Bodhisattva-Warriors: Mahakaruna for Eternity 📿

📍 Coordinates: Uvita, Costa Rica.

📖 Reading Time: ~5 minutes.

🏴 Vibecheck: It’s 5:30am Saturday, the sun is bathing the jungle in its golden nectar. A lot of bamboo fell last night in the heavy rains. Birds are chirping. My cat Nora is hunting butterflies. All is well. It’s good to be back here. I started my first BJJ & Striking classes last week, turns out the striking teacher studied with the Shaolin! Brilliant opportunity. I hope you enjoy this one, it’s been close to my heart for many months ~ 🦁 EB.

“So long as space endures,
and for as long as beings exist,
may I likewise remain,
to drive away the sorrows of this world.” 

– Shantideva, The Way of the Bodhisattva.

I’m obsessed with the Bodhisattva…

Younger EB could have never imagined saying this. How the years change us! But as one does, I’ve been researching the Bodhisattva, and it’s grounding a thesis I have about the Warrior archetype… 

Bodhisattvas are the great avatars of Mahayana Buddhism, known as spiritually heroic individuals who strive to attain awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. 

Their defining qualities are bodhicitta—Awakened Mind—the spiritual orientation aimed at awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings, and mahakaruna—Great Compassion.

Warriors are viewed in quite the opposite light. I fell victim to this view of Warriors and the Warrior archetype for a long time. Warriors as a relic of a barbaric past, dogs of a sadistic military. 

That is a pejorative, simplistic, and superficial view of Warriors. It helps to consider the distinction between Soldier and Warrior.

Warriors in their fullness—rooted in the greatness of their archetype—are arbiters of Integrity, Discipline, Service, Courage, Virtue, Strength, and Mastery.

Look at the 8 Virtues of Bushido—literally ‘the Way of the Warrior’—of the samurai: justice, courage, benevolence, politeness, honesty, honour, loyalty, self-control.

At the core of the Warrior’s Vow is protection.

The Scholar-Warrior serves and protects with two instruments: the pen, and the sword. 

"It is said the warrior's is the twofold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways.” — Miyamoto Mushashi, The Book of Five Rings.

Warriors are the first and last line of defence for a people, an idea, or a place. The Warrior Spirit is a Protector. It defends the True, the Good, the Beautiful, the Culture, the Youth, the Elders, the Women, the Values, the Virtues, and the Traditions. The Warrior spirit stands up for what is Right, defending it against debasement, direct attack, and the inevitable arc of entropy. 

In her article for Lion's Roar, legendary American-Buddhist nun Pema Chodron argues that the Bodhisattva Vow and the Warrior Vow are the same. She uses the terms Bodhisattva and Warrior interchangeably.

"The commitment to take care of one another, the warrior commitment, is not about being perfect. It’s about continuing to put virtuous input into our unconscious, continuing to sow the seeds that predispose our heart to expand without limit, that predispose us to awaken." – Pema Chodron

In today’s age, we’re bombarded with images of pseudo-machismo Warrior energy.

Weak replacements of the Awakened Warrior, full of physical strength, but deprived of emotional and spiritual fortitude. Vain imitations of Courage. Mahatma Gandhi called this moral strength ‘satyagraha’, later popularized by Martin Luther King as ‘Soul Force’.

The Bodhisattva—and specifically the Bodhisattva Vow—is the greatest demonstration of the Warrior Spirit that exists.

The Lankāvatāra Sūtra illustrates the essence of the Vow that Bodhisattvas take: "I shall not enter into final nirvana before all beings have been liberated."

Buddhists believe in reincarnation, the endless existence of the Soul until its final liberation from the cycle of samsara (birth/death/birth).

Look again at the opening passage from Shantideva, author of the canonical text on Bodhisattvas – The Way of the Bodhisattva:

“For as long as space endures,
and so long as beings exist,
may I likewise remain,
to drive away the sorrows of this world.”

Imagine—for a moment—the reality, gravity, and profound implication of this statement.

Staring down the barrel of a thousand lifetimes of suffering, of eons of death/rebirth/death/rebirth, in the whole-hearted commitment to the protection and liberation of all sentient beings.

It goes further, echoing into eternity, “Though I can achieve nirvana myself, and exit the cycle of the birth and death and birth into realms of everlasting peace, I will not, not until the last blade of grass joins me.”

While this sounds intense—perhaps insane—to me it rings beautifully in the spirit of Serious Play.

We must never forget that what this Vow asks of the individual is the cultivation of their compassion, wisdom, joy, excellence, virtue, meaning, purpose, passion, and conviction.

All of these are positive. While the undertaking is serious, the outcomes are playful. You are undertaking a commitment of Self-Liberation for Others.

This is the Bodhisattva Vow.

This is the Warrior Spirit.

Self-obliteration over and over and over again. Yet each time, returning to the heart, and with a courageous, life-affirming roar, declaring “No. I shall not enter into final nirvana before all beings have been liberated. Again!"

This is dreaming the impossible dream and striving to bring it into being. This is Self-Mastery for Selfless-Service.

Bodhisattvas are among the purest expressions of the Warrior Archetype.

They embody Selfless Service, Self-Mastery, Compassion, Protection, Integrity, Moral Virtue, and Courage at a level nigh unreachable, indeed unimaginable, by most alive today. 

There is nothing that inspires me as much as this.

Far beyond loss and gain, pleasure and pain, trivial self-interested distractions – the Bodhisattva exists. In service of all sentient Beings. Committed to their self-mastery to be put in the unflinching service of all beings for as long as time exists.

This is what I would like the WARRIOR100, my 100-day initiation into the Warrior Archetype to strive for.

This is my personal North Star with Phoenix Culture – create and refine the Bodhisattva-Warriors. Phoenix Culture as a Mahayana (Great Vehicle) for the liberation of individuals, cultures, and collectives. 

To gather together the individuals, who in this lifetime, cultivate the courage and generate the Soul Force required to undertake this initiation, mastering themselves and putting their power into service of the Collective.

The Bodhisattva-Warrior exists in the hearts of all humans. Including you, should you choose to access and act on it.

What do you think? Insane, or incredible? Let me know in the comments.

Namaste, EB. 🐉