REFLECTIONS ON KING SOLOMON AND THE BUDDHA Chapt 14.

Reflections On King Solomon And The Buddha - Section 2

Chapter 14 - The Boddisatva Ideal

by Ira Rosenberg

The Boddhisattva purports to function selflessly, living entirely for the sake of others, motivated so fully by compassion as to be bound up in the fate of the whole creation -- and being bound up with the world, the distinction between self and other melts into a kind of redeeming selfless action.

Just as a mother would protect her only child even at the risk of her own life, even so let one cultivate a boundless heart toward all beings. Let one's thoughts of boundless love pervade the whole world -- above, below and across -- without any obstruction, without any hatred, without any enmity

(Suttanipata i. 8)

A Bodhisattva should always think this way: I always practice diligence because I do not wish to cause suffering to any beings, because I wish to know all beings and the way they are born and pass away. I practice diligence because I want to know the Buddha's true law, have wisdom, and know how to use skillful means in order to procure the happiness of Nirvana for all beings. I practice diligence because I wish to suffer the sufferings of hell for the sake of all beings, so as to make them come to the realization of Enlightenment.

(Avatamsaka-sutra)

The Bodhisattva must have some real freedom to be "happy in hell." This is because he or she lives in the real world experiencing the turmoil of life without losing spiritual momentum. The boddhisattva has a supervening purpose, living as a lover of sorts, experiencing compassion for all those still bound up in the lower forms of attachment, knowing the pain to which they lead. The boddhisattva is a also wisdom figure, espousing a kind of wisdom that gazes unperturbed at essentials, that ceases to speculate on the wide ranging cosmos and, as "panna," restricts itself to the single purpose of exposing the illusion of the self from which all suffering arises.

Referring to broader issues of the origin of the universe, its infinitude and eternity, the Buddha comments:

Why, Malunkyaputta, have I not explained them? Because it is not useful , it is not fundamentally connected with the spiritual holy life, is not conducive to aversion, detachment, cessation, tranquillity, deep penetration, full realization, Nirvana. That is why I have not told you about them.

(Cula-malunkyatta-sutta)

The problem is that this restriction of love and wisdom sacrifices the diverse interchangeable fourfoldness of love as sex, eros, philia and agape to one kind of general compassion; and narrows wisdom in its interpenetrating fourfoldness of healing, creativity, individuation and spiritual release to the single issue of quietude. This narrowing doesn't do them justice.

Considered as dynamic processes, not end states, love and wisdom share so many characteristics as to suggest a common origin: Each pattern consists of two legs connected by two turning points: love as approach and separation from another (a-s,) wisdom as withdrawal into the self and return (w-r.) As each leg reaches an extreme in each process, it undergoes a reversal, marked by movement through a turning point. Approach becomes separation, separation becomes approach. Withdrawal becomes return, return becomes withdrawal. The turning points at each end of the dynamic are the poles of the process. The two patterns are like mirror images of each other, w-r achieves its goal in solitude, a-s in intimacy. Together they form the warp and woof of life.

Approach-separation is an Eros centered process, through which we get to know and love others, withdrawal-return is a Logos centered process, through which we transform our relationship to ourselves, our ideas, our inner depths. A-s is a journey to love, which always begin with a greeting, w-r is a journey to wisdom, which always begins with a leave-taking. Each dynamic makes its appearance in the first moments of life, or even in earlier intrauterine development. The birth trauma itself, which is followed by reunion with the mother at the breast, is the first a-s. The inwardness/outwardness movement first seen in the sleep/waking cycle, very likely tied to planetary movements of day and night through the biological clocks that have evolved to keep us functioning expresses w-r. In later development, the patterns rarely appear in isolation. They depart from each other and return to each other. They interweave. They influence and shape each other. They are mutually arising. A W-R turning, with its boon of wisdom, may only truly be incorporated into personal growth when it is validated in an interpersonal encounter, validated in a significant way in a significant interchange with another. Otherwise it remains a private symbol, a secret. Only what is given to another is truly acquired for oneself. And without love, without an a-s pattern playing out in one of the four kinds of love, withdrawal would lack consequence, lack material.

Are they one or two? Just as in the early universe conditions were too fiery hot for life to emerge -- though the constituents of life were there -- and the heat of expansion prevented them from forming organic molecules for many ages, so too the oscillations behind love and wisdom may have differentiated only late in the course of cosmic evolution, which suggests that the cosmos is one in that a single act of creation brought it into being, but dual in that its sources of meaning, love and wisdom, emerged and differentiated later, so to speak in the cooling process.

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Last Updated 09/19/98 (rge)