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Great Vows for All (fourth of four Teishos, September 2005)

The enlightened way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it.

At the end of every meditation, we chant the Great Vows for All. The fourth line we chant goes, The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to embody it. As I have said, the first line, "Creations are numberless, I vow to free them" is about our intention to awaken all beings. And the way we do that is not to go around selling and convincing others about practice but by our awakening. When I awaken, all beings awaken. Both the second and third lines show us how to do this, and the fourth line is a commitment to never stop in our effort to awaken no matter how long it takes.

The Buddha Way is unsurpassable. Sometimes we chant these vows in English and at times in Japanese. In Japanese it is Butsudo, the Buddha Way. What is the Buddha Way? It's our life. And it is waking up to our life as it is. I read a talk where one teacher interpreted this line as, "Limitless Awakening, I vow to unfold". I like that way of putting it too. As each moment is fresh and new so is our awakening. It's never complete. Our way of seeing things today will be different tomorrow. So we can always deepen and expand our insight.

Every moment is a Buddha Way moment and every activity too except when we identify with our life scripts and beliefs, which is an ego view. This is so because our ego is interested in security and survival. Now that is important, but life is more than just safety and survival. It's more than just self interest. In the name of survival and self interest the ego part of us gives the illusion of permanency and we know just by looking around us that everything constantly changes. We can tell when our ego- mind is activated because our thinking is all about "me, me, and me". My self-interest is based on survival and maintaining itself. And it does this by the illusion that we are separate from the objects of the world "out there". The ego creates this kind of division in perception for survival. It is interested in helping us know a red light from a green one. It is not interested in wisdom or awakening to what is beyond self interest or survival beyond the small self. Something that is boundless and unnamable.

So in chanting this verse we vow to make a determined effort to awaken from the dream of the ego and the holding to our self-image. We do this because to hold on to the illusion of permanency in the face of everything changes means we suffer. And the Great Vows are teachings about how to put an end to suffering. So we vow to continually unfold, breaking open the husk of ego-mind until we see we are the whole world and the whole world is each thing we do. Comparing, competing, endlessly possessing is the work of ego. There is a wonderful poem by Rumi about this called "The One Grain Ant"

"An ant trembles with his one grain of wheat.
Afraid it might lose that,
Not knowing how wide and covered with grain the threshing floor is".
Likewise you are so devoted to your wheat grain body.
That's not all you are!
There's much more
Look around with that other eye!

Sometimes that's us. We have the whole world at our feet and we worry about gaining the advantage, profiting; holding tightly to our self-image, desires and concepts. So we must open the other eye looking deeply into each thing, awakening to the richness of each activity. This is the Way so we chant: "I vow to embody it". The vow to embody the Way is not about attaining. Why? There is nothing to attain that we don't already have, so our effort is to embody as the Way what is already right in front of us which is our everyday life. The Way, our life just as it is. When we put in the effort to look deeply, to penetrate into whatever we are doing, laundry, preparing dinner, helping our children with homework or whatever we see that the relationship involves the whole universe.

So the Buddha Way is our life as it is and the more we can release our image of self and other, step out of our life dream and realize the Way together.

So, there it is. Let's practice with this.

© 2006. Ray Cicetti.