The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path

by Norman Fischer

Technically, according to the sutras, emptiness means “lacking independent being.” This is what things are empty of: independent solid existence. Nothing is fixed or separate. There are no “things,” “entities,” “selves,” or “beings.” There is only the flow of reality, the riot of life, the sun of being radiating everywhere.

In the light of such understanding, there can be no giver, recipient, or gift. Like everything else, these three “wheels” are empty—they don’t exist as we think they do. Things are not separate from one another. Everything is flow, everything is complete. Since no one owns anything, there is no giver or receiver. Life circulates as a gift.

One of the difficulties of the extravagant practice of perfect generosity is that people who sincerely try to practice it can get exhausted and burned out. This happens to professional helpers, medical people, social workers, therapists, teachers, and others. But it could happen to any of us in our roles of mother, father, or friend.

Keeping your heart open for all the suffering you encounter in your therapy or medical office, in your family, or even in the daily news can seem overwhelming. When “I” feel responsible to “help” “them” or even care about them, I feel depressed, discouraged, stressed out because I can’t take away their suffering. This is why it is essential that I develop the expansive view of the perfection of generosity that I have been discussing.

Really understanding that there is no one to help, no one who needs help, and no helping takes the pressure off. Everything is always the way it is, flowi...

We work on it, and little by little we begin to feel it. We feel the sorrow and pain—we don’t want not to feel this—but at the same time we feel the flow and the perfection. This helps...

To sacrifice one’s self in an effort to help others isn’t the perfection of generosity; it’s well-meaning neurosis based on the false premise that I am me and you are you. It misses the other side of that reality: that we exchange one another; that “I” am “us.” If we can clean our kitchen counter on behalf of others, why can’t we take care of ourselves for others?

Eating well, getting exercise and sleep, knowing when enough is enough or too much—these are necessary practices of the perfection of generosity. Maybe you feel guilty taking care of yourself when the world and all your friends are in such pain. But think about it: if you don’t take care of your health, state of mind, and general well-being, what good will you be to others?

When people give you gifts in an exhausted and semiresentful manner, it doesn’t make you feel joy. You wish they’d take care of themselv...

Practice the perfection of generosity with a spirit of abundance and happiness, not resentment and exhaustion. Taking excellent and loving care of yourself is skillful means ...

Mahayana Buddhism conceived of the practice of the transfer of merit. It is typical in almost all ceremonies and practice sessions in Zen and other Mahayana Buddhist schools to “dedicate (transfer) the merit of this assembly,” that is, to pledge all the good spiritual practice we have just done to the benefit of others so that none of it will be accumulated for ourselves. This may seem like an abstract notion of generosity, but it is a powerful act of imagination.

If life is a gift we have received freely and lovingly, from forces or nonforces beyond our ken, then certainly we are indebted to life and to all others who share life with us. We must continue to circulate the gift through the practice of perfect generosity.

Dogen tells us that you practice generosity simply by not grabbing or wanting, simply by being happy to receive whatever is given. To be content is to be generous. When you are content, you will spontaneously give. You will give, he writes, flowers on a distant hillside, treasures you possessed in a former life, even things that don’t belong to you. You will give what you see and hear and imagine. You will give a line of scripture, a penny, a blade of grass, a particle of dust. When your generosity defies all rational bounds, people will be deeply impressed, their lives transformed. Later in the essay, Dogen writes, “to launch a boat or build a bridge is an act of giving. If you study giving closely, you see that to accept a body [to be born] and to give up the body [to die] are both giving.”

Ownership is a misunderstanding. Everything we think we possess we only take care of on a temporary basis; we don’t actually own it. Ownership is a social and legal convention, not an actuality.

Once you take as real the convention of ownership, the perfection of generosity becomes impossible. Though you appear to own things, you have to remind yourself that this is not actually the case. Then you can be generous without looking for any return.

Sit down and pay attention to body and breath. Become aware of thoughts, images, memories, whatever arises in your mind. Now become aware of the awareness itself that is the container or background for the content of your mind. Little by little (using your exhale to ease your way into it) shift your attention from the foreground (thoughts, etc.) to the background (awareness itself). Feel the awareness itself as boundless. Feel its infinite generosity.

Exchange of Self for Other: Settle with body and breath. Now imagine another person sitting across from you. Reflect that she or he, like you, wants to live, not die; wants to be happy, not miserable. Feel yourself and the other person at this basic human level, beyond particulars. Now with each exhale, imagine yourself as the other person and the other person as you. See that body—across the room—as this body (yourself), and see this body as that body. Don’t expect this to work out perfectly or exactly, but keep trying to exchange self for other. After a while, simply return to following the breath.

Just after meditation, pay close attention to perception, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling. Try to feel the feeling of the perception without underlying aversion or attachment; noti...

Wipe counters in public restrooms and recall that you do this for the next person coming in and for the counter itself.

Give yourself a daily gift for a week or more: a sky-gazing break sometime during the day; a special food; a literal pat on the back or a neck message; a small purchase—whatever you can think of. Study how it feels to give the gift and to receive it.

Intentionally smile at people, anyone and everyone. Try to feel the inner warmth the smile outwardly projects.

Transfer merit. At the end of the day offer whatever goodness you might have generated during the day to someone you know who is sick or having a personal challenge and might need the help. Offer the stock of goodness to everyone in the world who is suffering; offer it to yourself. Alternatively, do something intentionally that would generate goodness (a few moments of reading a spiritual text; chanting; offering incense at an altar, if you have a home altar) and offer the goodness as above.

One Heart Grace As we make ready to eat this food we remember with gratitude the many people, tools, animals and plants, air and water, sky and earth, turned in the wheel of living and dying, whose joyful exertion provide our sustenance this day. May we with the blessing of this food join our hearts to the one heart of the world in awareness and love, and may we together with everyone realize the path of awakening, and never stop making effort for the benefit of others.

Give the gift of fearlessness. This one is difficult but it is worthwhile to try it, again and again. Look at people with eyes of love, respect, and genuine concern. Try to find those feelings within yourself.

Notice how you feel when you give a gift. Pay close attention. Do you feel some satisfaction, some self-congratulation? Do you feel like a “generous person”? Notice whether you have such a feeling—or whatever feeling you have. The practice here is not to feel the way you think you are supposed to feel. The practice is to see (and accept as a gift!) the way you do feel.

Share your happiness.

Although we have all become adept at presenting ourselves to the world as if we were upstanding citizens in good shape, in fact none of us is what we have become adept at seeming to be. Everyone is more tentative, more vulnerable, and rougher than they appear. Accepting this, you are kinder to yourself and everyone else. This kindness, based on a grounded understanding of human nature, is the root of ethical conduct.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF ETHICAL CONDUCT In Zen, the practice of the perfection of ethical conduct is described by the sixteen bodhisattva precepts. They are: THREE REFUGES I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in dharma. I take refuge in sangha. THREE PURE PRECEPTS I vow to refrain from harmful conduct. I vow to cultivate beneficial conduct. I vow to benefit all beings. TEN CLEAR MIND PRECEPTS I vow to protect life, not to kill. I vow to receive gifts, not to steal. I vow to respect others, not to misuse sexuality. I vow to be truthful, not to lie. I vow to remain clear, not to intoxicate self or others. I vow to speak kindly, not to speak ill of others. I vow to practice modesty, not to praise self at the expense of others. I vow to practice generosity, not to be possessive of anything. I vow to practice loving-kindness, not to harbor ill will. I vow to cherish and polish the three treasures.

The word refuge comes from a Latin root meaning “to fly back, to return to the nest.” To return home to one’s truest and best nature, a place of ultimate security. The world is full of strife and paranoia. Governments don’t help you, community is fractured, close friends betray you, family members get mad and stop speaking to you or, worse, get sick and die, leaving you bereft. In such a world, having a feeling of refuge in something ultimately reliable is profoundly comforting. Grounding one’s life in basic human goodness and lofty aspiration is a source of confidence and peace.

But evolutionary theory has evolved. Further studies in social biology suggest that cooperation, altruism, kindness, helpfulness, and love have powerful evolutionary functions. The human capacity for cooperation and communication may be our strongest skill set for survival. In our time, when we face the strong potential of planetary damage on a wide and devastating scale, we may need to develop these skills more than ever. Technical solutions to climate change are more or less known and doable. It’s lack of cooperation and motivation, lack of human connection, that prevents us from saving ourselves. Impossibly idealistic though it is, it may be that the bodhisattva path, and other such religious paths toward universal love, is our most practical tool for the future. The perfection of ethical conduct—which purifies the heart of its greed, grabbiness, self-focus, and aggression—is a necessity for the survival of human life on earth.

The practice of the perfection of ethical conduct has three aspects. First, restraint—noticing and checking conscious and unconscious selfishness, which is counterproductive to real self-love and love of others. Second, the development of virtue—cultivating positive inner qualities, matched by outer conduct, that go beyond mere restraint to encouraging and increasing an inner passion for goodness and caring. Third, the full bodhisattva joy in benefiting others—loving and helping without a sense of restraint or a need to develop virtue.

I vow to practice generosity, not to be possessive of anything. This precept references everything we said in the previous chapter about generosity in all its dimensions. In this case, as precept practice, we are being enjoined to study our stinginess. This is a hard practice for me. Having grown up with great frugality, I easily get stuck on an attitude of lack, often feeling an impulse to hold on to money and material goods. Noticing this as the opposite of what I am trying to do, seeing that it brings a sense of constriction and some pain, is my practice.

Exactly how any of these precepts may appear in specific complex human situations isn’t always so clear. Practicing love might look different in different times and in different situations. Sometimes it could take the form of a shout or a refusal. Sometimes getting angry is necessary to bring another’s bad or abusive behavior to an abrupt stop. What is appropriate in one situation may be inappropriate in another. Everything depends on circumstances—the timing, the setting, the person. So you have to exercise understanding and skillful means, and check, as much as possible, your intentions. Good intentions don’t ensure right conduct, but they help. Even so, self-deception is always possible.

Fundamentally, avoiding harm, doing good, and benefiting others always serve as a moral compass, even in sticky situations. Committed to these principles, we will have to decide, in any given situation, what can best be done. As long as we are always working to develop clarity, kindness, and love, and trying to reduce self-obsession, we can be confident that we will be able to decide what’s best, from our present viewpoint. If our best decision turns out to be wrong, we apologize, practice regret and repentance, and go on to the next choice, wiser than we were before.

Regret and remorse keep me honest and lead me to repentance, which includes apology, making amends if I can, and committing myself to not doing the same thing again. Probably in some matters we will go through this process repeatedly, because we will make the same mistake many times, even though we intend not to. As long as we are willing to feel regret and repent, we know it’s all right. Practice simply goes on, as is, and we are committed to continuing to take steps in the right direction. Nothing helps the journey more than mistakes.

things. It is a deeply held Buddhist perspective that there is no such thing as a fixed person, let alone an inherently bad or inadequate person. There is only what happens, arising and passing moment by moment according to conditions. There are tendencies, habits; there is responsibility for action. But none of that is a basis for feeling guilty for being who we are, as if some substantial seed of evil or inadequacy were lodged inside us.

When we find ourselves indulging in profound self-denigration when we’ve made a mistake, we remember what’s true: We did something that hurt someone. We regret it. We take responsibility, because it is good for us and others to do so. But there’s no blame. And the sense of shame or self-loathing is extra.

We can’t practice forgiveness aggressively. We can’t grab hold of it. We practice it by simply being willing to notice the pain and then the blame and resentment we’ve added to it; to admit to ourselves that we actually don’t want to forgive or be forgiven, that we’re addicted to the pain that we’re covering over with our hard-heartedness. So you notice the pain. You let yourself feel it. You stop blaming and bemoaning your fate. You take a breath and say to yourself, “Yes, yes, this is how it is.” When you do this repeatedly, the noise quiets down and you feel the grief and shame behind the pain. You come to accept it. You don’t have to blame anyone. It happened, it was just like that. You don’t have to go over it again and again. It’s done. This feeling of “it’s done” is forgiveness. You can’t get to it any other way than by slogging through the difficult feelings. Forgiveness isn’t so much something as a lack of something: your resentment and bitterness. When you forgive, your heart is relieved, you can grow, and you are free.

If my life involves only what happens in the brief linear time span between my birth and my death, during which I remain an individual unconnected to anyone but my close associates, and not even very much to them, then either meaninglessness and despair or self-interest and hedonism may seem my most sensible options. I can imagine living a spiritual life just for myself in this one life, but this seems too small a vision. Time isn’t only linear.

Insight into emptiness makes us flexible, open, soft, and forgiving when we practice the perfection of ethical conduct. We know we can never condemn anyone, ourselves or anyone else. Everyone is doing what they can, as are we. Yes, sometimes restraint is necessary, self-restraint or restraining another. But such restraint is an act of kindness, not of punishment based on moral superiority. In the practice of the perfection of ethical conduct, there is no hint of intolerance or arrogance, no sense of ethical purity or impurity. There is only love, forgiveness, and appreciation.

Offer kind speech, he says, especially to those without virtue. We think that people without virtue don’t deserve our kind words. We should condemn or criticize them, or at least relate to them neutrally. Why speak kindly to a nasty and unappealing person? Who does that? But Dogen says the opposite: if you offer kind speech to such a person, you will be amazed at its power; virtue will grow where you thought there was none. Do not ever give up on kind speech; trust it, he says, world after world, lifetime after lifetime. “Kind speech,” he concludes, “has the power to turn the destiny of the nation.”2

Sit down and pay attention to your body. Now pay attention to your breath, in and out, as your stomach rises and falls. When you feel settled and calm, bring your mind to your day’s activity. Invite any memory or feeling that touches on words or deeds spoken or accomplished during the day that may have had a negative or positive impact on others. The point is not to review the details but rather to notice what feelings arise when you recall the day’s incidents. Practice like this for a short while, then let it go and return your attention to your breath.

Settle in meditation as above. Focus your attention on the goodness in your own heart. Feel its warmth in your chest. Say to yourself, “This is human goodness. Everyone has it just as I have it.”

Settle into meditation. Feel the sense of completion in each breath. See how you breathe out and in, naturally—exactly enough air coming in, exactly enough going out. This is contentment. Nothing more is needed. Feel the inherent contentment in every breath. Reflect th...

Forgiveness Meditation. Settle into meditation. Recall someone whom you know you need to forgive. Just let the person’s image or the sense of who they are arise in your mind. Feel the feelings. Observe whatever happens without entanglement. Let...

Loving-kindness Meditation. Settle into meditation. Imagine someone you love sitting across from you. On your exhale, send that person loving and healing energy from your heart. Now imagine a neutral person, an acquaintance. On your exhale, send that person loving and healing energy from your heart. Practice the same way with all bei...

It’s natural to turn away in the face of difficulty. We come by this powerful habit honestly. No one wants to go toward pain. We want to go elsewhere, take a break, think of something else, get rid of it if we can. We distract, deny, blame, or rush around in generally futile attempts to fix it somehow. With the practice of patience we train ourselves to do the opposite: to turn toward the difficulty and embrace it as an ally.

As Santideva succinctly puts it, “If you can find a solution, what’s the point of being upset? And if you can’t find a solution, what’s the point of being upset?” Too true! If you can fix the problem, why groan, moan, and jump up and down wearing yourself and your friends out? Fix it. If you can’t fix it, what good will it do to groan, moan, and jump up and down? Instead, why not recognize that the state of life you previously enjoyed has ended and you are in a new state? Why not make something out of that state? This is the practice of patience.

So bodhisattvas recognize the feeling of suffering, and they expand it. They know that the pain of disrespect is not just theirs; it’s a basic human pain. They reflect like this: “The pain I’m feeling now is the same pain others feel when they are disrespected. No doubt in this very moment, as I am feeling this pain, thousands or even millions of others are feeling it. So this pain isn’t mine. It belongs to all of us. Being a person entails this pain. So as I feel and suffer it, I feel and suffer in solidarity and sympathy with others.”

When we’re patient with our suffering rather than bemoaning it, we see that suffering is expansive, connecting us warmly to the world and to others. When suffering is “ours” instead of “mine,” it’s not suffering. My sorrow, grief, or fear is painful, yet it’s also sweet, because I share it with everyone. This is how bodhisattvas understand the third noble truth of the Buddha: “the end of suffering.” To them, the end of suffering doesn’t mean the end of physical pain, failure, loss, alienation, fear, and other forms of suffering but rather the transformation of suffering into solidarity and love.