Part 3
The Buddha said to Subhuti, “The Bodhisattvas should surrender their minds thus: All kinds of sentient beings — be they born from eggs, born from wombs, born from moisture, or born from transmutation, be they material, immaterial, thinking or non-thinking, or neither thinking nor non-thinking — I shall have them all enter perfect nirvana without remainder and thus liberate them all. Although I liberate innumerable, countless, infinite sentient beings, not a single sentient being is in fact liberated.”
“Why not? Subhuti, if the Bodhisattvas have images of self, images of person, images of a being, images of a liver of life, they are not Bodhisattvas.”
Commentary:
‘Have images’ means to be deluded by images, illusions. The Bodhisattvas here implies the enlightened who are not deluded by any images. So, ‘if the Bodhisattvas have images, they are not Bodhisattvas’ means that if the Bodhisattvas are deluded by illusions, they are not Bodhisattvas.
This signifies that the Bodhisattvas, the enlightened do everything without doing. That is, they don’t think that they have done something, no matter how many good things they may do, because they know that everything is empty. So, ancient masters would say that the enlightened should behave without any trace left behind, just as a bird flies leaving no trace in the air.
In everyday life, we sentient beings tend to remember and feel proud of our behaviours that we think are good and righteous. The enlightened, the Bodhisattvas neither remember nor feel proud of them because they don’t think they did them since they see all of them as empty. They never let even the right hand know what the right hand does.
Even if they are unfairly spoken ill of, or blamed for what they didn’t do, they neither feel chagrined nor lose their temper since they are not deluded by words, illusions.
Student: “How would the Bodhisattvas read this Sutra?”
Master: “They would not be deluded by the illusions of words.”
©Boo AhmAll writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
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