The Most Beautiful Bodhisattva 

by Thich Nhat Hanh

A Bodhisattva is a living being who has happiness, awakening, understanding, and love. Any being that manifests these qualities can be called a Bodhisattva. Bodhisattvas are all around us. Anyone who cultivates love and offers a lot of happiness to others is a Bodhisattva.

Bodhisattvas aren’t necessarily human beings. In the Jataka Tales, the Buddha was called a Bodhisattva, and he sometimes manifested as a deer, a monkey, a tree, or even a rock. These manifestations can also be called Bodhisattva. A tree can be content, happy, and fresh, offering oxygen, shade, refuge, and beauty. A tree can nourish life. It can be a place of sanctuary for many creatures.

When we look at our planet, we know that the Earth is the most beautiful Bodhisattva of all. She is the mother of many great beings. How could mere matter do all the wonderful things the Earth does? Don’t search for a Bodhisattva in your imagination. The Bodhisattva you are looking for is right at your feet. Mother Earth is not an abstract or vague idea. Mother Earth is real — she is a living reality that you can touch, taste, smell, hear, and see. She has given us life. And when we die, we’ll go back to her and she’ll bring us to life again and again. There are people who pray to be reborn in a  place where there is no suffering. Yet they don’t know whether such a place really exists or not. Astronomers have been able to look at many distant galaxies using powerful telescopes, but they haven’t found anything as beautiful as this planet Earth. Where else would you want to go when Mother Earth is so beautiful and always ready to embrace you and welcome you home?

I left Earth three times 

and found no other place to go.

Please take care of Spaceship Earth.

— Walter Schirra, 1998. Astronaut on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo  space flights

We can call the Earth the Bodhisattva who purifies and refreshes the Earth. We can throw fragrant flowers on the Earth; we can also throw urine or excrement on the Earth, and the Earth doesn’t discriminate. She accepts everything, whether pure or impure and transforms it, no matter how long it takes.

The Earth is the mother of so many Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and saints. She is the mother of us all. Although she’s not a Bodhisattva in human form, she has the capacity to give us birth, to carry, nourish, and heal us. She has stability, patience, and perseverance. The Lotus Sutra mentions the Earth Store Bodhisattva, Kshitigarbha. He has the qualities of the Earth: perseverance, solidity, and a great determination. He made the vow to go to the darkest places to rescue beings in the most desperate situations of injustice and conflict. He never relents in his determination to go where he is most needed — to prisons, to war zones, and to the hell realms.

Mother Earth Bodhisattva has the capacity to produce, create, embrace, and bring forth wonderful creations including Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, saints, and holy ones — people who have many skills and talents, and so many other species. When we drink water, we know that this water comes as a gift from the Earth. When we breathe, we know that the air is a gift of our Mother. When we eat, we know that our food is also a gift of Mother Earth. With this awareness, reverence for our planet becomes something very natural.

Sometimes when there are natural disasters, hurricanes, or tsunamis, people blame the Earth and say she is unkind and vengeful. Yet when the Earth provides rain, rivers, and good soil we praise her, recognising and grateful for all that she has given us, and we say that she is kind.  However, the idea of kind and unkind is a pair of opposites that originate in our own minds. The Earth is neither kind nor unkind. She is there in all her stability and solidity, nourishing us with equanimity and without judgement or discrimination. If we look deeply, we can look at her without judgement and discrimination as well.