Buddhism is based on seeking – seeking freedom from suffering, greater wisdom and compassion, greater skillfulness in benefiting beings, and a more authentic, connected way of being. Our spiritual growth depends on arousing and sustaining “Bodhi-Mind,” or the “Way-Seeking Mind,” which in turn generates questions, curiosity, energy, and determination. How do we arouse our Way-Seeking Mind and thereby give direction and inspiration to our practice?
Quicklinks to Article Content:
The Gift of Bodhi-Mind, Way-Seeking Mind
Dukkha and the Arising of Bodhi-Mind
Way-Seeking Mind Can Be Elusive
Protecting Our Newly Arisen Bodhi-Mind
Growing and Sustaining Our Bodhi-Mind
The Path of Spiritual Growth Need Not Be a Self-Improvement Project
Sustaining Bodhi-Mind Takes Effort
The Gift of Bodhi-Mind, Way-Seeking Mind
Buddhism arose with a spiritual quest. Siddhartha Gautama was raised in a wealthy family and lacked for nothing, but he was profoundly troubled by the inevitability of illness, old age, and death. He was unable to set aside his awareness of the intense suffering that awaited him and everyone he cared about in order to simply enjoy his good fortune. He abandoned his comfortable life to go on a spiritual quest, seeking answers from the leading teachers of his time and practicing meditation and asceticism for many years. (See Episode 11 – Buddhist History 3: Life of Shakyamuni Buddha Part 1 – Birth through Homeleaving for the story of Siddhartha’s journey.) Finally, Siddhartha gained insight into the ultimate cause of suffering and how to gain freedom from it – even though illness, old age, loss, death and other kinds of pain were inevitable.
Subsequently, countless people over the millennia, in all the countries where Buddhism has taken root, have been drawn to Buddhist practice by a conviction that there must be more than this or there must be a better way. This conviction isn’t simply a longing for things to be better. It’s that longing plus an intuition – or a stubborn determination – that there is actually something we can do to make things better. We may not know what it is yet, or we may not yet be able to put whatever it is into practice, but we have faith that there is a way.
In Buddhism, this longing for a better way plus the conviction that a way exists is call bodhicitta, or Bodhi-Mind, the “mind the seeks the way,” or the “mind of enlightenment.” It’s viewed as a profound gift. Where does it come from? It may occur to us to take credit for it, to think it’s a sign of strong character, intelligence, or deep spiritual capacity. But truly, it is not something that arises from the small self. Why does Bodhi-Mind arise in us when we are faced with suffering, propelling us to search out a spiritual path? Why does it not arise in someone who is deep in depression, for whom each day of life is a struggle, and who sees no light on the horizon? It is entirely possible for one person to have both experiences – to taste the depths of despair, but then later to have Bodhi-Mind arise. I know this from personal experience.
It may not seem, at first glance, like Bodhi-Mind is that big a deal. Perhaps it first appears as a decision to pick up a certain book, or to try meditation, or to visit a Sangha. However, having Way-Seeking Mind can make the difference between living a life imbued with meaning, purpose, and hope and a life that descends into despair.
The Indian Buddhist scholar Shantideva lived in the late 7th or early 8th century, and famously celebrates bodhicitta in his book Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva. Here’s a few verses praising Bodhi-Mind (this translation by Khenpo David Karma Choephel):
No one should ever forsake bodhichitta
Who wants to dispel beings’ unhappiness,
Vanquish the hundreds of miseries of existence,
And partake in the many hundreds of joys.If they rouse bodhichitta, in an instant
The wretched, fettered in samsara’s prison,
Are named the offspring of the sugatas [buddhas]
And revered in the worlds of gods and humans.Just like the greatest kind of alchemy,
It takes this unclean body and transforms it
Into a priceless jewel, a buddha’s body,
So firmly grasp ahold of bodhichitta…Like those who in great danger, rely on heroes,
Why would the careful not rely on that
Which liberates them in a single instant,
Even if they have done horrendous wrongs?Like the inferno at an age’s end,
It burns up great misdeeds in a single instant.[i]
You might think of Bodhi-Mind as turning toward the light, or as grace. No matter our circumstances, a will toward greater freedom, wisdom, and compassion arises in us. Daunting challenges can be transformed into opportunities to grow and learn. As we set out on our spiritual path, we inevitably recognize we are not alone, and that part of liberation means seeing ourselves as being in the same boat with others. What starts out based in a desire to alleviate our own suffering becomes a sincere wish to benefit others as well.
Dukkha and the Arising of Bodhi-Mind
Of course, it’s not necessary – fortunately! – to be in the midst of terrible suffering in order to have Bodhi-Mind arise. The Buddha identified the ultimate cause of suffering to be thirst, or craving – namely, a longing for things to be other than how they are. When something we love or identify with is slipping away from us, we resist this fact. When something we hate or dislike is forced upon us, we resist this fact. When old age, illness, or death visits us or someone we love, we resist this fact. These are obvious examples of suffering.
However, the Buddha’s teachings focused on dukkha, which can be translated as suffering but is actually a more subtle word. It can also be translated as “dissatisfactoriness,” or “dis-ease,” or “stress.” Even if we are not acutely suffering, we experience plenty of this more subtle dukkha. We may feel a vague sense of dissatisfaction with our life, feeling like we’re missing something. We may recognize that, for some reason, we’re out of touch with our most authentic feelings and are often living something of a charade. We may regret not taking advantage of more opportunities in our life and wonder what’s holding us back. Maybe we find it difficult to respond in an honest and compassionate way to significant people in our life. Sad, harmful, or limiting habits of mind, body, or speech may persist in us despite our sincere desire to be otherwise. The list of the ways dukkha can manifest goes on and on.
Society tells us we should just get over these relatively minor experiences of dukkha. As long as we’re not a mess, we should just do our best and accept that life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We should busy ourselves as much as possible with enjoyable experiences and stop dwelling on the negative.
Buddhism, however, offers us something more. It says, “No, don’t just accept your life the way it is, marked by acute suffering or by more subtle dissatisfaction or stress! There is a better way.”
Way-Seeking Mind Can Be Elusive
It can be daunting, opening ourselves up to the hope that there might be a better way. What if we allow Bodhi-Mind to arise, but then we’re bitterly disappointed? What if we start dwelling on the negative and get in the habit of it, judging our lives and finding them wanting, just making the whole problem worse? Why not just accept things the way they are and spare ourselves the effort and the inevitable disappointment?
Even if you experience the arising of Bodhi-Mind, you’re likely to also have these kinds of doubts – at least from time to time, if not regularly. However, despite your negative and skeptical thoughts, some part of you may continue to charge on, engaging the practice – sitting, studying, participating with Sangha, bowing, chanting, offering incense, dusting your Buddha statue, meeting with a teacher – whatever it is that might help you find the way.
When people lose their obvious inspiration for practice, they sometimes continue to go through the motions and wonder why. They may start to question their own sincerity. Occasionally, of course, someone is on the wrong path and they should explore other options. Most often, however, the person’s small self has lost interest in the practice and it’s only their Bodhi-Mind propelling them forward. At this point, it’s useful to do what you might call “muting the video.” If you couldn’t hear any of the doubts and grumblings but you could see what the person actually did, what would it look like? Often, it will look like the person has deep faith in the Buddha Way. If the person is full of doubt, you may ask, “Does the person really have deep faith in the Buddha Way?” I would answer, “The True Person does indeed have deep faith in the Buddha Way.”
It’s important to start out with an appreciation for the fact that you are not responsible for the initial awakening of Bodhi-Mind. In Buddhism we say there is nothing that can be done to encourage someone on the path of practice if their Bodhi-Mind has not yet arisen. This is why, generally speaking, Buddhists do not proselytize. Instead, we build our temples, monasteries, and Zen centers, perhaps advertise them to some extent so people know we are there, and then wait for people to come to us.
Still, no one is thought to be without Bodhi-Mind. It’s just that, for some, the Way-Seeking Mind is like a latent potential. At some point in a person’s life – or maybe, to use the language of rebirth, even if you see it only as metaphorical – in the next life, or the life after that, circumstances will align and the person’s Bodhi-Mind will arise. Perhaps they end up encountering great suffering, or an inspirational teacher. Maybe they get to a point in their own process where they spontaneously think, “there must be more than this” or “there must be a better way,” and for some reason they also feel a conviction that a better way exists and can be found. Their Way-Seeking Mind may or may not lead them to Buddhism, but it usually will lead them on some kind of spiritual journey.
Protecting Our Newly Arisen Bodhi-Mind
The task of the practitioner is to recognize our Bodhi-Mind, contemplate its importance, and then nurture it. You might think of our newly arisen Way-Seeking Mind as being like a tiny flame, or an ember. If we aren’t concerned about warming ourselves by a fire or having a way to cook our food, we’re likely to let the fire die out. Once we recognize the importance of the fire, we will protect it from wind and rain and try to make the fire grow – giving it fuel, gently blowing on it. Eventually we end up with strong, stable fire we can maintain fairly easily by adding fuel at the right time. It will even last through a certain amount of rain or wind.
Bodhi-Mind newly arisen can be a delicate thing, taking the form of a vague sense of dissatisfaction, existential questions most people think are a waste of time, or in explicable sense of hope, intuition, or determination. Depending on where you find yourself, you may feel very alone with your Way-Seeking Mind. To those in whom Bodhi-Mind has not yet arisen, existential questions and spiritual seeking can appear strange, irrelevant, or even delusional. Questions about the nature of life and human happiness can even feel threatening to people who believe these questions have no answers; if such questions are upsetting and have no answers, we might as well avoid thinking about them and simply try to enjoy our lives as best we can, for as long as we can.
The ember of Bodhi-Mind can be easily snuffed out – or at least covered over – by skepticism, disparaging remarks, or a lack of understanding or sympathy from the people around us. Early on in my practice, someone very close to me warned, “You’re not going to find what you’re looking for.” Eventually, I did find what I was looking for, but not for many years. I could easily have let my friend’s skepticism end my spiritual search.
We protect the flame of our Bodhi-Mind by not exposing it to those who will only respond to it with skepticism or disinterest. Instead, we cultivate it by seeking the company of others in whom it has arisen and others who are actively cultivating it. This can be immensely encouraging – in Buddhism, we call this the treasure of Sangha, the community of practitioners. (See Episode 16 – Sangha: The Joys, Challenges, and Value of Practicing in a Buddhist Community) After having carried around the ember of my Bodhi-Mind all alone for many years, I remember being overcome with amazement and gratitude when I found my Sangha – a community of people asking themselves deep existential, spiritual, and moral questions, and actively seeking a better way of living. I wasn’t crazy after all!
Growing and Sustaining Our Bodhi-Mind
We grow and sustain our Bodhi-Mind by trusting ourselves as we explore new territory in our lives. At first, our journey is based on intuition and influenced by chance. We read books, listen to podcasts, and check out different spiritual traditions and practices. I think of this part of the process as “following our nose,” or allowing ourselves to be drawn to the next thing based on our naturally arising affinity or curiosity. Hopefully, eventually, we find a path. Some people’s paths are more or less solitary and unique, of their own making. Others of us choose an established path, like Buddhism, because of the richness of what it offers, including community, and because it will challenge us to go places we probably would not have thought to go on our own.
Over a lifetime of practice, Bodhi-Mind needs to be celebrated and maintained. It is easy for the fire of our Way-Seeking Mind to die down, to suffer from lack of fuel or care until it’s reduced to a few embers under the ashes. This often happens after the acute suffering, dissatisfaction, or stress that first brought us to practice has been somewhat relieved. This relief is often due, at least in part, to the practice itself, so you might think this experience would only strengthen our Bodhi-Mind. However, even if we have faith in the efficacy of practice, we may lose our motivation for applying ourselves to it. After all, it takes time, effort, and resources to meditate, study, and participate in Sangha events. Why go to a silent meditation retreat when you can instead travel with loved ones to relax on a warm beach? Why keep surrounding yourself with people who seem to be involved in a long-term self-improvement project once you’ve gained a measure of satisfaction with your life just as it is?
Honestly, there are no good arguments to be made for why you should sacrifice your time, energy, and resources for Buddhist practice instead of simply enjoying your life! There seem to be natural cycles of practice in people’s lives, and sometimes the Bodhi-Mind may be reduced to embers for a while. It’s important to remember that what other people do is not our business. It’s a waste of time to contemplate what others are doing or not doing. All that matters is your Way-Seeking Mind. What do you want?
Ironically, reconnecting with our Bodhi-Mind initially involves reconnecting with our dukkha. At first, this may seem like a negative process. We may be going along, thinking we’re doing fine, so why dredge up painful feelings, regrets, longings, or fears? Why turn a critical lens toward the life we have managed to accept, at least to some extent, and start labeling some of our behaviors as problematic? Isn’t the point of Buddhism to let go of dukkha? Why try to arouse it?
The fact is that, until we are fully enlightened Buddhas, we all have plenty of dukkha lurking beneath the surface of our lives. It’s there whether we acknowledge it or not, like a chronic ailment we’ve learned to ignore. Test this premise by imagining you are a fully enlightened Buddha, right now. You have no regrets or fears, no self-concern. Completely at peace, you meet each moment with wide-open awareness, ready to allow an appropriate response to arise within you. Even as you engage in activities, you never lose awareness of the fact that life passes as swiftly as a flash of lightning. Within your spacious and appreciative mind, annoyance and judgment are too small to cause any disturbance. Each thing, each being, each situation you encounter is precious, never to be repeated. For struggling sentient beings – even those who behave badly – you feel only compassion, because you can see their Buddha-Nature.
Which of us can claim to live like a full enlightened Buddha? None of us. Why not? Because we are still caught in delusion. We still imagine we are inhabited by an inherent, enduring, independent self-nature, separate from everything else. We still fear for the well-being of that imagined self, and the three poisons of grasping, aversion, and ignorance drive our actions. We’re still caught in elaborate narratives about ourselves, our lives, and the world, mistaking them for reality. Wherever we experience constriction instead of the spaciousness of our Buddha-Nature, there is work for us to do.
The Path of Spiritual Growth Need Not Be a Self-Improvement Project
There is no need for us to view our remaining limitations in a negative light, framing them as faults that prevent us from manifesting some utterly unreasonable goal of complete perfection. It can be easy to do this – to turn Buddhist practice into an endless self-improvement project where we keep track of our remaining shortcomings and strive to eliminate them one by one.
Our karma is the result of past causes, including our choices, and manifests as our current mental, emotional, and behavioral experiences and tendencies. We may end up relating to our karma as if it is a defilement which stains or obscures our Buddha-Nature. Or as a prison from which it is nearly impossible to escape. Or as force which governs our life despite our desire for change. When we do this, Bodhi-Mind is relegated to the role of superego, setting out a course for us to follow if we want to be “good” person.
Fortunately, Way-Seeking Mind is much more than an agenda for self-improvement. The term “bodhi” is a Sanskrit and Pali term meaning “awakened.”[ii] Our Bodhi-Mind, then, is our already-awakened mind! Some part of us knows a better way is possible. Some part of us knows who we really are, what our potential is, and recognizes when we are not yet fulfilling it. Some part of us resonates with the description of a fully awakened Buddha, knowing that we can be more like this – that we would be more like this if we were liberated from the delusions which constrict our life and fuel our less-than-helpful actions of body, speech, and mind.
In the Denkoroku, or the Record of the Transmission of Illumination, Zen master Keizan tells the story of Chinese Chan master Tongan Daopi (this translation edited by T. Griffith Foulk):
Yunju, at one time, gave an instruction, saying:
“If you wish to get such a matter, you should be such a person. But if you are such a person, why worry about such a matter?”
When the Master [Daopi] heard this, he spontaneously self-awakened.[iii]
Keizan goes on to explain:
While no particular episodes involving student trainees are superior or inferior, you would be well advised to consider the aforementioned episode in detail. If you ask what the reason is, it is because if one has an idea of “getting such a matter” one “is such a person.”
In other words, that which we are seeking is causing us to seek. Ultimately, awakening means realizing your true nature, which has been so from the beginning. Undoubtedly, we become alienated from that true nature and can suffer greatly – like someone drowning in still water because they are unable to relax and trust the water to hold them up. It is not at all easy to awaken to our true nature, so there is a long time where we have to hold an idea of “getting such a matter,” but it should be a great consolation that our very seeking is proof that we already have it. The part of us which is already awakened knows the truth of Shantideva’s words, “Like the inferno at an age’s end, [bodhicitta] burns up great misdeeds in a single instant.”
Sustaining Bodhi-Mind Takes Effort
The truth of practice, however, is that even though we have everything we need from the beginning, we still need to make an effort. In Shobogenzo Zuimonki, Zen master Dogen speaks of Bodhi-Mind (this translation by Shohaku Okumura):
You have to force yourself to arouse bodhi-mind and practice the buddha-dharma…. Who has such bodhi-mind from the beginning? Arousing what is difficult to arouse, practicing what is difficult to practice… in this way, you will naturally progress in the buddha-dharma. Each one of us has buddha-nature. Do not meaninglessly deprecate yourself.[iv]
The best way I know of to arouse your Bodhi-Mind is to courageously face your suffering head on, and then quickly avail yourself of support to strengthen your faith that liberation is possible. As I mentioned earlier, this first step may seem negative, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead, if you take your self-interest out of the equation as much as possible, you can approach each remaining place of constriction with fascination and even eager anticipation of gaining greater freedom at some point in the future.
Ask yourself: What are your greatest fears? What fears are beneath those fears? Which of these are you most afraid of: Annihilation, nothingness, isolation, loss, groundlessness? What do you think would happen if you no longer felt that fear?
What issues keep showing up for you in life, in one form or another? Pushiness, need to control, inhibition, fearfulness, obliviousness, laziness, addiction? What needs or beliefs drive these experiences or behaviors? What prevents you from settling into zazen – into this moment, here and now? What is your mind attached to and why?
Why aren’t you completely and utterly satisfied with yourself and your life? Why aren’t you at ease, gracious, appreciative, attentive, calm, kind, and patient? If this was it – if your life was never going to improve – would you find it impossible to accept? What gets in the way of your intimacy with others, with all of life? Do you see yourself as separate, inferior, superior, in competition?
On the positive side, what teachings make your heart soar? What descriptions of Reality, Buddhahood, bodhisattva activity, liberation, or awakening make you long for a taste of them yourself? Who are you? Can you accept your Buddha-Nature? What does that even mean?
The path of spiritual growth and discovery is endless. Being driven by our Way-Seeking Mind is not about overcoming insufficiency, it’s about fulfilling our potential. There’s no morally tinged “should” about practicing for liberation. Buddhahood is about our human capacity. Directing our lives toward Buddhahood is like facilitating the growth and maturation of a child into an independent adult, or caring for a plant until it produces beautiful flowers. Such flowering is not a matter of right or wrong, it’s a natural and beautiful fulfillment of one’s nature.
Endnotes
[i] Shantideva. (Translated by Khenpo David Karma Choephel) Entering the Way of the Bodhisattva (p. 4 and 5). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
[ii] Fischer-Schreiber, Ingrid, Franz-Karl Ehrhard and Michael S. Diener (Michael H. Kohn, Translator). A Concise Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen. Boston: Shambala Publications, 2010. (Original copyright 1991.)
[iii] Foulk, T. Griffith, Editor-in-Chief. Record of the Transmission of Illumination, Volume I: An Annotated Translation of Zen Master Keizan’s Denkoroku. Translated by T. Griffith Foulk with William M. Bodiford, Sarah J. Horton, Carl Bielefeldt, and John R. McCrae. Tokyo, Sotoshu Shumucho and Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2021. See also pdf (chapter 40).
[iv] Okumura, Shohaku (translator). Shobogenzo Zuimonki: Sayings of Eihei Dogen recorded by Koun Ejo. Tokyo, Japan: Sotoshu Shumucho, 1988.
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