The Way of the Bodhisattva Chapter One: The Excellence of Bodhichitta
“Homage to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
1. To those who go in bliss, the dharmakaya they possess, and all their heirs,
To all those worthy of respect, I reverently bow,
According to the scriptures, I shall now in brief describe,
The practice of the Bodhisattva discipline.”
Learning deeply, and integrating wisdom into one’s life and one’s being, generates a feeling of gratitude toward those who have offered their wisdom. Shantideva bows to all those who have come before and offered the wisdom they have uncovered to all those who were able to receive it.
“2. Here I shall say nothing that has not been said before,
And in the art of prosody I have no skill.
I therefore have no thought that this might be of benefit to others;
I wrote it only to habituate my mind.”
Here, Shantideva explains that in his mind, he is not offering a unique and deep wisdom teaching, but merely ideas that have been presented before by the masters, but he is offering these ideas in a way that will benefit himself in his attempt to integrate the ideas and allow them to permeate in his mind, to train his mind with these ideas. But with his commentary, we are able to take lofty ideas given to us by the previous masters, and distill them into quite useful and graspable ideas that we are able to integrate into our own studies and our own meditations. Not unlike writers who take the ideas of modern day physicists and restate them in such a way that the average enthusiast will understand. These writers are able to take ideas and concepts which are far removed from our day to day experience, and break them down and relate them to our own experience so that we are able to understand (if only in a rudimentary way) these concepts and give us the ability to integrate them into our day to day experiences. Without these mediators, such knowledge would remain in the confines of the very few who are able to understand a single subject in a very deep way, but through the use of very specific and uncommon language and concepts. Shantideva is one such mediator.
“3. My faith will thus be strengthened for a little while,
That I might grow accustomed to this virtuous way.
But others who now chance upon my words
May profit also, equal to myself in fortune.”
By repeating these wisdom teachings he has made for himself, he is able to strengthen the ideas in his own mind, thereby strengthening his constitution and his resolve to continue his practice. Also by repeating these teachings, he is teaching his mind that this is the normal routine, the normal way for it to see the world. We now know that in regards to how the brain works, when we repeat the same ideas regularly that we are really changing the way the brain functions and reacts. These ideas construct new neural networks which hard-wire new pathways in the brain- meaning they create new physical structures in the brain which allow the brain to more effectively assimilate and more efficiently recall and utilize the information in the future. He also tells us that we, hearing or reading his words, may also profit in these teachings.
This is also my reason for writing these posts. So that I too may strengthen my faith for a little while, that I too may grow accustomed to this virtuous path.
Next week I will delve into the next sections of this first chapter.
*All quoted text is from The Way of the Bodhisattva by Shantideva from Shambala Classics