for ourselves, but we forsake the consequences we will experience.

Have a look for yourself, and have a look at Jataka Tales, in many lives when Buddha was a bodhisattva, he gave away his head to sentient beings, his eyes to sentient beings, and he gave away his lives to sentient beings. He made many sacrifices. He gave many things which are very difficult to give. So the emphasis is not on the help, but on forsaking oneself.

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Bodhisattvas will not take the life of one to support the life of another. Their view is whatever happens to me is irrelevant, whatever happens to my body or wealth makes no difference. They can forsake themselves, and that’s the foundation through which they help others.There are many ways of helping, once we are willing to forsake ourselves, there are may ways, financially, teaching or advising; there are many methods. This is the way to think about it.

We should not be thinking that in order to be a bodhisattva, we have to sacrifice our life. It’s not the case that we have to commit suicide. Whether we give up our life or not is not the point. It’s whether we are able to do that, whether we are willing to do that. It’s not about whether we lose our life or not, or give our life up or not. It’s about whether we are willing to do it. So the bodhisattva would not necessarily give up their life, but the Bodhisattva is willing to do so. Maybe they are lucky, they can keep their life, if they are unlucky, they don’t. But whatever the case, they are not afraid. They are not afraid of losing their life, they are not afraid of suffering. That’s what makes them a bodhisattva.

May 28, 2015

Excerpted from a teaching on the Bodhichitta section of A Torch for the Definitive Meaning – Transcribed into English by Karma Drolkar.