Bodhisattva

It is possible for a Bodhisattva to become an Arahant, but it will be extremely hard and take uncountable cycles of rebirth. Bodhisattvas typically vow to save all beings and delay their attainment of Nibbana or Arahanthood. They worship a Bodhisattva who vows never to attain Nibbana or Arahanthood until and unless Hell becomes empty. William Shakespeare said Hell was already empty but it was just a joke.

Bodhisattvas have a lot of compassion, but at the same time they have this clinging or grasping to the vow of saving all beings. The Buddha said there are two kinds of fools. The first kind of fools take responsibility when it is not his responsibility. The second kind of fools don’t take responsibility when it is his responsibility. In this sense, a Bodhisattva is a fool. The Buddha was a Bodhisattva before he found the Middle way and attained Arahanthood, after which he ceased to be a Bodhisattva and ceased all suffering, i.e. no more fear, anger, anxiety, depression, sorrow, grief, lamentations, and despair. He had no more desire, attachment, clinging, grasping, greed, hatred, and delusion. He had perfect virtue, equanimity and wisdom; and he had the mental strength to be unmoved by the Eight Winds: gain and loss, praise and blame, honor and disrepute, pleasure and pain. Self-accountability is not selfishness; an Arahant takes responsibility for his own attainment and also teaches others to do the same. The Buddha was not selfish to attain Arahanthood. He simply chose to attain direct and personal knowledge of the truths before trying to teach others. It is like obtaining an MBBS degree before starting to assume the role of a doctor. There are big differences between believing, remembering, agreeing based on reasoning, awakening, and attainment of the truths. If one is still a Bodhisattva, yet to attain the truths, he must not pretend to KNOW the truths; otherwise, it would be as guilty as pretending to be a doctor when one has yet to complete the MBBS training. A person can declare what he believes, remembers, agrees based on reasoning, and teaches others the knowledge; like applying medical knowledge (such as CPR) to save someone but not pretending to be a doctor. A qualified doctor can do much more; similarly, an Arahant can do much more than a Bodhisattva. Accusing an Arahant as selfish simply exposes the defilement of the accuser for lacking Right Views, Right Thoughts, Right Speech, Right Actions, Right Livelihood, Right Efforts, Right Mindfulness, and Right Concentration. In short, the accuser lacks virtue, equanimity and wisdom.

The Buddha was more than an Arahant because he found the Four Noble Truths all by himself instead of hearing the Dharma from a living teacher. He lived at a time when the true Dharma was lost. He struggled extremely hard, instead of teaching others what he didn’t know directly and personally. Finally, he recalled his many past lives and also Kassapa Buddha (his teacher in the immediate past life) who taught him the true Dharma. An Arahant who attains Nibbana after hearing the Dharma is not a Buddha; but no different from the Buddha in terms of the essence of Nibbana. There will not be another Buddha until the true Dharma is lost again. The next Buddha will have to rediscover the Four Noble Truths all by himself. Waiting for the next Buddha is not better than prolonging the existence of the true Dharma. Wishing for the arrival of the next Buddha simply means wishing the disappearance of the true Dharma. This is very unwise. Hell will become overcrowded before the coming of the next Buddha.