Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘It is not that you attain buddhahood yourself and then liberate beings; it is in order to liberate beings that you yourself seek to become a Buddha. And it is not to attain buddhahood yourself that you liberate beings; it is for the sake of living beings that you practice the way of Buddhas everywhere.’ (The Undying Lamp of Zen)

This is a very traditional articulation of the call to action for the bodhisattva – I have been reading enough to the Diamond Sutra recently to have in mind that thinking that we liberate beings is not liberating beings or manifesting as a bodhisattva. By letting go of the concepts and the sense of attainments, then things happen.