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Koan: The Way to All Acceptance [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-02-02

I am going to mine Pema Chödrön’s excellent book, Welcoming the Unwelcome, for several koans in coming weeks, starting with bodhicitta, The Mind of Awakening or The Mind that Seeks the Way, and look at various ways of approaching it from Shakyamuni Buddha, Dogen Zenji, and others.

The book opens with the question

Why are you reading this book?

There are many possible answers, but there is one that tops them all.

In the Mahayana tradition, when studying spiritual teachings, we set out by arousing an even greater motivation, known as bodhichitta. In Sanskrit, “bodhi” means awake, and “chitta” means “heart” or “mind”. Our aim is to fully awaken our heart and mind, not just for our own greater well-being, but to bring benefit, solace, and wisdom to other living beings. What motivation could top that?

Welcoming the unwelcome, specifically birth, old age, dread disease, and death, has been the heart of Buddhist dharma, teaching and training, from the First Sermon in the Sutta of Turning the Wheel of Dharma, Dhammacakkappavatanasutta. But how did we get there? Well, there was of course the awakening under the Bodhi tree, but before that came years of fruitless struggle to find the true way, and before that came the decision to do so.

This decision is Siddhatta Gotama’s raising of bodhicitta, based on his whole previous life of kshatriya duty and privilege, none of which he found satisfactory. So when he had done his princely duty to provide a son and heir, he took himself off into a new life and, as it turned out, a new chapter in the history of the world.

We must take such a preliminary understanding seriously. It is not enough to want to help if you don’t know how. But bodhichitta constantly shows us the next step to take.

Bodhicitta, the awakened heart, begins with the wish to be free from whatever gets in the way of our helping others.

For Bodhidharma, the next step took him to China. For Dogen Zenji, the next step also took him to China, but under very different conditions. For Rev. Master Jiyu Kennett, it was Japan, and so it was for me. But now your next step is wherever you are, and has been at all times.

In Buddhist fan fiction, including the Jataka Stories, the Bodhisatta who became Shakyamuni devoted himself to training in many ways through many lives, culminating in birth in the highest heaven and then birth in the human world where he could finally raise the true bodhichitta. Never mind all of the preliminaries. Do not be as the former Buddha who gazed at the bodhi tree for ten long kalpas, becoming

as a tiger that has tattered ears or as a hobbled horse.

The Most Excellent Mirror—Samâdhi

Here you are, however it may be that you got here. Take advantage of the opportunity.

You should arouse the thought of enlightenment. The thought of enlightenment has many names but they all refer to one and the same mind. Ancestor Nagarjuna said, "The mind that fully sees into the uncertain world of birth and death is called the thought of enlightenment." Thus if we maintain this mind, this mind can become the thought of enlightenment. Indeed, when you understand the discontinuity, the notion of self does not come into being, ideas of name and gain to not arise. Fearing the swift passage of the sunlight, practice the way as though saving your head from fire. Reflecting on this ephemeral life, make endeavor in the manner of Buddha raising his foot.

Gakudo Yojinshu

That is, raising his foot to go out begging for food, or to teach, or to approach the place of meditation, with all of his devotion to the Truth.

Dogen warned urgently against all of the vain imaginings that some might mistake for this bodhicitta.

Even if you read the sutras of the expedient or complete teaching, or transmit the scriptures of the exoteric or esoteric schools, without throwing away name and gain it cannot be called arousing the thought of enlightenment. Some of these people say, "The thought of enlightenment is the mind of supreme, perfect enlightenment. Do not be concerned with the cultivation of fame or profit." Some of them say, "The thought of enlightenment is the insight that each thought contains three thousand realms." Some of them say, "The thought of enlightenment is the mind of entering the buddha realm." Such people do not yet know and mistakenly slander the thought of enlightenment. They are remote from the buddha way.

This mind cannot be encompassed in thoughts of self, however exalted they may pretend to be. Go for the real thing.

Then you can settle into endless training, and the dropping off of self, of mind and body, of attainment, and all the rest.

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