The heart-shaped leaves of wisdom

Kalyani and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

(Gabrielgs/flickr.com)

The wisdom tree in Buddhism is the Bodhi tree (Ficus religiosa), a kind of fig tree with broad heart-shaped leaves.

Each Buddha in past aeons -- as recounted by the historical Buddha Gautama -- had a kind of tree under which enlightenment was gained. The Sage of Shakya Clan (Shakyamuni) selected the pipal tree to sit under in his final struggle with obstacles, personified as Mara.

In the herbalists' Doctrine of Signatures, a now defunct way of understanding the plant world, foods reveal themselves by similarity to human organs. Carrots look like an eye when sliced, tomatoes red and four-chambered are good for the heart, figs dangling and full of seeds are good for men's health, pomegranates for women's health, and so on.

(Emily Hoang/EHoang/flickriver.com)

 
What was the Bodhi (enlightenment) tree saying by way of signature? The leaves dangled soft and forgiving in front of Siddhartha who sat rigid and determined under the tree. Then he softened. He did an about face and chose the path of serene-absorption (jhana, samma samadhi), the path of bliss.

He had been afraid of pleasure but then reasoned, What is wrong with joy (piti) dissociated from sensual indulgence; why fear such happiness? In this way he entered "absorption," just as he had spontaneously done as a 7-year-old child. He intuitively sensed that this was the way to enlightenment.

He emerged and set up the four "foundations" of mindfulness: body, feelings, consciousness [which emanates from the actual heart area], and phenomena. The various meditative absorptions had purified his heart/mind, intensifying his ability to penetrate to the truth. He followed the links of Dependent Origination pursuing a question that had motivated him for seven years:

"What is the cause of suffering?" He directly saw that whatever was arose dependent on supporting conditions. Following each link back he arrived at ignorance in past lives. He remembered those uncountable existences. he gained supernormal powers. He glimpsed nirvana.

With this insight he experienced a "change of lineage." He went from ordinary human being -- virtuous but flawed, corrupted by greed, hatred/fear, and delusion. He stepped out of the dream (maya, illusion) into the "awakened" state (bodhi). He took the stages of insight to the very end of all suffering.

The way is in the heart; look for it there (zazzle.com)

He became a samma sam buddha, a fully-enlightened teacher able to formulate and teach the path to humans and devas. How? His wisdom did not neglect the heart, compassion for others, loving-kindness, empathy, unbiased-equanimity. The marriage of wisdom and compassion is the path to awakening.

And what is the most famous Buddhist mantra and sutra? The epitome of the Heart Sutra, which is actually called the Heart of Wisdom Sutra (Prajna Paramita).  The Heart of Buddhist Meditation should have been a clue that Theravada feels the same as Mahayana in this regard. Wisdom and compassion are equally important.

The mantra epitomizing the 10,000 lines of the Heart of Wisdom Sutra runs: "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, oh what an awakening, it is sealed!" 

Gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi, swaha!