Someone asked about importance of bodhicitta on realising emptiness.
- Reply
- 30m
- Edited
- Reply
- 19m
- Edited
Soh Wei Yu
Author
Admin
Bodhicitta
is important. Bodhicitta is not just mundane compassion, lots of
non-Buddhists or even non-spiritual, or even total materialists have
compassion. Compassion is not the monopoly of a specific group of people
(of a specific religion or whether they are spiritual or not).
Although, compassion is in fact very important along with the other four
immeasurables and does help development and maturation of insight, and
should never be downplayed. Personally, I find that compassion does come
forth more spontaneously after insights.
However, Bodhicitta is specifically this, not just compassion:
"It
is true many people mistake compassion, which does not have the force
to lead to buddhahood, with bodhicitta, the aspiration to become a
buddha to benefit sentient beings." -- Acarya Malcolm Smith
Bodhicitta is specifically the aspiration for Buddhahood, nothing more and nothing less.
And
how does it relate to realising emptiness? Because realising [twofold]
emptiness and the full actualization of that realisation which directly
corresponds with the overcoming of the two obscurations which directly
translates to omniscience or the total knowledge of the nature of all
phenomena completely or the exhaustion of all phenomena, etc etc....
depends first of all on the aspiration that this is what you want to
attain.
Soh Wei Yu
Author
Admin
And
personally I have taken the vows and so on ceremoniously and so does
John Tan and I believe many others in this group. But more important
than that... the crucial point of it is that both John Tan and I do aim
to attain Buddhahood as our goal. A true sincere aspiration to awaken
fully for the benefit of all IMO is better than people who just went
through the motions and ceremony but their heart is not there.. their
deep yearning for waking up is not there yet.
Also,
some may bring up the point... does one need to formally recite the
bodhicitta vows, the refuge vows and so on... are they important? To me,
they are important causes for awakening. However the essence of it is
always more important than the formality or ceremonial aspect of it. It
is always good to formally undertake these vows in a ceremony under the
presence of a great master. If you have the opportunity to do so, then
go for it. That itself is meritorious in many ways and plants a strong
seed of awakening.
But
we do hear of stories like Bahiya and many others who attained
awakening, in fact liberation from samsara as an Arahant, upon hearing
Buddha speak of a few verses of dharma, and that was the first time they
have even met the Buddha. Does this mean they have not taken refuge?
They certainly haven't got the time to formally recite the refuge verses
to Buddha before they awakened. But I think they do take refuge in a
more fundamental way. I wrote in recent months:
"
Soh Wei Yu
Mr. LZG
Kyle Dixon's post from years ago: "The true meaning of refuge is recognizing the nature of mind [cittatā].""
"
Soh Wei Yu
Mr. LZG
The intention is more important than the formality or ceremony.
Bahiya
had very strong intention to rely on Buddha’s teachings to attain
liberation. In a sense that is the key of refuge. It is not just a
formality but a very strong genuine intention to rely on the triple gems
to attain liberation. That is the kind of “taking refuge” one must
awaken in oneself. That paves the way to liberation. If one simply
attends a refuge ceremony half heartedly, like going through the
motions, it is still a positive act that creates a good karmic
connection with the triple gems for this life and the next, but may not
be as effective as the earnest desire of Bahiya to take refuge in Buddha
and his instructions to attain liberation as soon as possible."