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like to share what he has known. Others are stumbling in darkness; he would like to share his light with them, his love with them.
Subhuti is a bodhisattva. Ananda reports about him also in the same way as he reports about Buddha.
THEN HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT.... Just imagine, visualize, a bodhisattva arising. He is utter awareness. He is not just rising like a robot. Each breath is known, fully known. Nothing passes unknown. He is watchful. What the Catholic tradition calls recollectedness, that is what Buddhists call SAMMASATI -- right mindfulness. Mindfulness or recollection, to be recollected,, to live recollectedly: SAMMASATI -- not to do a single act unconciously.
HE ROSE FROM HIS SEAT,
PUT HIS UPPER ROBE OVER ONE SHOULDER,
PLACED HIS RIGHT KNEE ON THE GROUND,
BENT FORTH HIS FOLDED HAND TOWARDS
THE LORD AND SAID TO THE LORD...
And remember, even a bodhisattva, who has come very close to becoming a Buddha, bows down to the Buddha in utter gratitude.
'IT IS WONDERFUL, O LORD,
IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL,
O WELL-GONE....'
Well-gone means one who has gone to the other shore. Subhuti is on this shore, Buddha is on that shore. Subhuti has come to that understanding: he can see the other shore, he can see Buddha on the other shore. 'O Well-gone...'
This word 'well-gone' has many meanings. One: one who has reached to the other shore. Another one who has reached to the ultimate of meditation. Buddha has said that there are eight steps towards ultimate meditation. One who has reached to the eighth is called 'well-gone'. But it is the same. One who has reached samadhi, the ultimate samadhi, he has gone to the other shore. he is no more -- that is what is meant by 'well-gone'. Gone, utterly gone. He is no more, he is just an emptiness. The self has disappeared, evaporated.
'O WELL-GONE,
IT IS WONDERFUL,
IT IS EXCEEDINGLY WONDERFUL,
HOW MUCH THE BODHISATTVAS,
THE GREAT BEINGS,
HAVE BEEN HELPED WITH THE GREATEST HELP
BY THE TATHAGATA.
TATHAGATA is the Buddhist word which means well-gone. Subhuti says, "How much help has been given,
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