LTF 8: The Two Bodhichittas & Their Relevance to the Qualities of a Buddha

This whole cluster, then, is called bodhichitta. We shouldn’t think that bodhichitta is just the wish to benefit everybody. The wish to benefit everybody is sort of the stepping stone to the actual, main focus of bodhichitta, which is our own enlightenment, which is, of course, within this context of wanting to help all beings. What is very important, then, is to be able to have a focal object for this when we’re aiming for enlightenment. 

Now, how do we have a focal object of enlightenment when enlightenment is something –  particularly Dharmakaya – that only another Dharmakaya, in other words, another omniscient mind, can possibly know non-conceptually. The only way we can know it is through a conceptual category, or universal – the category “enlightenment." Now, for this category to be accurate, or at least as accurate as possible, we need to have some idea of what the qualities of a Buddha are, not only in terms of the fact that a Buddha can show us a safe direction in life and help us overcome our problems but also with the idea of "I want to achieve this." 

The more that we know about the qualities of a Buddha, the stronger our bodhichitta can become. Also, our idea of bodhichitta can become more accurate because we are aiming for what a Buddha actually is, what enlightenment actually is, rather than aiming for some inaccurate idea of enlightenment based on no information. Maybe, in some cases, it’s wrong information, but usually it’s based on no information: we just don’t know. This is why the study of these qualities of the Buddhas is very important, not just in terms of refuge but in terms of bodhichitta as well. 

Participant: I don’t know what “principal” means. Does it come from the Sanskrit?

Dr Berzin: It comes from the Tibetan word “tsowo” (gtso-bo) which means “principal,” or “main” thing. I don’t know how to say it – “main awareness,” maybe. It’s sort of the main flavor that puts together the whole cognition. Actually, I haven’t found the Sanskrit for it, although I must confess that I haven’t looked for the Sanskrit either. 

When we are aiming for enlightenment, we are aiming for the most highly developed mind that’s possible in body and speech. This mind is one that encompasses everything – Dharmakaya. "Kaya" is a corpus of various aspects, and "dharma" here means “all things” – all dharmas. So the Dharmakaya encompasses everything and all beings as well. And the body can appear simultaneously to all beings, and the speech can communicate to all beings simultaneously. We want to have as vast a mind as possible, even with bodhichitta, as a cause for reaching enlightenment. 

If we can really think in terms of all beings and try to open up to the various realms and have as large a scope as possible – that this is the field of beings we want to be able to benefit – it can help to open up the mind to enlightenment. We are aiming for not just a little thing; we are aiming for a huge thing – as huge a thing as possible. Also, it’s the same with enlightenment: If we think in terms of all of these various qualities, then we see that this is a huge, vast array of things. Again, the larger that our scope is, the larger that our mind is in terms of aiming for this object, the better it will act as a cause to reach this goal. This why we need to have as large and extensive an idea of enlightenment as is possible. 

We need to be able to focus on something. So, when we are working to develop bodhichitta, what is often used as focal object is a Buddha – to visualize a Buddha. Also, we want to have bodhichitta with mental consciousness; it’s not something that we have with eye consciousness as an ordinary being, although from a Buddha’s point of view, all consciousnesses are omniscient, but let’s leave that aside. We want to have bodhichitta with mental consciousness. That’s why we visualize Buddhas. That’s preferable to staring at a statue or a painting. Now, with this visualized Buddha, every aspect of the Buddha represents a much, much larger scope of qualities. So, it’s through the conduit of each of the features of a Buddha as represented in this visualization that we expand out to all the different qualities of a Buddha. The mind, then, is open and expanded for being able to reach enlightenment.

It becomes very interesting because we represent this mind of enlightenment not only with a Buddha but also with a guru – the guru as inseparable from the Buddha, inseparable from the yidam, the Buddha-figure. The Tsongkhapa guru-yoga practice is ideally suited for this because in this practice, we recite the verse called “mig-tse-ma” (dmigs-brtse-ma). This practice is just referred to by the first two words of the first line with the ending “ma” after the two. How it starts is with “mig me tse wä.”  

The verse repeated in the practice is:

You are Avalokiteshvara: a great treasure of unaimed affection, Manjushri: a commander of flawless wisdom, Vajrapani: a destroyer of all hordes of demonic forces, Tsongkhapa: the crown jewel of the erudite masters of the Land of Snows, at your feet, Losang Dragpa, we make you requests.

With the visualization and recitation of this verse to Tsongkhapa, there is one line to Avalokitesvara, who represents the body, one line to Manjushri, who represents the mind, and one line to Tsongkhapa, who incorporates them all. Here, Tsongkhapa is the main figure, but he’s also the Buddha and the guru – all of them in one package. We also visualize an OM AH HUM on the figure. Actually, we visualize Avalokitesvara at the crown chakra, Manjushri at the throat chakra, and Vajrapani at the heart chakra of Tsongkhapa. 

We can understand why these deities were chosen. There are many explanations for it, but one way to understand it is by thinking about how each of the 32 qualities of the body of a Buddha represents or indicates the cause for it. And the causes are all bodhisattva practices – generosity, taking care of others, and these sorts of things. Well, what represents those would be Avalokitesvara, or Chenrezig in Tibetan. The qualities of speech are always associated with Manjushri. Where you find this list of the sixty-four qualities of a Buddha’s speech is in Tsongkhapa’s commentary on Praises to Manjushri. Vajrapani, then, represents the mind – the power of the mind – the strength of the mind to understand everything and to have compassion for everybody as well as the courage of a bodhisattva never to turn back. So, this guru-yoga practice fits into this whole discussion that we have been embarking on of being continually mindful of the Buddhas, Dharma, Sangha – of their good qualities. 

Participant: I have a short question about Vajrapani. I think it was in the museum in Berlin where I saw an old Vajrapani. He looked like a human form. If you look at the Tibetan Vajrapani figures, he’s depicted as small with a blue color and skull bone necklace – these kinds of things. How is it that they look so different?

Dr Berzin: So the question is: why do we have such a great difference in the iconography of Vajrapani? For example, in this one Indian image that you saw and in the standard Tibetan form. Actually, for each of these Buddha-figures there are many different forms. How it is explained, is that different people have different visions of these figures in different forms. As such, there is no reason to associate any particular Buddha-figure with any particular form. There are many, many different forms of Avalokitesvara, for example: with two arms, four arms, and one-thousand arms. Some are standing, some are sitting, and they are all sorts of different colors. It’s the same thing with Manjushri: there are peaceful forms, forceful forms… There are lots and lots of different forms of the Buddha-figures. It’s the same with Vajrapani. Also, we shouldn’t think that Chenrezig is only associated with body, that Manjushri is only associated with speech, or Vajrapani only with the mind. Manjushri very often, particularly in Yamantaka practice, emphasized as being body, speech, and mind – as having all of these apects. One has to have a very flexible mind when working with these Buddha-figures and not pin them down to being truly existent in one form or another, or truly representing one thing or another. You can say in general, that in most cases Manjushri is the wisdom of the Buddhas – the clarity of mind of the Buddhas. In this context he represents the speech – communication. In another context, he is depicted as a sixteen year-old youth whose youthful, strong body helps others. 

Participant: On your homepage, that’s Manjushri, isn’t it?

Dr Berzin: Pardon?

Participant: On your homepage?

Dr Berzin: On my homepage is just a standard – I think it’s the orange Manjushri. 

Participant: And he has a dual sword?

Dr Berzin: He has a sword, yes, but that’s the ordinary Manjushri – the orange Manjushri. That’s a peaceful form. Manjushri almost always has the sword of wisdom. It’s certainly not the wrathful, forceful form. The forceful form is Yamantaka, who has many, many different forms.

Participant: When I was looking on the internet for Manjushri pictures, there were more than three hundred pictures there.

Dr Berzin: Right. So you were looking on the internet and found three hundred pictures of Manjushri, all slightly different. It’s true. A Buddha can manifest in millions of forms – in any form. So why should they be limited to one? This is not so outlandish if you think about it, because our mental continuum can produce, by means of karma, an appearance of ourselves as any sort of being in any sort of realm, looking like anything. If we can do that in samsara, why couldn’t a Buddha do that in their enlightened speech? 

Manjushri’s name, the translation of his name, in Tibetan is Jam-pal-yang [‘jam-dpal-dbyangs]. "Yang" means “a resonance of voice,” "Jam" means “smooth,” and "pal" means “glorious.” From Manjushri’s name, at least the way it’s translated into Tibetan, we can see that he represents the speech. 

Expanding the Mind, Shrinking the Garbage – the Two Bodhichittas

What I want to point out is that there are two bodhichittas. Remember: there is the relative bodhichitta and the deepest bodhichitta. Relative bodhichitta is what we have been speaking about: the mind that is expanded out as much as possible to the scope of omniscience, to the qualities of the Buddhas, and to all living beings. Then, at the same time, what you want to attain is deepest bodhichitta, which is focused on voidness. This is very interesting when you think in terms of trying to combine these two, although, it is also very difficult to do. There is a great deal of discussion about how tantra, specifically anuttarayoga tantra, is the only way to actually combine the two bodhichittas in one mind. In any case, what we want to do with the understanding of voidness is to eliminate all appearances of true existence. When you do this on the level of anuttarayoga tantra, you also want to get down to as microscopic a level as possible in order to dissolve all the winds in the center of the heart chakra. This is the very interesting thing – that in a sense, as a way of getting into a forerunner of trying to put these two together, is to have the mind as expanded as possible on one level and within that scope, to have all the appearances of garbage shrink down and dissolve so that they become more and more subtle, yet still totally full and open to all beings – all phenomena. That, I think, is coming much closer to an approximation of what we are aiming for with bodhichitta. I think that this acts as a precursor – a cause – for reaching enlightenment if we can do this. 

Participant: Where is the other deepest and superficial?

Dr Berzin: The “superficial” is the “relative bodhichitta,” which is this huge scope that we’re talking about. The “deepest” is this very subtle cutting-off all gross levels of mind within that scope: the gross states of mind that would look at phenomena as truly existent and have attachment and all that sort of stuff. 

Participant: So the superficial is basically aimed at benefiting beings.

Dr Berzin: Yes, it’s aimed at benefiting everybody. The superficial could also be called the “apparent,” or the “apparent level.” It’s very hard to find a nice word. 

Participant: With compassion and…

Dr Berzin: Well, with aiming for omniscience and to benefit all beings – to know all things and to be able to benefit all beings. 

Participant: That’s the wish…

Dr Berzin: Well, not only with the wish but actually having the ability and the energy to do it. 

Participant: So, the superficial is actually also quite a high state.

Dr Berzin: Oh, it’s a huge high state, a huge high state. 

Participant: To me, it sounds like the first steps, but maybe it isn’t meant to be that.

Dr Berzin: Not really. Maybe “superficial” doesn’t sound so nice here, perhaps “relative bodhichitta” or “conventional bodhichitta” would be better – it’s hard to find the right word. Relative bodhichitta is aimed at everything – at everybody – and the fullest level of development of it is possible with, of course, the elimination of all the shortcomings, disturbing emotions, and so on. Within that, you could aim for the elimination of everything appearing to have true existence and of the grasping for its true existence. We don’t want this grasping, so we have to dissolve it, and the mind has to become more and more subtle. In this way, not only do we refute true existence, but we can also dissolve all of the grosser levels of mind that grasp at true existence. The clear light mind can’t grasp at true existence; it’s too subtle. It doesn’t even give an appearance of true existence. What I am saying is that even just as a feeling that we want to try and develop, is this sense that the mind is huge and very subtle at the same time.

Participant: Could you have this the opposite way – that first…

Dr Berzin: Right. Well, there…

Participant: First dissolve the deepest bodhichitta and then the relative?

Dr Berzin: Yes. You could dissolve all the garbage and then within that state, the mind expands out to everything. That’s often how it is done in a tantric practice. 

Participant: It’s not necessarily in this order, then.

Dr Berzin: This is not necessarily the order, no. 

Participant: Sounds like first, you do…

Dr Berzin: This is not necessarily the order because there are two traditions. It’s said that for some, they develop bodhichitta first – relative bodhichitta – and after that they develop the understanding of voidness. First they are aimed at enlightenment for all beings, and then, in order to achieve that, they strive to get the understanding of voidness with this bodhichitta energy behind it. In this way, they don’t get rid of only the emotional obscurations but also the cognitive obscurations that prevent omniscience. The other way around is to develop deepest bodhichitta first – the understanding of voidness – because it’s only on the basis of understanding voidness that one can be convinced that it’s possible to reach enlightenment – that the nature of the mind is unstained and that all of the disturbing emotions and unawareness can be removed; that ignorance can be removed. If you realize voidness first, then it’s easier to aim for enlightenment and for benefiting everybody. So it depends. 

As they say, there are two types of disciples: Those who are more emotional would want to develop relative bodhichitta first, and those who are more intellectual would want to develop deepest bodhichitta first, thinking, “Only if I am convinced that enlightenment is possible and that it’s possible to help everybody and possible for everybody else to become enlightened will I work for it. Otherwise, it’s just an emotional ‘How wonderful.’” So, it depends on the disciple, the practitioner; it depends on us. Obviously, we need both. Also, it isn’t that you just fully develop one before you start to work on the other. You work on both, but the emphasis is more on one or the other. This can also change at different points in our lives. 

I want to report back to you about this one feature of the Buddha Body – the long fingers or the long bases of the fingernails. I was finally able to locate the commentaries that Tsongkhapa and Gyaltsab Je gave to this – two commentaries to Abhisamayalamkara (the Filigree of Realizations). In Abhisamayalamkara itself, in the eighth chapter, is where Maitreya lists the thirty-two qualities of a Buddha’s Body. There it just says “long fingers.” In both Tsongkhapa and Gyaltsab Je’s commentaries to that line, they just give the reasons – the cause, for that sign. Tsongkhapa also adds that it’s the fingers of the hands and the feet: the fingers and the toes. The commentaries don’t explain this sign any further than that, however. As such, I would have to find the textbook that is used in Ganden Jangtse and Sera Je Monasteries, which would be what Geshe Dhargyey would have looked at when he explained this, because I can’t think of anywhere else that there could possibly be more extensive explanations of this sign. If we just go by what it says in the root text and in Tsongkhapa and Gyaltsab Je’s commentaries, then we have “long fingers and toes.” This seems to be what we have in the Pali tradition as well. I don’t have the college textbook on this particular text, so I can’t look it up there, and the telephone connection is too terrible these days with India to be able to ask Serkong Rinpoche.

Now that I think about it, though, the thirty-two signs are also listed in Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland as well as in Maitreya’s Uttaratantra (Everlasting Continuum). Gyaltsab Je wrote commentaries to both of those and I do have Gyaltsab Je’s collected works, so if I feel enthusiastic enough someday, I’ll try to hunt through those texts. Finding it there is difficult, though, because there’s no search function that I can use. 

The Point Is to Learn the Causes for Becoming a Buddha

Participant: The question was about these features of the Buddha in general. Were they really spotted on the Buddha? Did people actually look and then ask him, "How did this come about?" to which he said, "Due to this virtue, this happened…"

Dr Berzin: Buddha would have had to take his clothes off to do that. 

Participant: Were they just, in a way, arbitrary signs? For example, when you take such features as “round shoulders” and things like that, it could be anything round – round knees or whatever. The assignment of these causes to these features sometimes seems to be constructed; there seems to be no real necessity for why “this feature” is representing exactly “that cause.” 

Dr Berzin: Well, in the Pali tradition…

Participant: It sometimes seems that because it could be like this or like that, that it wouldn’t really make so much of a difference or appear so much differently if the causes or results were slightly different.

Dr Berzin: Obviously this is very old tradition because we find it in the Pali canon as well – in the Lakkhana Sutta, the Sutta or Sutra on the Signs of a Buddha. It’s in the Digha Nikaya collection: the longer discourses. I did read that recently, although I must say that I don’t remember clearly where Buddha said this, but I believe that Buddha was explaining it to a group of assembled monks. It’s not only a Buddha – also chakravartin kings have all of these signs or some of the signs or something like that. However, because Buddha explained these features, I don’t think it’s arbitrary – at least to this tradition. Now, in the translation that I saw of this, a footnote by the translator said that he thought that this was a late sutra. What that means I have no idea because all of these were supposedly passed down orally from the time of the Buddha. This really depends, then, on whether or not we believe that Buddha actually spoke all of the sutras and also that they were remembered correctly and written down properly. As we saw from our discussions on Shantideva, there is no way to either prove it or disprove this.

Participant: [Inaudible]

Dr Berzin: [to participant] Can you just summarize that very briefly in English, not translate every word?

Participant: There’s a discussion about the pores of the hair of a Buddha. Basically, it says that out of each pore, one hair grows, or, maybe, rather that out of each pore, wherever a hair grows only one hair grows. Some people were put off by this idea.

Dr Berzin: Teachers were telling this to children in a school?

Participant: Yes, and the children were put off by the idea of having a hair grow out of each pore of their body. And, so, they were rather…

Dr Berzin: They would look like a furry animal.

Participant: Yeah. And, so, they were rather feeling the tendency to not accumulate the related causes anymore that would bring about such a feature. 

Participant: I guess they have another ideal of beauty. 

Participant: Yeah. And then she also said that this is another ideal of beauty – that this is coming from an Indian ideal; from a totally different culture – from India, from a culture of mahapurusha. 

Dr Berzin: “Mahaparush” means “great being.”

Participant: Perhaps their cultural ideal of beauty is very different from how we see it. All of these features, also – like flat feet or whatever it is – children take them very literally and then they basically don’t want to look like that. Then they don’t want to act like that so that they won’t accumulate the causes, because children take such things very literally. If it weren’t, on the other hand, for the Diamond Sutra, where it says that even with the thirty-two marks you don’t really recognize the Buddha, then without such statements, it sounds like it would all be very fixed. For this reason, this teacher thinks that we really should be a bit careful with these features. 

Dr Berzin: What I have here is that a Buddha’s bodily hair curls clockwise with never more than one hair growing from each pore – from each pore. Now, you could interpret this in different ways. Well, we have an awful lot of pores, so a Buddha would look like a furry animal if one hair grew out of each pore. Well, he was “the lion of the Shakya clan…” 

Participant: [Comment in German]

Dr Berzin: What makes you think that a Buddha’s pores are as numerous as the pores on our animal-like skin? You can still have one hair growing out of each pore, but maybe it has less pores. That’s logic by the way. 

Participant: [Comment in German]

Dr Berzin: Why don’t we do her question also? Oh, we did her question already. 

Participant: What is [Inaudible] called? I can’t read it.

Dr Berzin: “Lakana.” 

Participant: “Lakana,” right.

Dr Berzin: That’s Pali for lakshana, which is Sanskrit for “sign.” 

The question is really: how much do we explain to children? First of all, I don’t know that the Buddha was intended to look beautiful like a movie star. I don’t think that was the point. I think that this also needs to be mentioned. Also, the idea of beauty is very different in different cultures. A great compliment for a woman in Sanskrit poetry is "she walks like an elephant," and I don’t think elephants are very sexy the way they walk. If you’ve ever stood behind an elephant while he or she was walking…although most of us haven’t…but I’m just saying that they sway their hips very much as they walk. 

I think that if you are going to speak to the children at all about this, you have to emphasize that the point is not to look beautiful. What else to do? I don’t think you can change the features so that Buddha looks like some body builder or Brad Pitt or something like. That’s not appropriate, either. So how literally are we to take these features? Of course, they don’t have true existence, and they are just there to indicate the causes. However, if children are going to misunderstand these, better not to teach it to young children. You can show them what Buddha statues look like, but you don’t have to point out the hair or the tongue or these sorts of things; you don’t have to go into detail. 

Participant: [In German]

Dr Berzin: Just because a Buddha has one hair growing out of each pore of his body – only one hair from each pore – does that mean that the Buddha can’t shave the hair on his body off and shave his head? Just because the monks have shaved their heads and shaved their bodies, does that mean that they don’t have hair growing out of the pores of their skin? Just because a Buddha has hair – I mean, we all have hair growing out of the pores of our skin. Men usually do – not out of every pore – but even if you have hair growing out of every pore, the point is that it’s orderly. I forget all the qualities of the hair – it curls to the right and so on; there are various causes. And if it’s shaved, so what? 

Participant: With this whole discussion, I’m just trying to get the point, actually. It seems to me that, really, all of these marks and all this kind of stuff – the point is to tell me what kind of causes I have to produce to become a Buddha.

Dr Berzin: Exactly. That’s the whole point of the discussion: What causes do we have to produce in order to become a Buddha? The fact that each cause is represented by this or that bodily feature is not really the point. The point is the causes.

Participant: [In German]

Dr Berzin: Yeah, but the thing is that Buddha did describe them, because it is in a sutra. It doesn’t come from some later thing, and it’s in the Pali tradition as well. 

Participant: [In German]

Dr Berzin: Do all Buddhas look alike? That’s another question. Buddhas can manifest in a millions of forms. Then the question is: what about in the Pali tradition, where they don’t manifest in a million forms – do they all look alike? It would seem as though they would. Did they look alike before they achieved enlightenment? Now you start to get into the contradictions within the Hinayana tradition. If they all have these thirty-two marks, then when they become enlightened– and they become enlightened in this lifetime or at the end of this lifetime – parinirvana; their mind-streams end. So what did they look like before they became enlightened? When they became enlightened, did their bodies change? They would have to change if they got these marks, so here you find contradictions in the theory. 

Participant: [In German]

Dr Berzin: Right. Chakravartins have the same signs. Were the chakravartins born with them? If the chakravartins were born with them, then the Buddhas should have been born with them as well… 

Participant: No… [Inaudible]

Dr Berzin: Right. So, because the Buddha has the same marks as the chakravartin, then the question is: does he go into becoming a householder or to become a chakravartin? Does a chakravartin have all thirty-two, including the crown? 

Participant: I think so.

Dr Berzin: I really don’t remember. I guess so. However, a chakravartin can’t manifest into millions of bodies and all of that – surely. 

Participant: Well, according to Pali tradition, Buddha…

Dr Berzin: Also can’t do that.

Participant: Also can’t.

Dr Berzin: Does the Pali tradition have the twelve deeds of a Buddha? Buddha was waiting at Tushita before manifesting enlightenment. He then came down and manifested enlightenment, which would explain why he would have these thirty-two signs at birth. I don’t know; I’m not very familiar with the Pali Canon. 

Anyway, we have not gotten back to completing the list of the qualities of the speech of a Buddha, but I think this discussion of bodhichitta and the relevance of these qualities of a Buddha in regards to bodhichitta are important points. We don’t want to get too stuck here in all the details – although the details help us to open our minds to a larger and larger extent. However, I think that whenever we study these types of topics, we need to bear in mind what the purpose is and what the benefit is.

So let’s end with a dedication. We think: Whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.