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THE WAY OF THE BODHISATTVA
tion) to the standards and world vision of the passion-bound, cgo-ridden, common individual who has presented the demand. The supreme and especial test of the Bodhisattva is that of his readiness and power to expand, time and time again, in boundless giving (dāna). This requires of him a continuous abdication-ur rather, nonexperience-of ego. Any reaction of shrinking back, even from a nonsensical sacrifice, would confirm and harden a nucleus of ego-consciousness; whereas the whole sense of Bodhisattvahood is that the limited and limiting ego has cvaporated. To suppose that a Bodhisattva should give an absurd demand his second thought-or be the least reluctant to abandon body, life, family, and possessions-would be to ask him to show himself as one who subscribed to the intrinsic value and substantiality of things; and this would imply that on the transcendental plane, which he represents, something of the earth is admitted to have a valuc-one's body or possessions, kingly rank, queen, children, or honor-whereas, on that plane, all things are known to he ephemeral, phenomenal, and so, in reality, noncxistent. Resusal or resistance would throw a candidate for Bodhisatvahood back into the sphere of the unessential and immediately cut him off from true reality. He would no longer be an aspirant to enlightenment, one "whose csscnce (sativa) is (virtually) enlightenment (bodhi)," but, like the yogi transfixed by the allure of a seductive heavenly damsel, would have been tempied, tricked, and returned to the realm and multitude of "ordinary beings" (prthagjana).
The aspirant to Bodhisattvahood must strive to behave as though he were already completely without cgo; just as a pupil in any art (the dance, for example) must try to act as though he were already a master of his skill. The nonexistence of all phenomenal values on the transcendental plane must be unremittingly anticipated in both thought and conduct, and the point of view of absolute wisdom relentlessly exercised in numberless acts through numberless lives. In this manner wisdom is incor
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