Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva

Do I actually know someone who could be considered a Bodhisattva? Some person who I might have contact with that is concerned with one thing only: teaching the Dharma and thereby helping others out of this suffering and into enlightenment. In doing so they must forgo Buddhahood to help others along that same path. Can you imagine seeing the goal, seeing complete release and true enlightenment, and then turning away to be there for others? To make sure others can achieve that with you or even before you?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU_iN6iQERU[/youtube]

If I was meditating tonight, and slowly the slices of reality opened before me, like a rose bloom in the dawn, would I walk away from that to bring others the same understanding? I would like to think I would be concerned with the welfare of others, how can you be enlightened and not be concerned with the all other sentient beings?

I hope that I am now someone who has ‘entered the stream’. A Sotpanna, literally one who enters the stream, as becoming Enlightened was considered crossing the stream. I have a firm understanding in the Judeo-Christian dogma and my recent readings on the subject of The Buddha and what we refer to as Buddhism or maybe what I think of as walking in the Buddhapada has given me an awful lot to think about.

Sometimes I think about Chenrezig, the blue skinned, four-armed incarnation of the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara of India. He is the ‘Lord of the World’ in Buddhist tradition, with many incarnations across the Buddhist lands of Asia and India. What if I was called upon like that? What if I opened my ears today and heard the suffering of the people, would I even want to take on a thousand arms to reach out to them and help them?

I quietly chant my mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum, as I slow my mind and try to meditate at night, or in the office while I work and listen to something soft… trying to let go. But I never can let go.

I am not ready to take the vows of a Bodhisattva just yet, but soon, maybe even in this lifetime.