Six Bodhisattva Characters
Generosity, discipline, patience, concentration, meditation, wisdom
Generosity
Generosity means to share with or be kind towards other life. It is not to be blindly kind towards people as this can cause negative results, making them spoiled, greedy and lazy. So, generosity needs to be guided by wisdom.
To be a generous person, the first thing we need is to be wise, and get rid of our own greediness, possessiveness and jealousy. People who are lost in these three powers have no chance to develop a generous character.
Generosity has two different types: External and Internal.
External Generosity is to share or support other people with money and materials. There are two different ways to do this: with and without ego. Being generous with ego is human style; being generous without ego is the bodhisattva generosity character.
Internal Generosity is to help other life out of suffering and discover unlimited happiness – nirvana.
The best way to do that is to help their consciousness, develop from blindness to wakefulness. When they have successfully developed their wisdom ability, they will not need generosity from others. Instead, they will have the ability to share or to be generous to others.
The more important generosity type is Internal. Why so? If we are only generous to others Externally, there are limits to what we can do to help them. As with the old saying, give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever.
The most important style is Eternal Wisdom- Internal Generosity. External Generosity can only help people get rid of their suffering temporarily, but Eternal Wisdom can help people out of suffering forever, and live free with joy.
Thus, to help people discover the eternal truth of life is the most incredible Bodhisattva Generosity Character.
Discipline
Discipline is having steady power to develop strength or habit for the long term. It can be good, bad, neutral or spiritual.
If the intention, direction and goal are wrong, discipline can become negative.
Discipline is the strong power to create causation, even to create karma for the next lifetime, so we must choose wisely.
Discipline can generally be divided into two different types: Reacting and Being.
Reacting Style
Reaction style is when we clearly see the mistakes we make, from our intention, speaking and action, after that try to correct it in a wise way.
Humans are generally lost by five greedy desires: Money, Appearance Form, Fame, Food and Sleeping.
When people are addicted to these desires, they develop bad intention, speaking and action habits. From that, they create bad karma. When they are tied strongly into bad karma, hell karma appears.
Reacting style is to clean out all these negative desires before they go too far. To do that, we need discipline: just like when we get dirty each day, as well we need to shower every day.
Until we reach perfection, we need Reaction Discipline to observe: how we are suffering; where it comes from; what kind of blindness intention, speaking and action we have. Then we must go further: develop precise wisdom to clean out each individual case, and change them into good or spiritual habits.
Before we reach bodhisattva ability, Reacting Discipline is practical and important for us.
Being Style
To directly see through the truth of life and to let our intentions, speaking and actions all happen by follow the eternal truth of wisdom.
Because bodhisattvas are able to live with the eternal truth of life in their natural heart, their discipline no longer requires mental observation ability to correct their negative habits. The five negative desires will all be purified, and become Convenient Wisdom Desire, to enjoy life and share with others, for develop spirits.
Nature Being is the highest style. It’s also called Discipline Without Forcing Discipline. A bodhisattva’s heart is joyfully and naturally living in the eternal truth of life. Because of this, they do more than simply follow the discipline; instead, they are able to create higher and higher discipline, to help them selves to become unlimited perfect.
To develop bodhisattva discipline we have to practice both styles: Reacting and Being. When we reach bodhisattva level, we will no longer need the Reacting system.
Patience
Patience is to stay calm, or take things easy for seeing different points of view, or to do things step by step, without involving our ambition or stress ego.
Most people confuse patience with forbearance. Patience comes from free will but forbearance is when we have no choice.
So in fact, they are opposites, but they still have something in common: to handle situations with a long period of time discipline. Another way to say, long-term discipline is patience. In that sense, forbearance is one type of human style patience and normally for our ego’s needs.
The other type of human level patience is to be patient from our free desire, but because our position, situation or ability is weak, so we have to be patient with humility. However, there are many different types of patience, as below.
- Human Patience
Forbearance (no choice)
Free desire patience (with choice)
- Rohan Patience
A Rohan is a Buddhist monk who is living their whole life with pure discipline, and has reached empty enlightenment.
- Bodhisattva Patience
Convenient Compassion and Wisdom System Patience
This high level of patience is to observe each case by wisdom without I, but not yet having complete wisdom to help every life form.
Bodhisattva level patience is not for their ego needs, but for compassion while helping others. Understanding that even though someone’s level is low, they still have potential to help them develop wisdom by using the Convenient System with patience and joyful heart.
Though the bodhisattva’s compassion is unlimited, their wisdom still has limitations. For that, they still have to patiently develop Convenient Compassion and Wisdom System, until they reach unlimited perfection.
- Buddha Patience
No Beginning, No End Patience – the Buddha’s heart is the pure force of compassion, with the wisdom to understand that even compassion is illusion. There’s no need to be compassionate with patience any more, because compassion is their nature eternal being, without time and space limitation, remaining always calm, free and joyful.
Concentration
The highest level of concentration is to concentrate without any I involved.
When you are not focused on your illusion I, there is nothing to distract you. Which will help you reach the highest-level concentration, to be empty…
When no I concentration into deep wise concentration, then it will get close to become ‘meditation’….
Steps towards spiritual concentration:
- Protect your joyful child heart.
- Get away from bad habits and negative influences.
- Understand true value to develop the truth of life.
- Share developing true wisdom with spiritual people.
- Getting rid of ego means harmony is the first priority. Being sincere means being honest with your self and others.
- Concentrate without needing to concentrate-By follow the eternal truth of life from heart.
- Creating Power
From a selection of classes give by Forever Wisdom Forest in Sydney, Australia.
Transcribed by Simon.
