Vows and Waking Up

[Leslie]

Probably others who have practiced for a long time has experienced the convergence of their vows to awaken and their marriage vows. What is striking me today is the power of the vow itself. Several years ago I wrote down quotations from spiritual teachers as I was reading their books and I frequently am drawn back to a book Norman Fischer wrote, "Taking our Places, the Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up". Below is what he has to say about vows.

"When you vow, you get in touch with and give yourself completely to what matters most:the experience of receiving an inner calling and answering that calling with your whole life".

"Vows are energies. Vows are aspirations. They are larger than life. Endless sources of inspiration, vows differ from goals, which are limited in scope. Goals can be met. Vows can be practiced but never completed, for they are essentially unfulfillable and it is their very inexhaustibility that propels us forward, opens us up, shapes our desires and actions."

"Insofar as vowing sets us on a course of action beyond what we may desire or can control, it is always challenging. The dictates of our vow may well run counter to our wishes and apparent self-interest. Being true to our vow may force us into difficult decisions or heroic actions. Vowing opens us up to self-transcendence and destiny. It is a path that could easily involve hardship."

"Only something as thorough-going as vowing is strong enough to overcome our deep underlying disappointment and dismay about how life really is."

What is your experience with vows? How have your vows to wake up and your vows to others in your life interconnected? Do you have some vows that you would like to share that have been inspiring to you?

I have found that when things seem the most challenging is just before I open to a new level of freedom. Vows have been a big part of keeping me going through these challenges.

[Jonathan Gaines]

Regarding vows, are there not fetters for the mind? Taking vows may be useful for some, and at the core of the path of Sutra...they can run into the hundreds and are designed to free the practitioner from any and all tempetaions or wong actions.
In relationships they are rather popular. However they are artificial and when one party wants to blame the other for breaking the vow then the big fight begins. If folks who have the capacity and interest can live in the moment, without vows, ealizing mistakes and all as being part of the process of living, then one (or both) can adjust w/o having to respond to the Blame Game that seems to destroy good will and affection.

[Janet]

Jonathan, you ask whether vows are not fetter for the mind. I think it is useful to look at the intentions we have in forming a vow. A vow that attempts to simplify life by giving us a formula for steering away from temptations and mistakes seems likely to be based on aversion and fear. Sometimes we take vows to escape from situations, to attempt to conform to conventions, or to appease others. These kinds of vows are often fetters, and, as you say "artificial."

But vows can be of another type. The kind of vow that naturally arises as the clear expression of one's own heart-felt intention isn't a fetter, but as Norman Fisher says, a source of energy, guidance and inspiration.

Vows that spring from clear knowing can be a source of strength even when life is chaotic. When I was very young and witnessed parental violence, I vowed not to pass their anger on to children of my own. When I formed this intention, it was a very narrow vow. I just knew that I couldn't bear to grow up to do exactly the harm they did, to have children and abuse them. But the vow had a life of its own, and it grew over the years. It kept me investigating anger and aggression, considering how it worked on me and in me (and on and in others). I kept looking for a way to end its grip. As I matured and saw the varieties of anger and resentment in myself, I could no longer be satisfied by just not mistreating children. The vow broadened to a vow that the cycle of aggression and suffering end with me.

This vow became a touchstone for making life decisions. Might this action help me to become a source of peace? Might doing this work toward ending suffering for myself and others? In a mysterious way, the vow guides me toward what might help answer my questions about suffering and the end of suffering. The vow doesn't insulate me from responsibility or ensure that I don't make mistakes. The vow shines light on a path. If I have the courage to take that course, the path takes me deeper and deeper.

[Loren Enders]

Vowing to remain in Samsara as long as sentient beings remain. That one can propel you through so much but at the same time Samsara is horrific and never-ending so it is also pretty scary. A great equalizer.

A vow (pledge) I have made is to recite the Sutra of Golden Light. I have vowed a 100 recitations and it makes me laugh because when I am done with that I am going to do 1,000 or 10,000. And if I die before they are done Lama Zopa Rinpoche is going to have to find me in whatever hell/animal/human realm or pure land I am in and give me the text so I can keep my vow and finish. LOL, I hope I don't have to memorize all 21 chapters.

[Loren Enders]

The interconnection of my vows with others and my own personal vows interconnect but in a raw and learning manner. If I had put as much zeal into my marriage vows as I have in the Bodhisattva Vow I think the marriage could have been a healing and growing experience. But by learning from the first I am learning just how important it is to honor all vows and also how important service, love and each of us really are.

[Jonathan Gaines]

Regarding the comment "Vowing to remain in Samsara as long as sentient beings remain. That one can propel you through so much but at the same time Samsara is horrific and never-ending so it is also pretty scary. A great equalizer."

Perhaps consider;

The Boddhisattva who attains full realization is longer in Samsara, no longer suffering delusion, no longer subject to attachment and being conditioned by sights, sounds, emotions. Thus the horrific experience(s) attending those immersed in Samsara are not experienced by the accomplished Boddhisattva. The vow here is, upon attainment, to remain available to those immersed in the experience of Samsara....to be in the world but not of the world.

Compassion for the Boddhisattva thus arises naturally, unconditionally. Being free of Samsara's effects they can act accordingly.

As practitioners who say "we have taken this vow, it is a spiritual commitment. We may fail time and again in our undying effort to attain self realization, to fulfill the vow, but we can never lose heart, and gradually with some actual experience of Nirvina (The bliss therein) and attendant lessening of Samsara effect we gain confidence in the path as well as the fruit.

As practitioners we might say attaining our fully enlightened state is the Supreme Vow and the reason for all other vows.

Tashi delek!

[Loren Enders]

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

[Loren Enders]

"Gaining confidence in the path as well as the fruit."

[Greg]

I have been lurking over this topic for a while ruminating over what to write and how involved to get with this topic. What the hell, I will jump in with this.

Vows are tricky. I have a lot of respect for Norman and no quarrel with his description. I do have a different view of vows however.

There is only one manner in which a vow matters for me. To vow is to bind. Refuge in the Three Jewels is a binding of being with the shelter of knowledge, practice and accomplishment of the four levels of the Jewels, outer, inner, secret and suchness. Along with that is binding of being with the bodhisattva ideal, commitments to awakened mind. As far as vows go that is it. If I were a monastic there would be the addition of the Vinaya, but I am not.

There are pledges, commitments, promises and a myriad of other engagements which I enter into, both personal and interpersonal; but I reserve the vow to those two aspects mentioned above. To bind to other aspects of the display and engagement of life feels so counter-intuitive these days. That does not mean commitment is not there, it is; however, it is placed in an understanding of change, of unraveling when it becomes used up.

So when it comes to vows the question comes: What is there that I, and that is meant in the dualistic sense, can truly benefit from by binding.? This is how I see vows as being tricky. The object of binding better damn well be effulgent with potential for unbinding.

As David Byrne wrote and sang
This isn't my beautiful house
This isn't my beautiful wife
what have you done?

Commitments on the other hand are rich with possibilities especially spiritual partners and teachers. As I like to say, relationships are provocative! Maybe more about that later.

G

[Bill Gardner]

I find vows to be a great support for practice. I can get ambivalent, but the vow protects me. It's fetter, I guess, but one that I seem to need.

[Greg]

Hi Bill,

This long wordy missive is not so much in response to your post as inspired by it. I understand what you mean. Vows have been very important for me. Vows are not fetters as I see it. I do have a mountain of commitments that are fetters however. It has been important for me to distinguish between commitments, pledges and vows.

I have been called ambivalent, for reasons other than practice and I don't practice like my hair is on fire either. I did catch my hair on fire once accidentally. I swore I would never do that again, but that's not a vow.....

How did Mila put it regarding effort or discipline?

For effort, nothing to do,
Other than practice continuously

This is interesting within the context of the vow. Practice embraces a rich spectrum of thinking and activity. The very difficult part is giving up the familiar ground that supports the ego and self-identification with the things we are accustom to. In giving up we become a refugee much to our discomfort, paranoia and fear.

The refuge vow is a covenant and by force of volition we bind to the promise that the methods of the path will shelter, protect and support us as our confusion is acknowledged and we surrender ego to the ground of dissolution. There is that fearful divide where fundamentally we discover that no one else can help us, it seems we are alone and homeless. It is possible to feel the protection of refuge deeply, this reliance that comes from a vow and its binding. This is no fetter, it might well be said to be a life ring. Being present in the fearsome journey of the refugee with a support of protection and shelter is truly the foundation of Dharma. [not to be confused with therapy!]

The refuge vow is acknowledgement of our buddha like potential, trust in a path for its accomplishment, and a reliance on the noble beings that we learn from and expose our neurosis to. By our volition we create a bond, or bind, on an inner level to an idea. By experience we gather faith, trust and then confidence in that idea. The resulting effect of the vow is a touchstone of reliance in the face of uncertainty. With the protection of the refuge vow, we can experience and undo clinging to superiority and self-preservation.

The next step is the awakening of basic intelligence and bodhisattva vows. Through meditation, recognition comes that while we work with our confusion alone, we are not alone; we depend on others. We can recall this notion in Geshe Langri's Eight Verses.

The vows of the bodhisattva comprise a commitment to awaken for the welfare of others along with behaviors and attitudes that are example prescriptions on how to act in a noble way. The Six Paramitas and the enumerated bodhisattva vows are such examples. By this vow we bind to the idea that the nature of being is awakened mind and all things are equal ness therein; our pain, delight, confusion, intelligence and so on. By volition we aspire to recognize and exhibit the bodhisattva qualities day in and day out. We recognize that we have something to give rather than take and grasp. We do not need reassurance. The mentality of poverty gives way to abundance. The aspiring bodhisattva delights in the richness of experience rather than theory of thinking and meditation games. There is a fearlessness to engage our human nature and that of others.

For me these two vows are support for being in a way that allows an ingrown discipline of practice of daily life, and while I can make no claim, Mila certain could proclaim: Nothing to do.

Quite possibly there is no spiritual practice except to step out of self deception. These two vows; and there is much subsumed under them; takes care of acknowledging the ground of confusion, the path where chaos and sanity lose distinction, and the richness of being is the natural state.

[Bill Gardner]

Thanks, Greg. Your post is, as always, informative and inspiring.
Thinking more... I view the lay precepts (not killing, lying, stealing, misusing sex, or taking intoxicants) as protections. Simple rules that keep my life in order, and keep me safe. The Bodhisattva vow and the refuge vow and like a compass: I can get oriented by reviewing the elements of these vows. I do not necessarily know where I am, but knowing which way North (Compassion) is is a good start.

[patrick winata]

Hi Greg and Bill,
I always took vows and silas , but at the same time realizing that some of them may be unavoidably or inadvertantly broken. But no fear , because even one of the greates Siddhaa = Atisha admitted that he
broke so many himself.
The more important things, I think , is the practice of getting to the goal that our vows are taken for.
I am somehow amused while looking through the webs and quite a few discussion groups, that so few people really get down to the real practices e.g. the Heart Sutra , the Mahamudra and the Powa etc.
I will be more delighted to see more details and findings of practitioners; experiences and successess.