Editor's Note: In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is any person who is on the path towards Buddhahood.

The main characteristic of a bodhisattva is her quality of presence, meaning she is fully present in the here and now. This presence is tender, modest, and powerful at the same time. It has a quality of nakedness, as it is not dressed in impressive or outstanding characteristics. A bodhisattva has no personality that draws the attention of TV cameras. A bodhisattva has no personality in the sense of a set of closely knitted character traits that hide one’s inner being. She may therefore be difficult to discover and even more difficult to relate to, as she does not give you an easy handle to get ahold of her.

You cannot push or pull a bodhisattva. If you want to hit him, it’s as if you’re striking thin air. If you want to insult him, there seems to be nobody there to be insulted. And if you want to love him, he eludes all the possessive clinging that love so often entails.

Yet a bodhisattva is very much present. She is there when you just decided to give up on her and you stopped loving, fearing, or looking for her. If she is there, you feel yourself ­surrounded by a loving presence, a kind of energy that you can only feel after you become quiet of wanting it. It’s a healing energy in the truest sense, as it heals the divisive actions of the mind. It’s an energy that fills the fissures and gaps in the heart of humankind. A bodhisattva brings peace into this world not as a political solution, but as a living experience. She is a grassroots peacekeeper, kind yet fearless.

A bodhisattva brings light into this world not out of a crusade against the dark and evil forces, but out of the sheer joy of radiating his true essence in all directions and in every situation.

A bodhisattva brings healing into this world not out of fear of sickness and death, but out of bringing people back to their true nature, their original pureness: the inner light of their own soul, heart, and mind....

Narrated by Marie T. Russell, InnerSelf.com

About the Author

In 1995 he received the Dr. Marco de Vries award in bio-psychosocial medicine and in 2005 he became a knight of the order of Oranje Nassau, an honor bestowed by H.M. Queen Beatrix for his work with cancer patients and disadvantaged children in India.