The Power of Vows

I want to talk about one aspect of cultivation that is very important. It is one of the eight right views that you must hold to be successful in your cultivation. It is not the first—that would be impermanence. That is a given. Without a solid grounding in understanding the impermanence of all conditional aspects of life in samsara, you will not succeed. My Buddha Master would not even consider teaching me anything until He was convinced I understood this. Nor is it the second, which closely follows and that is a firm belief in the suffering of reincarnation, which has as its root impermanence. Likewise for the third view—that of renunciation. After thoroughly understand that all things, including yourself, are impermanent, and result in suffering or dissatisfaction, you must develop a mind that is truly determined to leave samsara. Now you are ready to take the true vows you need to progress and evolve from being an ordinary being to becoming a holy being. And it is the power of vows that I want to talk about today. The other eight views are maintaining diligence, keeping precepts,  practicing dhyana (jhana) and reaching samadhi, and bodhichitta.

I wrote this for a group of lay disciples who were completing their training. I wanted them to take their training into their daily life and work to keep the solemn vows they had taken. Taking vows is an awesome event. It means making the ordinary extraordinary. They already knew from studying how to properly cultivate themselves that it is one of the eight right views you must hold.

First, you must understand impermanence. Then you must have a mind of firm belief in what the Buddha taught about our suffering which has as its root this fact of impermanence. With that as your foundation, you naturally want to leave the cycle of reincarnation. This is the understanding you get from studying and practicing Buddhism. It is with this foundation that you are ready to take true vows like you are doing today. It is holding this mind of true vows that enables you to take the necessary actions to progress with diligence in your spiritual evolution.

My master, H.H. Dorje Chang Buddha III, teaches a special dharma to enable us to use the power of vows to progress that I would like to share with you, but this dharma has not yet been published in English. It involves taking vows before the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but even with them helping you, it is ultimately up to you to keep those vows.

I had another master, a Zen Master, before I met my current guru who talked a great deal about the importance of vows. I first met Katagiri Roshi at the San Francisco Zen Center and followed him after I moved to Kansas and he was at the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center in Minneapolis. He also often spoke of living by vow. He said that the wholehearted practice of meditation is itself living by vow. He said that when you live by your vow to help all beings, “Then the great energy of the universe supports you and you take one step toward the future with all beings.” To me, that “great energy of the universe” is another way of experiencing or expressing the way the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas help you.

Just before Katagiri died he wrote his final verse:

“Living in Vow, silently sitting

Sixty-three years

Plum blossoms begin to bloom

The jeweled mirror reflects truth as it is.”

When I read that, I retrieved my Rakhasu and tried to read the poem he wrote for me when I took vows to become his student and receive my first Buddhist name. I found it was all in Japanese, so I couldn’t read it, but as I remember it, He said: “Although you do not understand, the World unfolds exactly as it should.” I have used that many times when I faltered or became confused. I now know that karma never fails and things do turn out according to what you do—What you think—what you say. But I also now know that you can manage your karma and change those outcomes through the power of your vows and how well you carry them out.

I want to close with a definition I just found of a bodhisattva: “Ordinary people are those who live being pulled by their karma; bodhisattvas are those who live led by their vows.”

So, I pray that we all go forth and live by the vows we take. May we all become greatly accomplished and help many living beings.