Bodhichitta

The bodhisattva has a wisdom mind (bodhichitta). This term too may be taken as a mind which is set on achieving wisdom – the mind that seeks the way – or as a mind which is already imbued with wisdom. This is a deliberate conflation of meanings since, from the Zen perspective, these two things coincide.

Brazier identifies bodhichitta as a purposeful semantic double—simultaneously aspiration and attainment—and grounds this ambiguity in Dogen’s Zen axiom that training and enlightenment are identical.

Brazier, David, Zen Therapy: Transcending the Sorrows of the Human Mind, 1995thesis

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BODHICHITTA Although this term has different specific meanings in different Buddhist contexts and traditions, it generally refers to the mind that is turned toward awakening. Sometimes translated as ‘the mind of enlightenment’ or ‘awakened heart,’ this term is also usually associated with compassion and the genuine desire to help others.

Welwood provides the corpus’s most explicit definitional treatment, establishing bodhichitta as a cross-traditional term uniting cognitive orientation toward awakening with compassionate altruistic motivation.

Welwood, John, Toward a Psychology of Awakening Buddhism, Psychotherapy,, 2000thesis

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the faculty of enlightenment (bodhicitta) is inherent in every living being. Wherever this faculty becomes a conscious force in any being, a Bodhisattva is born. To awaken this consciousness was the life’s task of the Buddha.

Govinda grounds bodhichitta in an immanentist Tibetan Mahayana framework, treating it as a latent universal faculty whose conscious activation is the defining event of the bodhisattva’s emergence.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960thesis

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bodhicitta. See mind of awakening … bodhi-mind. See mind of awakening

The Dogen tradition index equates bodhichitta with ‘mind of awakening,’ situating it within a network of bodhisattva precepts, vows, and practice that is cross-referenced throughout the Shobogenzo Zuimonki.

supporting

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to awaken within ourselves this deeper consciousness and to penetrate to that state, which the Buddha called the ‘Awakening’ or ‘Enlightenment’. This is the Bodhisattva-marga, the way to the realization of Buddhahood within ourselves.

Govinda connects the awakening of deeper consciousness directly to the Bodhisattva-path, implicitly identifying the cultivation of bodhichitta with the realization of inner Buddhahood.

Govinda, Lama Anagarika, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism, 1960supporting

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The manner of life of the Bodhisattva is well summarized in the formula: ‘A guard I would be to them who have no protection, a guide to the voyager, a ship, a well, a spring, a bridge for the seeker of the Other Shore.’

Zimmer articulates the ethical expression of bodhichitta in the bodhisattva ideal, framing the aspiration to benefit all beings as a democratic-aristocratic vision of latent Buddhahood universally distributed.

Zimmer, Heinrich, Philosophies of India, 1951supporting

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Buddhism cannot be taught. What are taught are simply the ways that lead from various points of the spiritual compass to the Bodhi-tree; and to know those ways is not enough.

Campbell’s meditation on the limits of Buddhist teaching gestures obliquely toward the experiential dimension of bodhichitta, suggesting that awakening cannot be transmitted through doctrine alone.

Campbell, Joseph, Oriental Mythology: The Masks of God, Volume II, 1962aside

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