Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (215)

The Parable of the Bright Lamp and the Boat 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 be that illumination, becoming a torch that lights up sentient beings' minds, guiding sentient beings toward liberation and toward the path to buddhahood.

Bodhisattvas make the vow to serve as a boat 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 own family members and relatives, 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 devas; sentient beings in the formless realm, having no physical bodies, crave the comfortable states of meditative concentration (samādhi). 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 boat raft within that river, ferrying sentient beings across and out of the river of craving.