Bodhi-Mind

Sojo Koin once said that bodhi-mind is studying the dharma teaching of "the three thousand worlds in a single moment of thought" and keeping them in one's mind. Nagarjuna once said that bodhi-mind is the mind that solely sees the impermanence of this world of constant appearance and disappearance. Zen Master Dogen said that the mind which sees impermanence is just one aspect of bodhi-mind. In Shobogenzo-Hotsubodaishin (Arousing Bodhi-Mind), Dogen said that to establish the bodhi-mind means to vow that "Before I myself cross over, I will take across all living beings" and to actually work toward fulfilling that vow.

But despite all these descriptions, last Monday night we wondered just what bodhi-mind actually meant. Some said it was the mind that seeks enlightenment, that raises the aspiration to enter the Way. Others said that it was the mind that had achieved total enlightenment.

The word bodhi means awareness. In Japanese, bodhi-mind is bodai-shin (菩提心), an abbreviation of anuttara-samyak-sambodai-shin. This is the mind seeking awareness or the Way, also called doshin (Way-mind). This can also be interpreted as the mind that is aware, the mind that aspires to live in accordance with reality instead of being pulled by the egocentric desires which are contrary to it.

Complete perfect enlightenment (anuttara-samyak-sambodhi) is not the result of the mind entering the Way. Since practice is enlightenment, do, the Way, is both the path leading to enlightenment and enlightenment itself. To arouse the desire for enlightenment and to enter the Way is the same thing as achieving enlightenment. It is not a cause leading to an effect; the cause and the effect are one. The mind that seeks enlightenment is the mind of enlightenment itself. To put it another way, the Way is not a path leading to a destination, the Way is to understand that the destination is to be on the path.

So bodhi-mind is simultaneously both the mind that seeks enlightenment and the mind that is enlightened.

Dogen said that to arouse bodhi-mind is to vow to save others before oneself, and to actually work to fulfill the vow. But our egocentric minds seek fame and profit and get in the way of that vow. However, when one sees the impermanence of all things, including one's own mind, egocentric mind does not arise, nor does desire for fame and profit. That is why Dogen also said that seeing impermanence is another aspect of bodhi-mind.

In Zuimonki, Dogen says, "To learn the practice and maintain the Way is to abandon ego-attachment and to follow the instructions of the teacher. The essence of this is being free from greed. To put an end to greed, first of all, you have to depart from egocentric self. In order to depart from egocentric self, seeing impermanence is the primary necessity (Book 1, Chapter 4)"

Egocentricity is assuming that there is an ego, a temporal compound of various elements, existing in the body, and thinking that ego to be eternal or substantial and attaching oneself to it. The Buddha maintained that this is a fundamental delusion. Our practice is to see egolessness and the impermanence of all existence, and to live on that basis without greedy desires. Concretely, our desires manifest themselves by seeking fame and profit. This is why Dogen put an emphasis on practice without expecting any reward, i.e. fame and profit.

So the mind that sees the impermanence of all things, and can therefore depart from egocentric greed, is the mind capable of fulfilling the vow to save all others before oneself. That is the mind that both seeks enlightenment and simultaneously dwells in enlightenment.

Thinking deeply in our hearts about the impermanence of this world is the dharma-gate here. Elsewhere in Zuimonki (Chapter 2, Book 12), Dogen writes, "It is not a matter of meditating using some provisional method of contemplation. It is not a matter of fabricating in our heads that which does not really exist. Impermanence is truly the reality right in front of our eyes. We need not wait for some teaching from others, some proof from some passage of scripture, or some principle. Born in the morning and dead in the evening, a person we saw yesterday is no longer here today —these are the facts we see with our eyes and hear with our ears."

And on reading that, I think about contemporary Zen Master John Daido Loori, and his last dharma lesson to us all on the impermanence of life.