The Encyclopedia of World Religions

56 S Bodhidharma

tain. There he sat facing the cave wall and meditat ing for nine years. As often happens when meditat ing, Bodhidharma had difficulty staying awake. To alleviate this problem, he is said to have cut off his eyelids. Falling to the ground, they became the first tea plants. (Zen monks cultivated tea to help them stay awake while meditating.) The distinctive approach that Zen takes to Buddhism emerges from another legendary event. Emperor Wu is said to have asked Bodhidharma what Zen was. Bodhidharma replied with four brief statements: It does not depend upon words; it points directly to the human mind or heart; it sees into one’s true nature; it attains Buddhahood. bodhisattva A Sanskrit word that literally means “a being whose nature ( sattva ) is perfect wisdom ( bodhi )”; an important figure in B UDDHISM . The term is used differently in the various Buddhist schools. It is especially important in the schools known as Mahayana. In T HERAVADA B UDDHISM , the Buddhism common in southeast Asia, a bodhisattva is a being who is on the way to becoming a B UDDHA . (A Buddha is a being who discovers the path to enlightenment and NIRVANA . In this school the most important bodhisattva was Siddharta Gautama (sixth century B . C . E .), the Buddha who appeared in this world, prior to his enlightenment. Theravada Buddhists often tell stories about this bodhisattva’s previous lives. Known as jatakas or “birth stories,” they frequently take the form of animal fables. Some, such as “The Monkey and the Crocodile,” have even become children’s stories in North America. Another important bodhisattva in Theravada is the present form of the Buddha Maitreya. Maitreya is the Buddha who will come and usher in a golden age. At the present he lives in a heaven known as Tushita. M AHAYANA B UDDHISM , the form of Buddhism common in east Asia, developed a somewhat dif ferent idea of the bodhisattva. It urges all Bud dhists to strive to become bodhisattvas. According to Mahayana teachings the bodhi sattva path begins when the thought of enlighten

after birth as convenient ( see C HRISTIANITY and BAP TISM ), thus accompanying physical birth with a sign of spiritual birth. In Hinduism, many stages of a small child’s life, such as the first eating of solid food and the first haircut, are marked by life-cycle rituals. In J UDAISM young males receive CIRCUMCI SION eight days after birth in a rite giving the child a Hebrew name and establishing religious identity. A Muslim father whispers the call to PRAYER in a newborn infant’s ear so that the first words he hears are sacred. Birth is also fraught with larger symbolic significance for religion. Stages of the spiritual life, particularly major initiations and religious encounters, are often seen as spiritual equivalents of physical birth, and are full of symbols to that effect ( see INITIATION , RELIGIOUS ). In the initiations of young men in some primal societies, the boys are buried under leaves or left in small, round, womb like huts, and when they first emerge are treated like newborn infants. The Christian rite of baptism is said by the apostle P AUL to represent spiritual death and rebirth. Persons who have undergone profound conversion experiences often speak of themselves as “born again,” as though now doing spiritually what was once done physically. Birth is therefore a continuing presence in human life on all planes of being. Bodhidharma (sixth century C . E .) known in Japan as Daruma; the first patriarch of the Ch’an or Zen school of B UDDHISM It is difficult to separate fact from legend in accounts of Bodhidharma’s life. In any case, the details of his biography illustrate significant aspects of Z EN B UDDHISM . As the following shows, they sometimes resort to extreme events to do so. Bodhidharma is said to have been a scholar of a Buddhist scripture known as the Lankavatara Sutra. He was brought from India to China by Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, a Chinese emperor con cerned with fostering Buddhism. In disgust at the self-importance of the emperor, a violation of fun damental Buddhist teachings, Bodhidharma left the capital and took up residence in a cave on a moun