This talk was originally given in the first few years of the Single Stone Sangha, and some of you were certainly present for it, and have sat for a number of years since then. I hope you will forgive me for telling you a few things that you already well know, though I do think there are some things we cannot hear too often. In addition I’ve changed a few things, and included some things that were not in the first talk. In fact my immediate reason for delivering this a second time is that I would like to make a small change to the wording of the final line of the vows, which I’ll get to a little farther on. Finally, of course, there are some in the sangha now who were not with us when I first gave this talk.
The Four Vows are in fact a chant, something which we generally miss in any of our English versions. I’ve sent you a copy of the Japanese version, and if you’ll follow along I will run through it once just to confirm pronunciation. I’ll then run briefly through words and meanings, and then discuss each line in more depth. Finally, we’ll run through it once before we have questions and comments, and then we’ll end our third sitting period with the four vows as a chant in Japanese.
Shiku Sei Gan Mon
The Four Great Vows
Shujô muhen, sei gan dô;
Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to free them;
Bonnô mujin, sei gan dan;
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them;
Hô Mon Muryô, sei gan gaku;
The Dharma Gates are boundless; I vow to enter them;
Butsudô Mujô, sei gan jô;
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it fully.
As you can hear, it has a wonderfully steady rhythm, like a solemn drumbeat, which conveys the great significance of what we are saying.
And what is it that we are saying? Nothing could be more concise than the Japanese version. It crams so much meaning into a few syllables. Let’s look first at the individual words.
Shujô: 衆生 sentient beings, lit. masses of life
Muhen: 無辺, infinite, boundless
Sei gan: 誓願 I vow
Do: 度 to that degree
Bonnô: 煩悩Delusions, worldly desires, polluting thought, greed hatred, ignorance
Mujin: 無尽inexhaustible
Sei gan: 誓願
Dan:断 Sever, cut off
Hômon: 法門 Dharma Gates
Muryô: 無量without measure, uncountable
Sei gan 誓願
Gaku: (智)（学）know/learn
Butsudô 仏道 Buddha, The Way, The Tao
Mujô: 無上nothing higher than、unexcelled — infinitely high, unattainable
Sei gan誓願
jô: 成 to attain/become it
Of course the advantage of reciting the vows in English is that we readily understand the meaning of the words, which is clearly of prime importance. But as in poetry, there is another layer of meaning, non-intellectual meaning, that is carried by the sound of the words, and by their rhythm. In the case of these vows the rhythm conveys a sense of deep solemnity and significance. I hope that some day, someone will produce a translation that is as poetically effective as the Japanese version.
So now I would like to offer some thoughts on the vows themselves. Here is the translation that we use at Single Stone, including the changed final line.
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
The Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it fully.
So…line by line
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to free them.
To begin with, perhaps a little superficially, it means, of course, that we have found this Way and we want to share it with others, as we have found it to be so beneficial to ourselves. It’s basic evangelism, like that of Christianity and Islam. It’s how the Buddha spent his life following his enlightenment – evangelizing/teaching.
But, when it comes to us, isn’t that a bit presumptuous? We are going to save/free Others — in fact everyone, every being! First, that’s quite a few beings — in fact, if we’re counting, an infinite number. And second, who are we, inadequate, semi-sincere, half-baked practitioners that we are, or that we think we are, to be “saving” people?
Who are we? Well, we’re Buddha. Essential Buddha nature is ours from the beginningless beginning, ours from our very first steps on the Way. It really is who and what we are. Whether you believe in gravity or not, if you drop your tea cup it will fall down, not up. So it is with Essential Nature. Whether you believe in it or not, whether you’ve realized it in a kensho experience or not, it really is you. And its function is compassion, the profound sense of responsibility for the world around us which we discover in ourselves as our practice deepens. How natural a feeling to arise when one recognizes in the depths of one’s empty and infinite heart the oneness of all being!
To go a step further, in realization of our essential nature we see the truth of the Buddha’s exclamation upon his own awakening: At this moment I and all sentient beings have opened their eyes. Compare this with Dogen’s “To study the Way is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by the ten thousand things; when actualized by the ten thousand things, body and mind of both self and others fall away. No trace of enlightenment remains, and this no trace continues endlessly.
The substance of Zen realization, framed in dualistic language, is “All beings are whole and complete in their empty and infinite Buddha Nature from the very beginning!”
Body and Mind fallen away from the very beginning!
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
This world is full of delusion; in fact, this world is delusion, founded on the one basic delusion of the opposition of I and other, a delusion that lives in our desires and our fears, and vanishes when they vanish. “The Great Way is not difficult; it simply dislikes choosing,” said the Third Ancestor. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we long to be free of this fundamental delusion and the “dukkha”, the suffering, that comes with it. We long for “The Great Way”.
The Dharma Gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Perhaps the most obvious view or interpretation of “Dharma Gates” is that they are formal koans. Our first great book of koans is called the Gateless Gate, of which “Mu” is the first. We strive to pass them one by one, about 500 of them in our lineage.
But of course, in a deeper sense we don’t confine ourselves to these formal koans. Life presents us with any number of koans, from problems with relationships to terminal illness, that require penetrating insight, and, ultimately a realization of who and what we are at a fundamental level. Seen in this way, the Gates are truly boundless — numberless, like sentient beings.
And of course, we can say, too, that really there is only one Dharma Gate, the Dharma Gate of this truly boundless, empty and infinite moment. This is the Dharma Gate referred to in the Zen expression, “It is like a spool of thread; one cut and it’s all cut”.
“What is it!?”
“Who am I!?”
“Mu!”
The Buddha Way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it fully.
“The Buddha Way” is the literal translation of the Japanese, “Butsudô”. As Buddha means “Awakened One”, or “Enlightened One”, we could translate “Butsudô” as “The Way of Enlightenment”, or “The Way of Awakening”, but if we understand the actual meaning of the word, “Buddha”, it makes sense just to use it in our English version, and that’s what we do.
I have made one small but important change from the way this line is normally translated, which is “The Buddha’s Way is unsurpassable…”. The word, “Buddha”, can be used as either a noun, “the Buddha”, or an adjective, as in “Buddha Nature”. Here, I much prefer it as an adjective — “the Buddha Way”, meaning “the Way of Awakening”– rather than a noun, as in “the Buddha’s Way”. To me, “the Buddha Way” or “the Way of Awakening” is a perfect term for what we are about when we practise Zen, whereas the Buddha’s Way introduces by way of a proper noun a semi-mythical figure, and so carries a suggestion of devotion, especially to anyone with a Christian background. This to my mind is antithetical to the practice of Zen. While we may deeply venerate the Buddha as discoverer, or at least codifier, of this practice, and while we may be deeply grateful, we do not consider him unique, or a saviour, or a figure to whom we are devoted, but rather an inspiration, model and guide. Among the Zen ancestors there are at least half a dozen who are regularly referred to as Buddhas. I speak from the specifically Zen Buddhist point of view, of course; there are some Buddhist sects that view the Buddha very much as a unique and transcendent saviour, and Zen itself is not above referring to mythical figures – the cosmic Buddha, Vairocana, for example – when it serves a purpose in leading students to realization.
Once on this Zen way, our way of simply sitting, looking inwards, and awakening to the essential reality of our own being, we do not need to be convinced of its value. Indeed, not to be exclusivist, but it is unimaginable that there is any genuine way at all that does not involve insight into the empty, infinite, essential nature of one’s being, whether one considers and accepts it as the ultimately unknowable “it”, or sees it as God’s divine gift of being.
As for “unsurpassable”, at a deeper level, what is it that we awaken to as we follow the Buddha Way? We realize our oneness with the empty, infinite universe. In perfect emptiness, can there be such a thing as attainment? Can there be surpassing, or not surpassing? Can there be anything which we can point to as Buddha, or Buddha Nature? R.H. Blyth was the man who introduced Robert Aitken to Zen when they were interned together in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. When he first met D.T. Suzuki, who was, more than any other individual, responsible for introducing Zen to the West, Suzuki asked him what he understood of Zen. Blyth replied, “As I understand it there is no such thing.” Suzuki smiled and said, “I see you know something of our Way.” Absolutely no such thing!
From the essential point of view:
To return to the chant, there is, finally, the ultimate “meaning of no meaning” when in chanting we become the chant itself, body and mind dropping away. Here there is no meaning at all, just as there is no meaning to a flower, a rock, a mountain or a star, beyond the thing in itself. “I am that I am”, as the voice from Moses’ burning bush put it.
At this level the vows fulfill themselves. The self and the dualistic phenomenal world are all gone in empty, infinite oneness, our essential Buddha nature, the essential nature of every being, manifest as the bright pearl. At this level, with “I vow to free them”, all beings are indeed freed; with “I vow to end them”, all delusions are indeed cut off; with “I vow to enter them” all Dharma Gates are in this moment entered; and with “I vow to embody it fully”, this very place is indeed the lotus land, this very body the Buddha.
