Bob Schwartz

Tag: Bodhi Day

December 8, 2019

Bodhi Day

“Bodhi literally means ‘awakening’, but is commonly translated as ‘enlightenment’. It denotes the awakening to supreme knowledge, as experienced by the Buddha as he sat under the Bodhi Tree at the age of 35.”
Buddhist Translation Society

Today is Bodhi Day, marking the enlightenment of the Buddha. It is not merely a reminder of something that happened. It is an inspiration for what can happen. Difficult, not necessarily achievable, but possible. Or maybe not only achievable but actual.

Millions of words have been spoken by, attributed to or written about the Buddha.

Here are a few.

If the mad mind stops, its very stopping is bodhi.
Śūraṅgama Sutra, Buddhist Text Translation Society

It is said that soon after his enlightenment the Buddha passed a man on the road who was struck by the Buddha’s extraordinary radiance and peaceful presence. The man stopped and asked, “My friend, what are you? Are you a celestial being or a god?”

“No,” said the Buddha.

“Well, then, are you some kind of magician or wizard?” Again the Buddha answered, “No.”

“Are you a man?”

“No.”

“Well, my friend, then what are you?” The Buddha replied, “I am awake.”

Teachings of the Buddha, Jack Kornfeld

The morning of the Buddha’s enlightenment at the foot of the bodhi tree, he was so surprised. He had been meditating for the whole night. In the early morning, at the moment when he saw the morning star, he declared, “How strange! Everyone has the capacity to be awake, to understand, and to love. Yet they continue to drift and sink on the ocean of suffering, life after life.”
Sutra on the Middle Way, Thich Nhat Hanh

The back of your hand is affliction, and the palm of your hand is bodhi. Realizing bodhi is just like flipping your hand from back to palm. When you turn affliction around, it’s bodhi. Afflictions are the same as bodhi. Birth and death are the same as nirvana. If you understand, then afflictions are bodhi. If you don’t understand, then bodhi is affliction. Bodhi isn’t outside of afflictions, and there are no afflictions outside the scope of enlightenment. And so I very often cite the analogy of water and ice. If you pour a bowl of water over a person’s body, even if you use a lot of force, you still won’t hurt the person. However, if the bowl of water has turned into ice and you hit the person in the head with it, the person may very well die. Bodhi is like the water; afflictions are like the ice. If you melt ice, it becomes water; when you freeze water, it becomes ice.
Flower Adornment Sutra, Buddhist Text Translation Society

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December 8, 2018

Wake Up! It’s Bodhi Day.

Bodhi Day is December 8, marking the enlightenment of the Buddha.

bodhi. In Sanskrit and Pāli, “awakening,” “enlightenment”.
—Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism

If the mad mind stops, its very stopping is bodhi.
—Śūraṅgama Sutra

Friend, wake up! Why do you go on sleeping?
The night is over— do you want to lose the day
the same way?
—Kabir, version by Robert Bly

Deepak Chopra’s Buddha, Written by Deepak Chopra and Joshua Dysart, Art by Dean Ruben Hyrapiet

 

 

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July 25, 2018

Would the Buddha Trim the Bodhi Tree?

Back in December on Bodhi Day (the celebration of the Buddha’s enlightenment), I gave myself a present:

This Bodhi Day, I gifted myself a bodhi tree, just like the one that the Buddha was sitting under when he was enlightened. Almost just like it. This bonsai ficus religiosa is about 8 inches high, so I will not be sitting under it.

I’ve taken good care of this very hardy bonsai and it has grown well. That leaves me with a conundrum. The aesthetics of bonsai includes appropriate trimming to maintain a certain balance. But each time I consider taking scissors to growth, I stop. If it grows lush and green, let it grow.

Then I thought of the Buddha’s own Bodhi tree. There are no tales of his considering trimming that tree. That doesn’t mean he didn’t think about it—or not think about it.

So, as I continue to water this beautiful little tree, a new koan appears: Would the Buddha trim the Bodhi tree?

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December 8, 2016

Bodhi Day: The Ancient Path

buddhas-of-the-celestial-gallery

“This was the third true knowledge attained by me in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who dwells diligent, ardent, and resolute.”

“Suppose, monks, a man wandering through a forest would see an ancient path, an ancient road traveled upon by people in the past. He would follow it and would see an ancient city, an ancient capital that had been inhabited by people in the past, with parks, groves, ponds, and ramparts, a delightful place. Then the man would inform the king or a royal minister: ‘Sire, know that while wandering through the forest I saw an ancient path, an ancient road traveled upon by people in the past. I followed it and saw an ancient city, an ancient capital that had been inhabited by people in the past, with parks, groves, ponds, and ramparts, a delightful place. Renovate that city, sire!’ Then the king or the royal minister would renovate the city, and some time later that city would become successful and prosperous, well populated, filled with people, attained to growth and expansion.”

“So too, monks, I saw the ancient path, the ancient road traveled by the Perfectly Enlightened Ones of the past. And what is that ancient path, that ancient road? It is just this Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. I followed that path and by doing so I have directly known aging-and-death, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation. I have directly known birth … existence … clinging … craving … feeling … contact … the six sense bases … name-and-form … consciousness … volitional formations, their origin, their cessation, and the way leading to their cessation. Having directly known them, I have explained them to the monks, the nuns, the male lay followers, and the female lay followers. This spiritual life, monks, has become successful and prosperous, extended, popular, widespread, well proclaimed among devas and humans.”

Saṃyutta Nikāya 12:65; II 104–7
In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon

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December 7, 2016

Right Trees (Bodhi Day)

buddha-comic-enlightenment

December 8 is Bodhi Day, known in Japan as Rohatsu, the day of the Buddha’s enlightenment.  

Right Trees (Bodhi Day)

Which tree
To sit under?
Study each one
Counting branches
Inspecting leaves.
Is the ground
Too soft or wet
The shade
Too dark?
Who can deny
The forest
Yet it shrinks
To dust
On a distant shore.
The moon and
The morning star
Are just enough light
To brighten the night
Waking to find
This tree
All trees
Are right.

I wondered how the Buddha knew which tree to sit under for that consequential meditation. An easy answer is that it didn’t matter, that any tree or all trees would do. Another answer is that it didn’t have to be a tree at all. Another of the infinite answers is that there was no tree, no moon or morning star, no sitting. Just waking up.

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December 8, 2014

The Day the Buddha Woke Up

Buddha Comic Bodhi

December 8 is Bodhi Day, the day on which the Buddha’s enlightenment is traditionally celebrated.

The English word “enlightenment” is so packed with meaning that it might be better to just go back to what the Buddha is reported to have said: I am awake.

This is useful because it leads to the two questions: woke up from what and woke up to what?

The Buddha, sitting there under the Bodhi tree, woke up from a journey. Born a royal son, he had fled a life of accidental privilege to answer ultimate questions about suffering and death—the very same questions that consume religious lives of all kinds. He believed that if he tried a, b, and c (such as extreme asceticism), he would discover some secret x, y, and z. There was some kind of magic formula, and all he had to do was learn it. That sort of magic is still at the heart of much of our religion.

He woke up to discover that there was no magic, not in such an instrumental sense. Nothing was different. Suffering and death would not go away, no matter what efforts we make. The best and worst aspects of life would go on, with and without us. Great fortunes would be made and lost. Great structures would be built and then destroyed, by cataclysms natural and human. Love would be here and gone.

But this: He could see something in all of that that made sense of all of that. There is no big plan in which we are players, active or passive, though we could and do make and execute our own little plans. There are just things, relationships between those things, and change, and of all those of a singular piece. We can and do overlay that with all of our very complicated details and distinctions, which is after all a definition of the life we live. But if we discover that underlying existence, we just might choose to live differently. And in that living differently, make change and wake others up. And on and on.

None of that eliminated suffering and death for the Buddha, as it won’t for anyone. He grew old and tired and, legend has it, died from being given spoiled food. He had told his followers what he had discovered, none of which involved magic. It was all about the infinite depth of the ordinary. For him, there was no more a kingdom in the clouds than the kingdom he had left behind when he started his journey. There was just what is. Strive on with diligence, he told those followers at the last.

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