Adding Bodhicitta to your meditation ...

I recently collaborated with someone to teach a Mindfulness meditation class at an event - and some parts of the presentation led me, afterwards, to thinking more about Western Mindfulness vs Vipassana or Zazen – the traditional Zen sitting meditation, and raised in me the old (and by no means original) question: is Mindfulness a watered down version of Buddhism, with Buddhism being the“real thing”?

After thinking and corresponding with some people about it for some time, one morning I received an email from a Zen teacher at a Zen Centre in the USA, in which he said:

“So, as you teach mindfulness, you might ask your students why they practice. Is it just to have a good feeling or to resolve some problem? Or is it for something bigger. Why practice? It’s a good question. Even many Zen traditions focus mostly on present-moment experience. That’s okay, but Zen is part of the great Mahayana stream of Buddhism in which practitioners aspire to the Bodhisattva ideal - to save all beings from suffering.”

My translation of what he said is encompassed in one, small word: “Bodhicitta.” That one little word completely changes the quality of meditation practice.

It’s true: what is often missing in Mindfulness teachings and people’s Mindfulness practice is aspiration to the Bodhisattva ideal or the element of Bodhicitta. And it’s a really important part of meditation. I, fact, I might go as far as to say that, without Bodhicitta, meditation is pretty much a waste of time.

So what is it?

There isn’t really an English word to describe it. Compassion or empathy comes close. The direct translation is “awakening of the mind”. (‘Bodhi’ is ‘awakening’ or the understanding or regarding of ‘the true nature of things’, and ‘citta’, means ‘conscious’ or ‘mind.)

Bodhicitta refers to concept within Buddhism that refers to the ‘enlightened mind that strives toward awakening, empathy, and compassion.’ But the important part of this striving to awakening is that someone who practices Bodhicitta, or someone who ‘aspires to the Bodhisattva ideal’, engages in this practice for, above all other reasons, the benefit of all sentient beings’.

Bodhicitta is both an attitude and an action. The Chinese word for Bodhicitta is "Bodhi-Hsin" ‘Hsin’ can be translated as ‘heart’, but also means ‘mind’ and ‘essence’ . Bodhichitta, therefore, could be interpreted as ‘the essence of and the attitude and action of an enlightened heart and mind for the benefit of other people.’

With Bodhicitta, our meditation changes. With Bodhicitta, there's no East-West conflict, because with compassion and empathy, your meditation practice becomes an ‘outward’ activity, benefiting all people, whereas Mindfulness without compassion or empathy remains an ‘inward’ activity of self-absorption, which only reinforces that which causes the problem in the first place. Ego.

With an aspiration to the Bodhisattva ideal, or practicing Bodhicitta, our movement, activity within and engagement with our families, friends and community, automatically changes.

I like to think of Bodhicitta as ‘bringing heart to mind’. One of the Monday morning practitioners quoted a wonderful description: ‘Mindfulness is meditating wide, whereas Bodhichitta is meditating deep.’

You need them both, together, to have a good, solid meditation practice.