Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (215)

The Metaphors of the Bright Lamp and the Raft

Bodhisattvas make the vow to serve as illumination throughout the long night. In the dark long night of sentient beings' birth and death, who will provide the illumination? Bodhisattvas should resolve to provide that illumination, becoming a torch that lights up sentient beings' minds, guiding them toward liberation and along the path to buddhahood.

Bodhisattvas make the vow to serve as a raft in the river of craving. Ordinary sentient beings are all drowning in the river of craving of birth and death: sentient beings in the desire realm crave their family members and loved ones, as well as the five desires and six sense objects; sentient beings in the form realm crave the wondrous states of the heavenly realms and the celestial bodies of the devas; sentient beings in the formless realm, having no physical body, crave the comfortable states of meditative concentration. All of these are forms of craving, and because of these cravings, sentient beings cannot escape the three realms, drifting and transmigrating in the river of craving of birth and death within the three realms. Bodhisattvas must therefore make the vow not only to free themselves from the river of craving, but also to become a raft within that river, ferrying sentient beings across and out of it.