THE BODHISATTVA PRINCIPLE

The bodhisattva is the ideal Buddhist, representing an uncompromising determination to transform his or her own life and to transform the world in the direction of universal freedom and happiness. To the extent that the bodhisattva's consciousness courses on the non-dual level, no distinction is made between self and other, and every action is fitted for the highest benefit of everybody. The 'wound' that keeps

self and other apart has been seen by the bodhisattva's wisdom for what it is: an unnecessary result of ignorance. The wound has been healed in the warm balm of developing compassion, by the bodhisattva taking every opportunity to identify with others. Now whole and spiritually healthy, the bodhisattva is not tempted to relax into the spurious balance of a personal peace. Since others' welfare is no less a matter of vital concern than his or her own, the distinction does not arise. So the bodhisattvas are always active, trying to heal the wound in the world, motivated by compassion and illuminated by wisdom.

Such people, living and working in today's world, do not advertise themselves, but use whatever talents they have for the benefit of others, and are always prepared to learn and change. The message of the bodhisattva ideal is not `find these heroes and adore them', but `become one yourself'.

It is one's own deliberate effort to transform oneself on the path of higher evolution that ensures that the will to enlightenment will continue to arise in the world: nothing else can do it. According to Buddhism, every action, even every thought, counts. It is either creative and ultimately conducive to the welfare of all, or else it is wasted, and thus retrogressive. During every creative, generous, and fearless act and thought, including the smallest, one is momentarily a bodhisattva -- the will to enlightenment has half awakened within one. I find this a message of great optimism: we each have the power to transform the world radically, if only we can start here and now to act from our noblest impulses.

Every phase of evolution has its active `bodhisattvas'. On our own level, that of self-reflective consciousness, we can act creatively, and begin a wave of self-transcendence that rolls on towards the meditative and transcendental levels. Even lower evolution displays its heroic deeds of self-transcendence. Every animal that pioneered a new environmental niche ensured for itself and its descendants a place in a main stream of the evolution of consciousness. It transcended the legacy of static `self' which had been passed on in its genes and behavioural traditions, and so in a rudimentary sense it manifested that same bodhisattva principle. In some of the (non-canonical) stories of his former lives as a bodhisattva, the Buddha-to-be is actually portrayed as an animal, who gives a lead to his fellows.

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