“Their great hearts of sympathy which constitute the essence of their being never leave suffering creatures behind [in their journey towards enlightenment]. Their spiritual insight is in the emptiness (çûnyatâ) of things, but [their work of salvation] is never outside the world of sins and sufferings.”
The Meaning of Bodhi and Bodhicitta.
What is the meaning of the word “Bodhisattva”? It is a Sanskrit term consisting of two words, “Bodhi,” and “sattva.” Bodhi which comes from the root budh meaning “to wake,” is generally rendered “knowledge” or “intelligence.” Sattva (sat-tva) literally means “state of being”; thus “existence,” “creature,” or “that which is,” being its English equivalent. “Bodhisattva” as one word means “a being of intelligence,” or “a being whose essence is intelligence.” Why the Mahâyânists came to adopt this word in contradistinction to Çrâvaka is easily understood, when we see what special significance they attached to the conception of Bodhi in their philosophy. When Bodhi was used by the Çrâvakas in the simple sense of knowledge, it did not bear any particular import. But as soon as it came to express some metaphysical relation to the conception of Dharmakâya, it ceased to be used in its generally accepted sense.
Bodhi, according to the Mahâyânists, is an expression of the Dharmakâya in the human consciousness. Philosophically speaking, Suchness or Bhûtatathâtâ is an ontological term, and Dharmakâya or Tathâgata or Buddha bears a religious significance; while all these three, Bodhi, Bhûtatathâtâ, and Dharmakâya, and their synonyms are nothing but different aspects of one and the same reality refracting through the several defective lenses of a finite intellect.
Bodhi, though essentially an epistemological term, assumes a psychological sense when it is used in conjunction with citta, i.e. heart or soul. Bodhicitta, or Bodhihṛdaya which means the same thing, is more generally used than Bodhi singly in the Mahâyâna texts, especially when its religious import is emphasised above its intellectual one. Bodhicitta, viz. intelligence-heart is a reflex in the human heart of its religious archetype, the Dharmakâya.
Bodhicitta when further amplified is called anuttara-samyak-sambodhicitta, that is, “intelligence-heart that is supreme and most perfect.”
It will be easily understood now that what constitutes the essence of the Bodhicitta is the very same thing that makes up the Dharmakâya. For the former is nothing but an expression of the latter, though finitely, fragmentarily, imperfectly realised in us. The citta is an image and the Dharmakâya the prototype, yet one is just as real as the other, only the two must not be conceived dualistically. There is a Dharmakâya, there is a human heart, and the former reflects itself in the latter much after the fashion of the lunar reflection in the water:—to think in this wise is not perfectly correct; because the fundamental teaching of Buddhism is to view all these three conceptions, the Dharmakâya, human heart, and the reflections of the former in the latter, as different forms of one and the same activity.
Love and Karunâ.
The Bodhicitta or Intelligence-heart, therefore, like the Dharmakâya is essentially love and intelligence, or, to use Sanskrit terms, karunâ and prajñâ. Here some may object to the use of the term “love” for karunâ, perhaps on the ground that karunâ does not exactly correspond to the Christian notion of love, as it savors more of the sense of commiseration. But if we understand by love a sacrifice of the self for the sake of others (and it cannot be more than that), then karunâ can correctly be rendered love, even in the Christian sense. Is not the Bodhisattva willing to abandon his own Nirvanic peace for the interests of suffering creatures? Is he not willing to dedicate the karma of his meritorious deeds performed in his successive existences to the general welfare of his fellow-beings? Is not his one fundamental motive that governs all his activities in life directed towards a universal emancipation of all sentient beings? Is he not perfectly willing to forsake all the thoughts and passions that arise from egoism and to embrace the will of the Dharmakâya? If this be the case, then there is no reason why karunâ should not be rendered by love.
Christians say that without love we are become sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal; and Buddhists would declare that without karunâ we are like unto a dead vine hanging over a frozen boulder, or like unto the cold ashes left after a blazing fire.