The Bodhisattva Path of Wisdom and Compassion

by Chogyam Trungpa

  The path of unification links the past, or the path of accumulation, with the future, or the path of seeing. The path of seeing is forward vision, the fever of what you might do, and the path of accumulation is what you have already done. So on the path of unification, forward vision and what you have already experienced are joined.

  The Path of Seeing

  Traditionally it is said that the mahayana journey begins with the third path, the path of seeing, which is connected with the first bhumi. But that is not completely accurate, because each of the ten bhumis is a mixture of the path of seeing and the path of meditation. The mahayana begins with the path of seeing because you begin to have constant forward vision. Because you have forward vision, you begin to be pensive and have a quality of reserve.

  The Path of Meditation

  On bhumis two through ten, you are said to be on the fourth path, the path of meditation. So as you evolve through the paramitas to the level of jnana, you are on the path of meditation.

  The Path of No More Learning

  Finally, with the attainment of enlightenment, you are on the fifth and last path, the path of no more learning.

  1. For a discussion of temporary meditative experiences called nyam, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, chapter 42, “Mindfulness of Mind.”

  2. The ten bhumis are (1) very joyful, (2) spotlessness, (3) illuminating, (4) radiating light, (5) difficult to accomplish, (6) becoming manifest, (7) far gone, (8) immovable, (9) good intellect, and (10) cloud of dharma. The birth of enlightenment is referred to as the eleventh bhumi, complete radiance.

  3. For a discussion of the five paths from a hinayana perspective, see volume 1 of the Profound Treasury, part 5, “The Hinayana Journey,” chapters 63 to 66.

  4. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation lists twenty-two similes for bodhichitta, which are related to the paramitas and to the stages of the bodhisattva path: (1) the earth, (2) gold, (3) the moon, (4) fire, (5) a treasure, (6) a jewel mine, (7) the ocean, (8) a diamond, (9) a mountain, (10) medicine, (11) a teacher, (12) a wish-fulfilling jewel, (13) the sun, (14) a song, (15) a king, (16) a treasury, (17) a highway, (18) a carriage, (19) a fountain, (20) a lute, (21) a river, and (22) a cloud. The first three—the earth, gold, and the moon—apply to the three stages of the path of accumulation. For a list of similes and their relationship to the paths and bhumis, see the chart “Stages of a Bodhisattva’s Development and Corresponding Similes.”

  5. Fire is the fourth of the twenty-two similes for bodhichitta (see previous footnote).

  6. The first stage of the mahayana path. See chapter 45, “Very Joyful: The First Bhumi.”

  45

  Very Joyful: The First Bhumi

  The coming together of the hook of compassion and the ring of devotion is based on the idea that what you are doing is real. I think that is what the great joy of the first bhumi really means: what you are doing is real.

  THE FIRST bhumi is connected with the third path, the path of seeing. At this level the dharma is actually seen. You could say that the first bhumi is the loss of ego’s virginity. It is as if until now you have only heard stories about the pleasures of sex, but now you are actually experiencing it. There is both apprehension and openness. It is very powerful and personal.

  At the level of the first bhumi, a hint of meditation in action begins to develop. Your intellectual approaches to life and your personal experiences of life become one huge awareness. You no longer discriminate between the experiential and the intellectual—the whole thing becomes completely one. Having gone through that process, there is enormous joy and celebration.

  The ground of the mahayana path is an attitude of openness, and the willingness to communicate and work with both yourself and others. Such an attitude comes about through training in the hinayana path of shamatha and vipashyana, which automatically evolves into compassion. You don’t hold a grudge against anybody, whether you think your grudge is right, good, or logical, but you maintain a peaceful attitude, if we could use such a term as peaceful attitude.

  In the mahayana, a basic understanding of shunyata is important. Shun-yata is like the breath—if you don’t have breath, you are dead. Shunyata is where we begin. With shunyata, you may go beyond the layperson’s level of the bodhisattva path and become professional mahayanists, otherwise known as bodhisattvas. The first bhumi is called very joyful. It is analogous to a treasure mine, where you might find jewels such as diamonds, rubies, and emeralds embedded in the coal. It is like digging jewels from the earth.1

  On the first bhumi, the path is both philosophical and experiential. You do not go to either extreme, for if you become sharp in one point, you lose the other. As the Tao Te Ching says: “If your knife is sharpened too much, it can quickly get dull.” Buddhism teaches you how to be a good citizen, a good straightforward samsaric person. Dharma is accurate from the point of view of samsara, so to begin with, you have to develop samsaric logic thoroughly and completely—nirvanic logic comes afterward.2 That is why the Buddhist path is called the middle way. It is not called the middle way because it is devoid of samsara or nirvana—and therefore it is safe—but because it is committed to samsara and nirvana at the same time.

  There is enormous potential to raise the consciousness of all sentient beings, and particularly human beings. All the abilities of human beings, who are in the land of karma, all their intellect and intuition, could be raised up to the level of being immaculately clean, pure, powerful, and energetic. They could develop spontaneously, without straining. Buddhism is regarded as humanism because it develops human abilities.

  The discoveries made in the first bhumi are fantastic. On the first bhumi, for the first time you begin to feel that you have been caught, like a ring caught by a hook. There is a sense of saving grace, as if somebody threw down a hook and pulled you up out of the turbulent, greasy ocean of samsara. Something is actually happening in your path. Because of that understanding, this bhumi is called raptu gawa. Raptu means “very,” and gawa means “joy”; so raptu gawa means “extremely joyful.” The myth begins to become reality. Something is beginning to work. At the level of the first bhumi, you have no choice. What you have seen is fantastic and beautiful, so how could you go back to the dark dungeon of samsara?

  The coming together of the hook of compassion and the ring of devotion is based on the idea that what you are doing is real. I think that is what the great joy of the first bhumi really means: what you are doing is real. You thought there could be a hook, but now you find that your ring is actually caught by somebody’s hook, that it is actually functioning. For example, when I was living in Tibet, I was surprised to hear that such a thing as an airplane exists. When I first heard about airplanes, I wondered if they were real. But one day we were in our tutorial course out in a meadow studying “Prajna,” the sixth chapter of Shantideva’s book on the bodhisattva path,3 when suddenly there was a roar up in the sky and somebody said, “It must be an airplane!” Somebody else said, “Oh no! There’s no such thing!” Then we looked up and we saw this glittering, shiny, aluminum bird. It was very birdlike, but it was very solid and it didn’t wave its wings. So airplanes do exist, and nobody can argue about that. It is reality, not a myth.

  UNBIASED GENEROSITY

  Because something is beginning to work, your practice automatically becomes that of the paramita of generosity. You are so relieved, confident, and overjoyed that you have found your own path that you wouldn’t mind giving away anything. Having arrived at the other shore, what you arrive with is material, psychological, and spiritual generosity. Generosity is unbiased; you give without discrimination. It is a bit like being a drunken generous person, but if you are drunk, you regret your generosity along with your hangover the next day. In this case, there is no hangover—it is continual joy.

  There is a way to practice generosity that may be unknown to you: you could just behave in a way that is generous, rather than being generous for a reason. You could develop the kind of unconditional di
scursive mind that triggers this kind of attitude. That is precisely what is brought out by the shunyata experience. You could be generous to somebody because you are intelligent enough to see that the person needs help—not because it is a good thing to do, but as a natural, almost a physical, reflex. And if you feel like a do-gooder, you could acknowledge that, and work with your shunyata discipline.

  FAINT SUGGESTION OF GOD REALM

  The tremendous pleasure and appreciation of the first bhumi still has a faint suggestion of the realm of the gods, or brahmaloka. You have not yet cut through the cause and effect of the god realm. By relating with the absorptions, or jhanas,4 you reach the level called Tsangpa, the realm of pure brahma. But this is not the same as the mahayana concept of pure land, which transcends the brahmaloka. Pure lands, such as the realm of Amitabha, are said to be at the seventh bhumi level, not the first.

  Being in the realm of the gods is nice, but not quite freedom. There is still some self-consciousness to the experience of joy, due to the very fact that the idea of joy is conditional. There is a sense of completeness, a quality of absorption, and so much appreciation that you are almost hypnotized. You would like to sit back and relax. The joy and appreciation that everything is sharp and clear and beautiful is okay—but as a kind of delayed reaction you begin to hold on to it, or try to find some way of sneaking back. That little attempt to hang on to that quality of joy is where the quality of the god realm begins to come in—not as the first message, but in the faint watcher that develops. With true absorption, there are no gaps; it is total. Absorption is ineffable. There is no need to communicate this experience to people. Instead, bodhisattva activity is communicated by itself spontaneously. A bodhisattva does not have to make their enlightenment confessions to everybody.

  REEXAMINING THE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS

  The four noble truths are (1) suffering, (2) the origin of suffering, (3) the cessation of suffering, and (4) the path. Until you reach the first bhumi and a sense of complete conviction develops, you will be unable to hear the dharma properly and thoroughly. Although you may have been working very hard, you will not really understand the four noble truths. It is said that ordinary sentient beings hear the Buddha only partially, whereas bodhisattvas hear him completely. So once you attain the first bhumi, you become the true audience of the Buddha.

  At the hinayana level, we talked about how suffering should be understood, the origin should be felt, and so forth. And at the mahayana level, you are examining the teaching of the four noble truths all over again. However, you now have a fantastically clear and precise way of looking at that teaching because you are able to hear Buddha speak. Your approach to the four noble truths is much greater, more sophisticated and powerful, because the isness of the dharma is utterly felt.

  When you become a bodhisattva, because you have an understanding of openness, not only do you become perceptive enough to see the truth of suffering, but you develop enormous patience. Because you are patient, you are willing to wait and wait and wait to receive inspiration. You take a nonviolent approach, with no aggression or speeding, and with enormous patience and clarity you examine the truth of suffering as true dharma. And having realized the truth of suffering as true dharma, you see it simply as truth. You begin to develop a complete and full understanding of your state of mind. It is the full impact, as when you eat a meal, feel satisfied, and burp.

  Finally, you reach complete understanding without being particularly patient or impatient, but simply by remaining in the state of beingness, or isness. You go through each of the four noble truths in that way. If you do so, this automatically has the quality of shamatha and vipashyana. However, until you are able to experience shamatha-vipashyana completely, until mahavipashyana is achieved, you will not have the faculty to understand the real meaning of the truth of suffering, the origin of suffering, the path, and the goal. With mahavipashyana, there is an appreciation of the teachings, and it is needless to push or discipline yourself, because discipline comes along with you.

  THE SEVEN LIMBS OF A BODHISATTVA

  At the level of the first bhumi, you begin to develop the seven limbs of a bodhisattva: (1) awareness, (2) discrimination, (3) effort, (4) joy, (5) shinjang, (6) samadhi, (7) equilibrium. In Tibetan this is called changchup kyi yenlak. Changchup means “enlightenment,” kyi is “of,” and yenlak is “limb”; so changchup kyi yenlak is “limbs of enlightenment.”

  Awareness

  The first limb is called trenpa, which means “mindfulness,” or “recollection.” In Sanskrit it is smriti. Recollection loosens ego’s hold on your psychology so you become joyful. It is as if you are in love for the first time. There is a romantic quality based not on egohood, but on an appreciation of dharmas. The tathagatas, sugatas, and buddhas seem to be singing along with your romantic songs. There is an enormous sense of celebration, and everything becomes part of your dharmic activity.

  Discrimination

  The second limb is called completely pure discrimination of dharmas, or chö-je yang tak (Skt.: dharmapravichaya). Chö is “dharma,” je is “discrimination,” yang is “perfect,” and tak is “pure”; so chö-je yang tak means “perfectly pure discrimination of dharmas.” You are fully in love with your own dharmas and you have developed enormous sensitivity. You see blueness and whiteness and redness; you see flowers, mountains, streams, bridges, highways, clouds, the sun, and the moon—everything that goes on in the realm of your mind—as visual bodhisattva demonstrations. You become highly discriminating, not in a biased way, but by seeing clearly with great precision. Without bias, things are seen to be more complementary to one another. We could say that the first bhumi experience is almost the equivalent, on the bodhisattva level, of the mahamudra experience of vajrayana. It is necessary and very powerful.

  Effort

  The third limb is tsöndrü. In Sanskrit it is virya, or “effort.” Because such a magnificent display of the new world is revealed to you, you are willing to work hard.

  Joy

  Effort is followed by the fourth limb, which is gawa, or “joy” (Skt.: priti). There is a quality of celebration, joy, pleasure, and happiness. Because you have been being willing to work hard, with no punishment or guilt complex, a sense of joy takes place. You are not being persecuted, but you are being invited to become a bodhisattva. There is tremendous hospitality coming from the teacher and the teaching and the whole dharmic path.

  Shinjang

  The fifth limb is shinjang, which means “thoroughly processed” (Skt.: prashrabdhi). First you have awareness, then discrimination, then energy, then joy—and shinjang is further joy. Your whole system has no hang-ups: your body has no hang-ups, and your speech has no hang-ups. Your behavior, your relatives, your parents, your puppy dog, your car—whatever you have in your life is without hang-ups. Such things may seem to be problematic, but fundamentally they do not present you with any threat of real chaos at all. The whole process is perfectly smoothed out.

  Samadhi

  The sixth limb is tingdzin, or samadhi in Sanskrit. Tingdzin is beyond words; it is ineffable. There is no way of referring to your fantastic experience of the first bhumi—the joy, pleasure, excitement, smoothness, and uncomplicatedness. It is like getting out of your prison and being treated as a VIP who is bathed, fed with good food, and dressed in beautiful clothes. For the first time you have come out of prison into the real world. And it is actually true; that is what is happening.

  Equilibrium

  The last limb, number seven, is tang-nyom (Skt.: upeksha), which means “equilibrium,” or “equality.” Tang means “let go,” or “let loose,” and nyom is “equalizing”; so tang-nyom is “equilibrium.” The reason equilibrium is the last limb is that there is no indulgence. Everything is so direct and obviously open that there is no threat. So you can relate with the rest of your environment and radiate joy, rather than keeping it to yourself.

  The point of discussing these details of the bodhisattva’s path is that the entire path bec
omes very real. You know the logic, how the psychology changes, how somebody could become a bodhisattva, and what that actually means.

  1. A treasure is the fifth simile for the stages of the bodhisattva’s development; it is connected with the first bhumi and the path of seeing. The closely related simile of a jewel mine is usually associated with the second bhumi.

  2. Trungpa Rinpoche often uses the phrase thoroughly and completely. In explaining his repeated emphasis on these two qualities, he points out that in the way he uses the terms, completely means that you have gone to the extreme of exposing yourself, and thoroughly means that you lose your reference point.

  3. A reference to the classic text The Way of the Bodhisattva, or the Bodhicharyavatara of Shantideva.

  4. Jhanas (Pali; Skt.: dhyanas) are subtle and progressively more refined states of meditative absorption, usually divided into four form jhanas and four formless jhanas.