A person who discovers the direction of his life in zazen, who vows and at the same time lives by repentance through zazen, is called a bodhisattva. This means that a bodhisattva is an ordinary person who has found her direction in buddha, and practicing the way of the life of a buddha.
Our actions are dictated by our karma: we are born into this world with our desires and may live our whole lives just reacting or responding to them.
Ordinary people live thinking only about their own personal, narrow circumstances connected with their desires. In contrast to that a bodhisattva, though undeniably still an ordinary human being like everyone else, lives aiming at the well-being of everyone, as the direction of his or her own life. For us as bodhisattva all aspects of life, including the fate of humanity itself, live within us. It is with this in mind that we work to discover and manifest the most vital and alive posture we can find for living out our life.
To practice Buddhism means to confront and live out the reality of your life, so if some unwarranted criticism comes along, your practice is to live it out by not getting all in a lather over it.
Chapter 7 - Living Wide Awake: Section - The Bodhisattva Vow, page 125, Opening the Hand of Thought by Zosho Uchiyama
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The Bodhisattva’s Path Jack Kornfield
To take such a vow is to set a direction, a sacred purpose, a statement of wisdom, an offering, a blessing. “We are not separate, we are interdependent,” declared the Buddha. Without understanding this, we are split between caring for ourselves or caring for the troubles of the world. When the world is seen with the eyes of a bodhisattva, there is no I and other—there is just us.
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