The History of Buddhist Thought c24.25

c24.25

This description of the bodhisattva’s career has nothing essentially out of harmony with the older teaching. There is no bodhisattva-worship and the purpose of the whole scheme is to show how the worship culminates in attaining the nature of a Buddha. The bodhisattva in gradually getting rid of moral vices, of desire for existence, and false views, is following the training of the disciple. The difference comes when he decides not to realize the truths under another Buddha, but deliberately to submit himself to a further series of rebirths so that he can in time acquire the virtues and qualities that belong only to a Buddha and become a teacher of gods and men.