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bodhisattva
November 2007 
Would you prefer to go to heaven, or be reincarnated?
Posted on Sep 26th, 2007
by 
Jean-Francois
Jean-Francois
This is in Response to the Questions and Reflections for September 26, 2007:
I think the bodhisattva way is the best anwser for this question.
You make the wish that you won't go to heaven until any living creature reaches liberation.
That "strategy" prevent your ego to imagine that goal. It's important to do so 'cause you cannot enter in heaven with your ego... The beauty of the plan is that when you really work for the liberation of all living creature, you have many chances to erase your ego and enter into paradise, even if you wish not to go there... That's how you don't get attach to detachment!
But to be effective, your wish has to be totally pure and honest. And the only way you can check that is with your actions... actions that will transform you and will eventually, if you work hard enough, give you the shape of that well-known camel for who it's easier to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter in heaven... (if he's attach to its bank account, doesn't matter if you're rich, it's what you do with your money that counts...).
When you get to face yourself when there's nothing left but your soul, and you really realise that what you did to other people, you did it to you (we're ONE by the way...), the doors of heaven won't open if you didn't diseappear in the support of others all your life through. And when they don't open, you get stuck (again) with yourself and have no choice to come back and try again...
Even tough I really think that this is one of the way it works, I still find it hard to act the right way. But I'm getting better. Hope you do too!
Bye
JF
You make the wish that you won't go to heaven until any living creature reaches liberation.
That "strategy" prevent your ego to imagine that goal. It's important to do so 'cause you cannot enter in heaven with your ego... The beauty of the plan is that when you really work for the liberation of all living creature, you have many chances to erase your ego and enter into paradise, even if you wish not to go there... That's how you don't get attach to detachment!
But to be effective, your wish has to be totally pure and honest. And the only way you can check that is with your actions... actions that will transform you and will eventually, if you work hard enough, give you the shape of that well-known camel for who it's easier to pass through the eye of the needle than a rich man to enter in heaven... (if he's attach to its bank account, doesn't matter if you're rich, it's what you do with your money that counts...).
When you get to face yourself when there's nothing left but your soul, and you really realise that what you did to other people, you did it to you (we're ONE by the way...), the doors of heaven won't open if you didn't diseappear in the support of others all your life through. And when they don't open, you get stuck (again) with yourself and have no choice to come back and try again...
Even tough I really think that this is one of the way it works, I still find it hard to act the right way. But I'm getting better. Hope you do too!
Bye
JF
Access: PublicTagged with: QaR, heaven, reincarnation, Jean Francois Fortier, bodhisattva, Jean-Francois Fortier, Leonardo de Luca
Beautifully put!
Thank you Phil. I owe a lot of my understanding of the boddhisattva way to Chogyam Trungpa. His book Tantras (french title) helped me a lot to figure this out.