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The Bodhi tree


by: Ven. Maha Ghosananda

The Bodhi tree is the Tree of Life. When the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree for many weeks in quiet contemplation attained enlightenment. T? You can find a Bodhi tree anywhere in Cambodia, India, even in your garden. The Bodhi tree is called the Great Tree of Life for all that is necessary for lasting peace can be found in the roots, trunk, branches and fruit. The Bodhi tree is a beautiful symbol for Buddhism. We can begin by learning about the Bodhi tree at its roots, which are known as the root of all actions. Three roots are healthy and, thus, generated naturally sweet fruits, generosity, wisdom and radiating love. The other three are not healthy, so naturally produce bitter fruits, greed, hatred and delusion. Bodhi Tree roots extend to the trunk, which is composed of five parts, form, sensation, perception, mental formation and consciousness. These are the components of all physical and mental phenomena, the basic elements of our experience. These five parts are slaves of the senses. They are like chefs preparing food for the senses eat through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. We meditate on the five parties making them the objects of our full attention. Live fully alert is to live without attachment to any of them. The Bodhi tree trunk grows in twelve branches are the links in the great chain of dependent origination. The Buddha saw that this chain was the cause of our painful cycle of birth and death. The branches of the Bodhi tree teach us that all things in life arise through causes and conditions. Ignorance conditions volitional actions, which influence the consciousness, which conditions the mind and body, which condition the six sense doors, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind ", which determine the contact between a door the senses and an object of the senses, which determine the feeling. Every sensation, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, is suffering because the feeling is impermanent. When we are not fully alert, the feeling passes to determine the desire or aversion, which conditions attachment, which determines the formation kammic of becoming, that condition rebirth, which conditions the whole cycle of birth and death once again. The Bodhi tree teaches us how to break this endless chain of suffering. The secret is the full attention. If we use the full attention to observing and controlling the senses, then the attachment can not occur. If the attachment does not arise, then, the suffering can not arise. It's really very simple. We can learn the full attention step by step, throughout our life. Maha Ghosananda, Passo a Passo: Meditations on the Wisdom of Compassion, Vozes, Petripolis, 1993.
Translation: Alejandro P. Lean, Buenos Aires, 2000. Buddhism

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