@Mikeal Rogers

All bodhisattva, mahāsattvas should master their mind like this

Red Pine has a slightly different translation compiled from several differing versions of the Sutra: “those who would now set forth on the bodhisattva path should thus give birth to this thought.” I bring this up only to emphasize that this is an active practice, the bodhisattva generates this thought which leads them on the path.

This aligns well with Asanga, who says “the generating of [enlightenment] mind is [a mental state] whose aspect is [a form of] desire.” More on this later.

Of all kinds of sentient beings; whether born from an egg or a womb; born from moisture or by metamorphosis; whether with form or without form; whether with perception, without perception, or neither with perception nor non-perception; I cause them all to enter remainderless Nirvana, thereby liberating them

The idea of “sentient being” is, like all ideas, of the mind. We are asked to work through the list of all that we consider a being, to activate every differentiation we make between types of beings in order to fully understand that they all must be held by the bodhisattva vow.

A more liberal western translation might read something like “whether mammal, reptile, insect, bacteria, fungi, ghost or Santa Clause.” When you establish the vow it needs to encompass all that your mind differentiates as a sentient being. Why? Soon we’re going to be told that there are no sentient beings at all, so why go through all the work of listing them and thinking about them?

Tseng Feng-yi says, “Someone once asked Tsung-mi, ‘The sutras tell us to liberate beings. But if beings are not beings, why should make an effort to liberate them?' Tsung-mi replied, 'If beings were real, liberating them would require an effort. But as you say they are not beings, so why not get rid of liberating and not liberating?' The questioner then asked, “The sutras tell us that the Buddha is eternal, but they also say he entered nirvana. If he is eternal, why did he enter nirvana? And if he entered nirvana, he is not eternal. Is this not a contradiction?' Again, Tsung-mi answered, Buddhas are not attached to appearances. How could their appearing in the world and entering nirvana be real? Pure water has no mind, and yet there is no image that does not appear in it. Nor does the image have a self.' These two questions and answers explain the profound meaning in this section.” [From “The Diamond Sutra” by Red Pine.]

We, in our ignorance, say the Buddha entered Nirvana. We create the image of the Buddha as a living being, in the past, and we imagine him entering Nirvana and then leaving Nirvana. All of it, every part of it, is imagined in our minds as we read the words “the Buddha entered Nirvana.” But that’s not the Buddha, only an image of a being we imagine to be the Buddha, and since this image is painted by the mind it is colored by the mind and the Buddha becomes what we aren’t, what we seek to be, all our aspirations personified into the form of a being close enough to what we imagine ourselves to be that we might become him someday.

In the same way, we imagine all sentient beings, even the beings in front of us are only a reflection of ourselves as an image we hold as that person. All of these beings must be held by your bodhisattva vow so that Buddha can liberate them.

characteristics of a self, an individual, a sentient being, or a living thing, then they are not bodhisattvas

After listing all types of sentient beings a moment earlier, this passage lists the different manifestations of mind that we use to separate self from other.

These are our attachments to our imagined nature and the reflection of those attachments attached to the self-nature we ascribe to others. How could they be anything else? They arise in our mind, they come from nowhere else but the mind, but we imagine them to be “out there” in the material world, and in doing so we reify our own sense of self as being similar but in some way differentiated from other.

This passage is also an instruction for how to use the vow.

the generating of [enlightenment] mind is [a mental state] whose aspect is [a form of] desire. Moreover, the generating of [enlightenment] mind develops its desire by relying upon both enlightenment and the welfare of sentient beings as its objects; it does not do so in the absense of [these two] objects. Therefore, the generating of [enlightenment] mind possesses both enlightenment and the welfare or sentient beings as its objects.” — Asanga, Bodhisattvabhumi

The vow contains your own enlightenment and the enlightenment of all sentient beings with the express purpose of freeing you from differentiating self from other.

The vow includes all manor of sentient beings so that we can generate enlightenment mind without any requirement to separate self from other. Until we are fully realized Buddha’s we will continue to make the mistake of differentiating self from other. The bodhisattva vow allows us to generate a desire for enlightenment free from this differentiation.

We do this by holding all the differentiated beings of mind as one, along without our own sense of self, and generating a resolve for liberation as one. While this liberation takes place in the mind it cannot be thought of as taking place in a mind as that would differentiate what is in the mind from what is “real.” The resolve must expand to your entire experience of reality itself until all beings are liberated, even though no being has been liberated because liberation is the absence of any such attachment to being.

As always, the path to liberation is accomplished by no longer clinging to what is not already liberated.