On Having a Good Heart

After we have taken refuge we then recite the aspiration of the bodhisattva …. “May I be a guard for those who need protection … etc.”. I don’t know about you but this beautiful prayer created during the eighth century by a Buddhist monk called Shantideva - ‘God of Peace’, it's him in the image - is for me quite a complex experience. The aspiration comes from his very famous book the ‘Way of the Bodhisattva’ and to say the least, it is extremely idealistic in its suggestions as to how we might think and behave - and this is the rub. How do we relate to something that is miles beyond what we are realistically capable of - well, at least at the moment?

Some of us have already noticed that there is potentially a small problem within the refuge. Am I to take refuge in a sangha which consists of people who are plainly full of and acting out their own stuff? If refuge is meant to be a safe space I can rely on, then being a member of a sangha where everyone’s family wounds are periodically on display does not feel that safe. (Here I should put in the caveat that this only really becomes a problem when our experience of family life has been difficult). The Buddhist answer to this is that we are not actually taking refuge within a community of people who are struggling in this way, but within the ‘supreme sangha’ which consists of bodhisattvas who are firmly established on the path and have a deep realisation of wisdom and compassion. They know how things really are and are the real deal who can truly help.

The trouble with this though is that such a level of realisation has to begin somewhere and that brings it back to us. I may not be a member of the supreme sangha yet, and as such I cannot be regarded as a source of stable and sustainable refuge for others, but I have a good heart with good intentions, and aware of my limitations, this is the direction I wish to go. And after all, it is called an aspiration - not an accomplishment. I am allowed to be rubbish at it.

Which returns me to the complex experience I mentioned above. Having recited this aspiration a great many times, it has become like a steady centre point which I revolve around, sometimes seeing it one way and then on another day, in a different way. Quite often it simply opens my heart. Who could not want to be ‘a tree of miracles’ and make the horrific pain of this terrible world go away? And yet, on other days, when out of touch with myself and everything else, it can seem like an impossible burden and make my recitation of it feel like sheer hypocrisy. I’m saying this stuff but that’s not how I’m feeling or behaving. So how are we to handle discrepancies like these within us?

My answer to this is that being present with these discrepancies is the path that leads to at some point the inevitability of becoming a member of the supreme sangha. Finding ourselves being made up from parts that are not necessarily in accord, perhaps some very ‘buddhisty’ but others plainly full of fear and sometimes hate, requires real honesty and a great deal of compassion for the reality of who we presently are. And this is the thing - it is only who we are presently. The Dharma is big on the point that everything is changing, this is the meaning of emptiness, and that includes us. Being present with whatever we find popping up within us, meeting it with kindness, dropping the judge, the perfectionist, the manager, is the path, the process, that leads to becoming a real bodhisattva. So again we discover that like refuge which is not so much a single event but a lifelong process, so too the way of the bodhisattva, is a path rather than a destination we should have already reached - like having some sort of good intentioned job. And while travelling on that path we may just sometimes glimpse our buddha-nature at the other end encouraging us on by reminding us that we will frequently become lost or flop exhausted by the way but this is OK, in fact it is better than OK, this is in part how bodhisattvas are made.

NW. 2 October 2025

May I be a guard for those who need protection,

A guide for those on the path,

A boat, a raft, a bridge for those who wish to cross the flood.

May I be a lamp in the darkness,

A resting place for the weary,

A healing medicine for all who are sick,

A vase of plenty, a tree of miracles,

And for the boundless multitudes of living beings.

May I bring sustenance and awakening,

Enduring like the earth and sky,

Until all beings are freed from sorrow

And all are awakened.

Shantideva - The Way of the Bodhisattva