The Bodhisattva Vows
Robert Aitken
tricycle
The Great Vows, known as the Bodhisattva Vows, probably originated in China
around the sixth century and may have been derived from an earlier
Sanskrit gatha (a four-line verse that sums up an aspect
of the dharma, and is often a vow). At the turn of the eighth
century we find Chinese Zen master Hui-neng teaching their
implications. Today they are recited at the end of services in most
Mahayana centers.
Composed with seven Chinese graphs per line, the
Great Vows are poetically arranged in parallels, rhymes, and
repetitions. The contemporary English translations of the Great
Vows rely heavily on D.T. Suzuki's version, first published in
1935. He used the title "The Four Great Vows," an abbreviation of
the title used by Hui-neng: "The Four Broad Great Vows." The graph
for "broad" implies "for broad dissemination." Nakagawa Soen Roshi
(1908-83) in turn established the title "Great Vows for All" for
his own translation in 1957, and two years later, at the Diamond
Sangha—then a fledgling community in Honolulu—we used this title in
our first sutra book. Today, as we continue to refine our
translation, it is almost the only part of the wording of the Vows
that has stayed the same.
The four Great Vows express aspirations relating
to the Three Treasures of Buddhism: to redeem the sangha, to stop
debasing the Three Treasures, to perceive the dharma clearly, and
to attain buddhahood. As such, the Vows are a recasting in the
Mahayana of the Ti-sarana-gamana, the ceremony of taking
refuge in the Three Treasures, that is found in all Buddhist
traditions.
Shu jo mu hen sei gan
do
The many beings no limit pledge vow carry
across
The many beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
Shu means "the many,"
or "all." Jo is literally "birth" or "spring up," and is
the term for "a being" or "existence." The compound shujo,
"the many beings," is an expanded translation of the Sanskrit
sattva, which also means "a being" or "existence." Shujo,
"the many beings," includes "the vegetable kingdom," as Soothill
and Hodous remark in their Buddhist dictionary, but my reading
would have "the many beings" include all things that
exist.
In other contexts, one finds a compound pronounced
ujo, "with sentience," used as a translation of
sattva. Ujo confines the meaning of "beings" to
"the animal kingdom"—or more probably just to humanity. But it is
shujo, "the many beings," not ujo, that we find
in the Great Vows. Our East Asian ancestors clearly intended to be
all-encompassing; using "sentient beings" in this context, as some
Western centers do, sets anthropocentric limits to our bodhisattva
spirit.
Do is a translation
of the Sanskrit paramita, which has two possible meanings.
The first is "perfection"—the state and the practice—and the second
is "to cross over." Do follows this second interpretation,
and is causative: "enable" (them) to cross over. Some dharma
centers use "enlighten them" and—although bushes and grasses are
evolving toward anuttara-samyak-sambodhi—the implication
of human realization in the word "enlighten" seems, once again, to
exclude the nonhuman.
Beginning students commonly ask how they can
honestly vow to save all beings. It sounds like missionary
arrogance. Hui-neng offers a response: "You are saving them in your
own mind." It is bodhichitta that you are cultivating—your
own aspiration for wisdom and compassion, and your determination to
practice it in the world as best you can.
bon no mu jin sei gan
dan
grief distress no exhausting pledge vow conclude
greed, hatred, and ignorance rise endlessly; I vow to abandon
them.
The Japanese word bonno translates the
Sanskrit klesha, "pain, affliction, distress," and this
term is interpreted by the Chinese Buddhists as "delusions, trials,
or temptations of the passions which disturb and distress the
mind"; also in brief as the "Three Poisons." The Three Poisons are
"greed, hatred, and ignorance," and we settled on this
interpretation as the most specific. "Obstacles" seemed to lack
specificity, while the use of "passions" and "desires" echo
Calvinism rather than Buddhism. Without "passions" we'd be the
walking dead, and without "desires" we wouldn't even be walking.
Dan means "conclude, dismiss, cut," and is rendered "cut
them off" in some Western versions. One community member suggested
that while "cut" has a precedent, it seemed macho. Instead we chose
"abandon them," which implies that these actions were formerly
esteemed—which they were.
Like the first, this second line is about one's own
mind. It expresses the aspiration to "cut off the mind road," in
Wu-men's terminology, to cut the tape of incessant chatter, the
internal monologue that inevitably relates to "how I am, how I was,
how I will be." In the silence that follows, one turns naturally to
the well-being of others, as the Buddha turned his mind to his five
disciples in Benares when he cut his own incessant tape.
ho mon mu ryo sei gan
gaku
dharma gates no measure pledge vow learn
dharma gates are countless; I vow to wake to them.
When our sangha first wrestled with the wording of
the vows sixteen years ago, Stephen Mitchell, who was translating
The Book of Job at the time, suggested that we use the
expression "vast and fathomless," which appears in Job's first
response to Bildad the Shuhite. We omitted the troublesome "gates,"
and rendered the line, "Though the dharma is vast and fathomless."
But in our new version we have reinstated the "gates" because they
really are dharma openings—our chances for realization of the
myriad things that advance and confirm us—when we are open to
them.
Another problem with this line lies in the word
gaku, "learn" or "study," the graph found in compounds
that means "school," "institute," and "student." It is usually
translated "understand" or "master," neither of which conveys the
idea of "being receptive to," which gaku seems to suggest
here. After all, how does one master or understand an opportunity!
This line recalls Zen master Bassui's challenge: "Who is hearing
that sound?" When you are receptive and not lost in thoughts, that
sound, touch, glimpse, or scent is your great chance.
Butsu do mu jo sei gan
jo
Buddha way no top pledge vow become
Buddha's way is unsurpassed; I vow to embody it fully.
Butsu is "Buddha" and
do is "Tao," so Butsudo is the Buddha Tao or
Buddha dharma, the Way of the Buddha, and the practice of Buddhism.
More fundamentally, it would be perennial practice, as set forth by
the Buddha and his successors.
Mujo is literally "no
higher," with jo meaning "top." Gary Snyder translated
this line, "Buddha's way is endless, I vow to follow through." In
our first seminar, we had a hard time with jo. After some
discussion, we settled on "embody," and we added "fully" to give
the Vows a feeling of completion.
This final line is our vow to walk the Eightfold
Path of the Buddha as rigorously and as nobly as he did. This is
the Way that begins with Right Views: clear insight into the
insubstantial nature of the self and all things, the innate harmony
of the universal organism, and the uniqueness of each individual
being. It then extends to the application of these Views in
thoughts, words, conduct, livelihood, lifestyle, recollection, and
meditation.