The bodhisattva’s career begins with the arousal of the “awakening mind” (S. bodhicitta), the initial aspiration to attain perfect and complete awakening and save all sentient beings. The bodhisattva’s determination is currently expressed in East Asian Buddhism by the four great vows from the Bodhisattva Practice Jeweled Necklace Sūtra (probably composed in China in the late fifth century) that were popularized by Zhiyi (538-597), the founder of the Tiantai school. The four great vows are the general vows that all bodhisattva’s take, though some bodhisattvas in the sütras are credited with more specific vows. These four great vows are as follows:

Sentient beings are innumerable:
I vow to save them all.

Our defilements are inexhaustible:
I vow to quench them all.

The Buddha’s teachings are immeasurable:
I vow to know them all.

The Way of the Buddha is unexcelled:
I vow to attain the Path Sublime.

In order to fulfill these vows the bodhisattvas must transcend the insight and spiritual maturity of the two vehicles: “And if a bodhisattva is unable even to realize the level of a śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha, how much less can he know perfect and complete awakening!” (adapted from Conze 1984, p. 105) Though the bodhisattvas’ training encompasses that of the two vehicles, the bodhisattvas must beware of grasping at the concepts the two vehicles use to analyze reality (like the four noble truths, the five aggregates, or the twelve links of the chain of dependent origination) as though they were actual things, nor should they fall into the individualized nirvāṇa of the two vehicles. Instead they must develop skillful means (S. upāya) and the six perfections (S. pāramitā) in order to attain buddhahood for the sake of all beings. Skillful means is essentially the same things as the perfection of wisdom. “But what is this skillful means of a bodhisattva? It is just this perfection of wisdom.” (adapted from Conze 1995, p. 250) The perfection of wisdom is the insight that all phenomena (called dharmas in Buddhism) are empty of an unchanging independent selfhood or essence and therefore there is ultimately nothing to grasp and nothing to reject. “The non-appropriation and the non-abandonment of all dharmas, that is perfect wisdom.” (Conze 1984, p. 102) This insight is the origin, guide, and culmination of the other five perfections: generosity, morality, patience, energy, and meditation. Under the direction of the perfection of wisdom the development and application of the other five perfections become skillful means for the sake of all beings rather than for the sake of gaining worldly benefit or the attainment of the Hinayāna nirvāṇa that abandons the six worlds.