Bodhi

Bodhi, (which is Sanskrit and Pāli for “awakening”) can be said to be the highest possible attainment for any being, but it cannot be said to be the ultimate reality, which itself is categorically inexplicable. Paradoxically and figuratively speaking we can say that Bodhi is the mind who cognizes ultimate reality, and this cognition is a non-cognition because Bodhi does not engage in the kind of dualistic consciousness (vijñāna) that characterizes ordinary cognition and its habit of concealing the open-emptiness of settled reality while obstructing the inclusively transcendent reality to come. Bodhi in contrast deeply intimates the indivisible unity of the principles of open-emptiness and inclusive transcendence and remains completely in sync with them.

Although Bodhi is, in essence, embodied gnosis (jñāna) free from all categorical extremes, we can provisionally illustrate (for practical import) Bodhi as the perfect coalescence (unity-in-diversity) of selfless awareness (the “subject” side fully in sync with the principle of open-emptiness) and luminous display (the “object” or “superject” side fully in sync with the principle of inclusive transcendence), which is a yoga or union powered by the irrepressible amorous energy of eros or unconditional love.