Being Upright: Zen Meditation and Bodhisattva Precepts (Zen Meditation and the Bodhisattva Precepts)

by Reb Anderson

The ultimate intention of the second Pure Precept is to realize all goodness together with all beings. In other words, practicing this precept is intended to actualize the entire world as the embodiment of all goodness.

The great master Yunmen was once asked by a monk, “What was the Buddha teaching his entire lifetime?” Yunmen answered, “An appropriate response.”1 Throughout his life Shakyamuni was primarily concerned with what was appropriate for the edification and liberation of whomever he was facing at the moment. Buddhas and great bodhisattvas such as Yunmen have “no other purpose than to melt the glue and untie the bonds for you, to pull out the nails and wrench out the pegs,”2 in order to liberate all beings. They are able to be kind and helpful under all circumstances, in all realms of being. They join hands with all beings and walk through birth and death together with them. This is their only wish.

Taking yourself too seriously means that you believe that your own ideas about your self are real. It means that you exaggerate your self-importance and underestimate your self-worth. In its root sense, respect means “to look again.” You have a usual way of seeing yourself; to be respectful of yourself means “to look again.” Take another look: perhaps you haven’t seen clearly who you are. You may have overestimated or underestimated yourself.

The practice of bodhisattvas is to sit upright in the center of the world of universal suffering. Such compassionate beings listen to the pain of the world: they feel it, they ache with it. We are built to ache with it. We evolved to feel the hurt. The upright sitting of the buddha ancestors never forgets or abandons sentient beings. They sit in the middle of all the various forms of suffering in order to save all beings. In practicing this way we have the same heart as Shakyamuni Buddha, Bodhidharma, Dogen, and all their great disciples.