u/Gnome_boneslf

This is from Seongcheol, an enlightened Zen master back in the 1900s. He's one of the masters who introduced me to the right perspective of the Mahayana, and that perspective I feel is captured very well in this poem:

> The great achievements of the world are but snowflakes melting on fire,
Accomplishments that move oceans are but dew disappearing in the glare of the sun,
Why live a dream in this ethereal life of dreams,
I forsake all to walk towards the great eternal truth.

This world is the endless world of dreams, we dream day-in and day-out and accomplish great things in our dreams. But when we wake up, the dream melts into light like the dew once the sun rises in the morning.

And you see the non-duality here from the story by Layman Pang:

> Layman Pang was sitting in his thatched cottage one day, studying the sutras.
“Difficult, difficult, difficult,” he suddenly exclaimed, “like trying to store ten bushels of sesame seed in the top of a tree.”
“Easy, easy, easy,” his wife, Laywoman Pang, answered. “It’s like touching your feet to the floor when you get out of bed.”
“Neither difficult nor easy,” said their daughter Lingzhao. “It’s like the teachings of the ancestors shining on the hundred grass-tips."

Seongcheol had this to say about nirvana:

> Perfect enlightenment pervades all, serenity and destruction are not two
All that is visible is Avalokiteshvara, all that is audible is the mystical sound
No other truth than seeing and hearing
Do you understand?
Mountain is mountain, water is water.

This is easy to accept, you have Dudjom Rinpoche saying this, for example:

> All that appears is exalted Bodhisattva Great Compassion’s body;
Resonant sounds are the six-syllable mantra’s’ wisdom speech;
All recollection and thoughts are clear light,
the exalted Bodhisattva’s wisdom mind.
Yet, these are not newly fashioned:
Know that they exist self-manifest.
Sustain this knowledge within the natural state and you will be liberated.
I, Jnana, wrote this in response to a request.

But more important than enlightenment, nirvana, or clear mind is just perfect bodhicitta:

> So may the suffering of all the three realms ripen on me,
May my merits be taken by sentient beings,
And through the blessings of the merit of this,
May all beings attain buddhahood!

• Drakpa Gyaltsen

First, you should generate that dream-shattering view that Seongcheol puts into perspective well, where the great deeds of the world are just dewdrops on grass, like ephemeral dreams. This creates the foundation upon which bodhicitta can arise. Then, you generate the supreme bodhicitta.

> Geshe Tonpa was visited once by a monk who was a disciple of the Three Brothers and Khampa Lungpa.
"What is Potowa doing nowadays?" Tonpa asked the monk.
"He is teaching the Dharma to hundreds of members of the Sangha."
"Wonderful! And what about Geshe Puchungwa?"
"He spends all his time fashioning representations [statues] of the body, speech and mind of the Buddha from materials that he and other people have offered."
"Wonderful!" Geshe Tonpa repeated. "What about Gonpawa?"
"He does nothing but meditate."
"Wonderful! Tell me about Khampa Lhungpa."
"He stays in solitude, weeping continually, with his face hidden."
At this Tonpa took off his hat, joined his hands before his heart and, shedding many tears, exclaimed, "Oh, that is really marvellous! That is really practising the Dharma. I could tell you a lot about how good he is, but I know he wouldn't like it."

• Patrul Rinpoche, WMPT

Bodhicitta is not compassion, it is not love, it is not equanimity, it is not joy. You can have compassion and no bodhicitta, you can have love and no bodhicitta, and so on. Bodhicitta uses those four divine abodes to support itself, but most importantly by far is the preciousness of other sentient beings. Whatever causes this preciousness to arise is the cause of bodhicitta. That helpless feeling of taking off your hat when you hear about real bodhicitta, for example, is bodhicitta.

We very often forget, but bodhicitta is the entire Mahayana path. Even if you fail to generate the dream-breaking view, if you have bodhicitta it's ok, you will succeed. But with the view and without bodhicitta, there is no way. Theravada is possible without bodhicitta, but with bodhicitta even that path is a thousand times easier. It is really the entire meaning of why we practice, bodhicitta is like a sobering moment when you're drunk, it puts all of existence into the right perspective, beyond views, straight into clarity.

I almost forgot this poem, it seems fitting to end on this because Seongcheol passed away in the same place where he first ordained:

> There is a way. No one will reveal the secret. You must enter the door yourself. But there is no door. In the end, there is not even a way.