Bodhicitta - Levels of Bodhicitta

Levels of Bodhicitta

A distinction can be made between relative and absolute bodhicitta:

• Relative bodhicitta refers to a state of mind in which the practitioner works for the good of all beings as if it were his own.
• Absolute, or ultimate, bodhicitta, refers to the wisdom of shunyata (śunyatā, a Sanskrit term often translated as "emptiness", though the alternatives "openness" or "spaciousness" probably convey the idea better to Westerners). The concept of śunyatā in Buddhist thought does not refer to nothingness, but to freedom from attachments and from fixed ideas about the world and how it should be.

Some bodhicitta practices emphasize the absolute (e.g. vipaśyanā), while others emphasize the relative (e.g. metta), but both aspects are seen in all Mahāyāna practice as essential to enlightenment, especially in the Tibetan practices of tonglen and lojong. Without the absolute, the relative can degenerate into pity and sentimentality, whereas the absolute without the relative can lead to nihilism and lack of desire to engage other sentient beings for their benefit.

Patrul Rinpoche states that there are different levels of bodhicitta:

• The lowest level is the way of the King, who primarily seeks his own benefit but who recognizes that his benefit depends crucially on that of his kingdom and his subjects.
• The middle level is the path of the boatman, who ferries his passengers across the river and simultaneously, of course, ferries himself as well.
• The highest level is that of the shepherd, who makes sure that all his sheep arrive safely ahead of him and places their welfare above his own.

Although classification systems do vary (some schools even denying any conceptualizing of the path to Buddhahood) e.g. yellow hats argue that with bodhicitta one enters the path of accumulation