Bodhisattva Vows

 

 I suspect many fall by the wayside in the middle of some of my more absurd waffle and find something better to do. Anyway, in thinking of "us" and "them", of the many who just appear to be sheep and those who seem to think more deeply, the thought I had was that surely what is being described as being a part of our own age is what has always been the case? That is, given any culture, society or generation, it is only a very few who genuinely seek a "way" beyond what could be called the norm created by that ages conditioning, its presumptions and various givens?

Maybe it takes different forms, but numerically it falls the same way. Those who "think" and those who have had most of their thoughts thought for them (say that quickly.......)

In our own age, Carl Jung has spoken of the "spirit of the age" and in contrast, the "spirit of the depths". He is quite eloquent in speaking of these two "spirits", and also speaks well of just how difficult it is to shake off the spirit of the age, and begin to truly hear the spirit of the depths - one that is ageless and yet, paradoxically, ever new.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.


(Romans 12:2)

Well, the spirit of our age tends to pour scorn upon the Bible. Who wants outmoded fables when science has given us so much useful technology. Who sweats any longer about threats of spending eternity gnashing their teeth? When you are dead you are dead. Yet it can be a great adventure to actually take note of some of its verses, to look up once or twice from the mobile phone that science has given us and actually look at the world around us and try to think more deeply about "who am I" and "what does it all mean".

As I've said before, I am a non-theist. I look more to Buddhism and the "east" rather than towards the Abrahamic Faiths. When I try to reflect upon those "others" who only seem to accept the age they were born into, I am inspired by such things as the Bodhisattva Vows, one of which is:-


"Sentient beings are infinite - I vow to save them"

As another has said, taking such a vow seriously - just as Christians take many verses of the Bible seriously - reveals its impossibility of fulfilment. If all others are infinite in number then all can never be saved. Investigation of all the other Bodhisattva Vows reveals that they are all beyond fulfilment, at least by any finite person. Those who take the Dharma seriously must take it from there.

So really, what I am saying is, if we do look around us and see the apparent superficially of so many lives, shallow and ungrounded, what should our reaction be? Congratulate ourselves that "I am not like them"? Or maybe take the vow, and perhaps begin to see, truly, that in fact we are like "them" in so many ways. To begin to live the difference between compassion and pity. Pity looks down, compassion reaches across. Our own darkness becomes the light by which we see and know others.