Very interesting passage on the Mahayana version of the Bodhisattva doctrine, as clarified by Paul Williams in Mahayana Buddhism: The doctrinal foundations (Second edition) - a great book that I am now rereading sections of so that I can fully grasp the history and arguments.
It is frequently said in textbooks that the compassion of the Bodhisattva is so great that he postpones nirvana, or turns back from nirvana, in order to place all other sentient beings in nirvana first. Such a teaching, however, appears prima facie to be incoherent, and contains a claim that somehow a Buddha must be deficient in compassion when compared with a Bodhisattva. Viewed logically, if all other beings must be placed in nirvana before a particular Bodhisattva attains nirvana himself there could obviously be only one Bodhisattva. Alternatively, we have the absurd spectacle of a series of Bodhisattvas each trying to hurry the others into nirvana in order to preserve his or her vow. Moreover if sentient beings are infinite, a widely-held view in the Mahayana, then the Bodhisattva is setting himself an impossible task, and no Bodhisattva could ever attain Buddhahood. I asked the late Kensur Pema Gyaltsen, a former head abbot of Drepung Monastery and one of the most learned Tibetan scholars, about this while he was on a visit to Britain. I explained that it was widely asserted in books available in the West that the Bodhisattva does not become enlightened until he has helped all other sentient beings to enlightenment. The eminent Lama seemed to find this most amusing since, as he put it, all those who had become Bodhisattvas would not become enlightened, while those who had not become Bodhisattvas would. He stated quite categorically that the final view is that this is not how Bodhisattvas behave. In Tibetan practice the merit from virtuous deeds is always directed towards obtaining full Buddhahood in order to be able to help beings most effectively. There is never any mention of really postponing or turning back from Buddhahood. Otherwise any Bodhisattva who did become a Buddha would be presumably either deficient in compassion or have broken his vow.
In fact it should be clear that the concept of nirvana in a Mahayana context is a complex one. There are a number of different types of nirvana – the nirvana of the Arhat, of the Pratyekabuddha, the supreme and compassionate ‘nonabiding’ nirvana of the Buddha, for example, not to mention the separate issue of whether a Buddha ever finally ‘goes beyond’ beings and enters some kind of final nirvana (see Chapter 8 below). Generally, certainly once the Bodhisattva doctrine had reached its developed form, the Mahayana Bodhisattva does not postpone or turn back from nirvana. Rather he or she rejects the nirvanas of the Arhat and Pratyekabuddhas, at least as final goals, and aims for the full nirvana of the Buddha. According to Kensur Pema Gyaltsen, if a text states or implies that a Bodhisattva postpones nirvana, it is not to be taken literally. It does not embody the final truth. It may be that it embodies a form of exhortatory writing – the Bodhisattva adopts a position of complete renunciation. In renouncing even Buddhahood the Bodhisattva precisely attains Buddhahood. (pg. 58-59)
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