Moses and the Burning Bush, with Moses Removing His Shoes
Attributed to Dierick Bouts the Elder, ~1465

My dear friends,

In the story of the burning bush, Moses encounters a holiness that summons him out of ordinary perception and into a life of compassionate responsibility. From the viewpoint of the Bodhisattva path, the passage describes the awakening of bodhicitta: the mind that sees suffering clearly, hears its cry, and becomes willing to enter the world for the sake of liberation. The Holy Spirit, or mind of Christ, may be understood here as this same awakening movement of love, compassion, and wisdom, calling a person from self-concern into service.

Moses is engaged in the humble work of tending another man's flock when the sacred appears. The Bodhisattva path likewise begins in the midst of ordinary life. The bush that burns without being consumed suggests an ardent compassion and an inexhaustible, illuminating wisdom.

Moses says, "I must turn aside and look." This turning aside is the movement of contemplative attention. In Lam Rim practice, we repeatedly turn the mind away from distraction and toward what is ultimately meaningful: the preciousness of this life, its impermanence, the suffering of cyclic existence, and the possibility of awakening. Jesus gives the same invitation when he calls people to have eyes that see and ears that hear. Compassion begins when we are willing to stop, look carefully, and allow reality to interrupt our habitual concerns.

Only after Moses turns aside does the voice call his name. Attention makes relationship possible. The double address, "Moses, Moses," carries an intimacy that recalls the Christian understanding of being personally known by God, while the response "Here I am" resembles the Bodhisattva's readiness to become available wherever suffering appears. Spiritual practice matures when presence becomes a vow: here I am, with this person, in this difficulty, in this moment.

Removing the sandals expresses reverence, vulnerability, and relinquishment. We do something similar whenever we set aside our usual defenses and approach experience without the hard soles of judgment, entitlement, and self-protection. The Bodhisattva learns that every place can become holy ground because every encounter contains dependent arising, impermanence, emptiness, and the possibility of compassion. Jesus's washing of the disciples' feet reveals the same sanctity of embodied humility and service.

Moses hears the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and becomes aware that he stands within a lineage. Bodhisattvas also rely upon lineage: teachers, scriptures, communities, and exemplars whose realization carries the path forward. Christians remember the "cloud of witnesses" and above all the example of Jesus. Fear may arise in the presence of what exceeds our ordinary self-concept, yet reverence can soften that fear into humility. We do not awaken by inventing the path for ourselves; we receive, test, practice, and embody what has been handed down.

The heart of the passage is God's knowledge of suffering: "I have observed," "I have heard," "I know," and "I have come down to deliver." This is the movement of great compassion. The Bodhisattva does not remain absorbed in private peace while beings are oppressed. Seeing suffering gives rise to the wish that beings be free from suffering and its causes, and bodhicitta carries that wish into committed action. In the life of Jesus, compassion likewise takes flesh as healing, feeding, teaching, defending the vulnerable, and confronting powers that bind people. Moses is sent because compassion seeks embodiment through human hands.

"Who am I?" is a natural question when the needs of the world exceed our apparent capacity. A Bodhisattva does not require a grand identity before acting: one begins with the suffering directly before oneself and with the abilities presently available.

The answer to Moses' insecurity is presence: "I will be with you." On the Bodhisattva path, confidence grows through refuge, ethical discipline, meditation, wisdom, spiritual friendship, and repeated acts of compassion. Christians speak of the abiding presence of God and the Spirit; Buddhists speak of refuge, bodhicitta, Buddha-nature, and the sustaining force of virtuous intention. These are different languages pointing toward a life in which compassionate action is supported by something deeper than the anxious ego's calculation of success.

Moses asks for the divine name because a mission of liberation requires more than enthusiasm; it requires discernment and a trustworthy ground. A name, in this context, is more than a label. It asks what reality we are serving and what quality of mind is sending us into action.

"I AM WHO I AM" resists being reduced to an object that the mind can possess. The words invite contemplation of a reality deeper than our conceptual constructions. Buddhist wisdom similarly investigates all phenomena and finds that they lack fixed, independent essence; they arise dependently and therefore remain open, relational, and ungraspable. This does not make life unreal. It makes compassion possible, because beings and situations can change. The divine name can therefore be heard as a summons to rest less in our rigid stories and more in the living mystery from which wise action arises.

The burning bush asks us to cultivate a mind that can behold suffering without turning away and a heart that can burn with compassion without being consumed. We turn aside, listen, remove what hardens us, remember the lineage of wisdom, and answer the cries of beings with the capacities we have. In Buddhist language, this is the arising of bodhicitta; in Christian language, it is participation in the mind of Christ through the Holy Spirit. The path does not end at the bush. It begins there, when contemplation becomes compassionate action and the words "Here I am" become the shape of a life.