PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

70Pacific Worldbodhisattva, and then manifested itself in initiative (prav®tti) towardaction. 43 The bodhicitta also had an epistemological dimension. As anaspect of the mind (citta), it involved awareness, so that the cultivation ofthe bodhicitta was never far away from the development of insight and thestudy of philosophy. But its most important dimension lay in the realm ofontology. For the authors of the classic Mahåyåna, as for many others, themind was not just what a person knows but what a person is: the bodhicittawas not just an aspiration or a thought but an expression of a person’sbeing. Finally, the bodhicitta pervaded every aspect of the path toawakening. It was a beginning and an end: at the start it may have beennothing more than the first stirring of desire to follow the path toawakening, but even this first aspiration participated in the Buddhamindto which it aspired. It was often compared to a jewel, not justbecause it was precious but because it represented, in its own infinitelyfaceted way, just about every aspect of the life and thought of abodhisattva.While the concept of the bodhicitta had not reached anything like itsfull elaboration at the time of the Sukhåvat∆vy¥ha S¥tras, the texts containa hint of the complexity that lay ahead. The Sanskrit text of the EighteenthVow is not concerned about Ωraddhå. That appears elsewhere in the text.The vow calls instead for the mind of awakening (bodhicitta) and for atrusting mind (prasanna-citta): “…may I not awaken to perfect awakening,if living beings…who generate the mind of awakening (bodhau cittamutpådya), hear my name, and remember me with a trusting mind (prasannacitta)….” It is not surprising that Shinran’s commentary on the experienceof shinjin (the Japanese equivalent of prasanna-citta) should share many ofthe complexities of the bodhicitta. Like the bodhicitta, Shinran’s view ofshinjin has a cognitive component: it involves an awakening to one’sfathomless evil. 44 It is just a beginning, but it anticipates the highest good:“‘To be transformed’ means that evil karma, without being nullified oreradicated, is made into the highest good, just as all waters, upon enteringthe great ocean, immediately become ocean water.” Finally, shinjin representsthe Buddha-mind at work in the mind of the believer: “The personwho attains shinjin and joy / Is taught to be equal to the Tathagatas. /Great shinjin is itself Buddha-nature; / Buddha-nature is none otherthan the Tathagata.”The intellectual and religious kinship between shinjin and the bodhicittais close enough to provide rich intellectual resources for Shin Buddhisttheologians, and it makes it possible to pursue their implications, onceagain, in the sophisticated and critical style of the classical Indian Mahåyåna.The concept of the bodhicitta had deep resonances in Mahåyåna ritual; itwas woven into the narrative tradition of the Mahåyåna; and it was capableof elevated philosophical expression. 45 All the riches of this traditionwould be available to Shin Buddhist theologians, were it not for a percep-