I’m finding more not to like in the concluding chapters of Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time, by Dainin Katagiri. In my previous post I criticized Katagiri for buying into the Buddhist notion of past lives, which reeks of unproven supernaturalism.
In some reading I did in the book today, I came across another subject that, thankfully, I’ve rarely encountered in other books about Zen Buddhism: bodhisattvas. Katagiri said:
There are two ways of manifesting your life every day: there is an ordinary life and a bodhisattva life. The ordinary type of life is to live in past karma as a cause and delusions as a conditioned element… In ordinary life we are always looking at life through our egoistic telescope: judging and evaluating, barking at each other and fighting, always trying to get something for ourselves.
…But for bodhisattvas there is another type of living. To live the bodhisattva life is to live in vow as a cause and the paramitas as a conditioned element. A bodhisattva is the person who vows to help others under all circumstances. In order to make that vow mature, bodhisattva practice has six fundamental principles of human life that are secondary causes to make the primary cause ripen. These are the six paramitas: giving, precepts, patience, effort, samadhi and wisdom.
Whenever I read passages like this in a book about Buddhism, I feel grateful that I’m not a Buddhist, because I find this sort of sanctimonious B.S. really annoying. Especially when it comes from a Zen teacher.
Zen appeals to me when it has a decidedly non-bodhisattva character. When it is humorous rather than serious. When it is earthy rather than holier-than-thou. When it is ordinary rather than special. When it is rooted in everyday life rather than idealized existence.
Right after Katagiri says that ordinary egoistic life is marked by judging and evaluating, he judges and evaluates anyone who doesn’t embrace a supposedly selfless bodhisattva life. I say supposedly, because I doubt that even the most charitable and caring person truly is selfless. Meaning, not that they lack an enduring unchanging self (no one has such a self), but that they only care what is good for others, not what is good for themselves.
I would bet that most, if not all, Buddhists who aspire to being bodhisattva dudes or dudettes believe that doing this is good for themselves as well as for other people. Katagiri decries us poor fools living an ordinary life who are “always trying to get something for ourselves.” Yes, Katagiri is correct. I’m trying to get health, happiness, satisfaction, money, meaning, and so much else for myself.
And a bodhisattva is trying to get enlightenment for both themselves and all sentient beings. At least, that’s one of the descriptions of a bodhisattva in a lengthy Wikipedia article that gave me a headache just scrolling through it rapidly.
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, bodhi (meaning ‘awakening’, ‘enlightenment’) or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or bodhi in order to compassionately help other individuals reach Buddha.
Everybody is desiring something. Well, lots of somethings. That’s an inescapable part of human nature. If we didn’t desire food and water, we would die. If we didn’t desire sex, we would rarely have children. If we didn’t desire learning, we wouldn’t have schools. If we didn’t desire enlightenment, we would lack bodhisattvas.
I know some extremely caring people. They get a lot of joy and satisfaction from helping other people. Yet they don’t see themselves as special in any way. They are genuinely humble, because they don’t try to be humble. They’re just themselves. I much prefer their naturalness to the bodhisattva B.S. that Katagiri espouses and which is present in the headache-inducing Wikipedia article about Bodhisattva.
I asked Claude, the AI model, Does zen buddhism place importance on bodhisattvas? Yes, it does, albeit in a certain fashion. Which helps explain why I am attracted to Zen, but in no way would I want to go through any sort of formal Zen training. Claude told me:
Zen Buddhism has a nuanced relationship with bodhisattvas — they’re present and respected, but not central in the way they are in other Mahayana traditions.
Bodhisattvas are acknowledged, not emphasized
Zen is a Mahayana school, so it formally embraces the bodhisattva ideal — the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings rather than oneself alone. Zen practitioners typically recite the Bodhisattva Vows (the Four Great Vows) regularly, which are a direct expression of this ideal.
But Zen downplays devotional focus on bodhisattva figures
Unlike Pure Land Buddhism (which centers on Amitabha Buddha and Guanyin) or Tibetan Buddhism (with its rich pantheon of bodhisattvas as objects of practice), Zen tends to be skeptical of external objects of veneration. The famous Lin-chi (Rinzai) saying — “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him” — captures this spirit: don’t cling even to sacred figures.
Guanyin is a partial exception
Guanyin (Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion) does appear in Zen temples and is genuinely venerated, particularly in Chinese Chan and Korean Seon traditions. But even here, the emphasis is less on devotion to an external being and more on embodying compassion oneself.
The practitioner as bodhisattva
Perhaps most distinctively, Zen tends to internalize the bodhisattva ideal — the practitioner aims to become a bodhisattva through practice and awakening, rather than seeking the intercession of bodhisattvas. The teacher-student relationship often carries something of this bodhisattva energy, with the teacher compassionately guiding others toward liberation.
So in short: the bodhisattva ideal is important in Zen, but bodhisattvas as devotional figures are largely de-emphasized in favor of direct practice and self-reliance.
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