How Bodhisattvas Roam and Play in the Human World

Bodhisattvas sometimes act in plays alongside sentient beings, going along with them, while the actual mental activity of their manas is inconsistent with the play—their manas is absolutely pure, and what they display to sentient beings may appear impure. Why do they do this? In order to gather in and guide sentient beings, in order to deliver sentient beings, bodhisattvas must employ certain means to subdue them. When the purpose is pure and the result is wholesome, the means are beyond reproach. However, if a bodhisattva's manas is not yet purified and still has afflictions, then extraordinary means cannot be employed, because they would accord with the afflictions of the manas and store up karmic seeds. For bodhisattvas on the bhūmis from the third fruit onward, whose manas has already eliminated the manifest activity of afflictions and whose mind-ground no longer accords with afflictions, they may then employ certain means—such as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, false speech, and alcohol—outwardly walking alongside ordinary beings, but in reality in order to subdue them and bring them back to the right path.

If a bodhisattva wishes to roam and play in the human world, he must possess the ability to do so; his mental activity must transcend the human world in order not to be bound and locked up by it. Otherwise he will inevitably sink deep into the mire of the human world, unable to extricate himself. If one cannot even pull oneself out, how can one talk about rescuing sentient beings?

Roaming and playing in the human world is not the same as indulging in the human world. Those who indulge in the human world certainly cannot roam and play within it. Only by neither accepting nor indulging does one have the qualification and the ability to play in the human world. Otherwise it cannot be called playing at all—it should be called being trapped in a prison.