By: Bob Zeglovitch and Ava Stanton
We are in the second week of our Spring 2022 Practice Period on the Four Great Vows—Living By Vow in Daily Life. The Four Great Vows are a succinct expression of the Bodhisattva path. This morning, we discussed bodhicitta (enlightening mind or awakening mind)—the fundamental intention or quality which the Four Great Vows express. Buddhist teacher Ken McLeod states that bodhicitta is the intention to awaken to life in order to help others awaken to life. Today we touched on several different ways of understanding bodhicitta—seeing it is a seed present at the very beginning of our practice, as something profound and precious that arises mysteriously and auspiciously and without fabrication in the course of our practice over a long stretch of time, and as a quality that we can cultivate.
On the Readings page of this blog, we have posted excellent quotes from McLeod, Taigen Dan Leighton, and Norman Fischer that provide further perspective on this fundamental aspect of Zen practice. We quoted them in whole or in part this morning—they are relatively short and worthy of reading and reflection. Bodhicitta is a deep and complex topic and we will return to it next week and have some more material posted on the readings page at that time. Our remarks on this topic from this morning’s session can be listened to on the Dharma Talks page of this website.