With the Sunday program now up and running - so fun, do come if you can! - we've rebranded this evening a little. I mean it's still Wednesday evening practice but I'm calling it a Dharma Seminar. That means the talks are often in series and generally just our transmitted teachers. I'll do a series or two, Chris will rotate in later in Spring, and we'll see from there.
Sometimes a series of talks will reference a book and everyone will be invited to get ahold of the book, may even be readings in between meetings sometimes, but we'll design it so that it's still interesting if you missed a week. Somehow the Dharma always lends itself to that. Every one point containing every other point and so on.
In the short time with my talks no big changes as I kind of already started this in the Fall with these deep dives into the short chants in our chant books. I've been peeling them back to the underlying Chinese and discovering layers of meaning that sometimes is obscured by translation.
But always even if I get really geeky about it, I always want to remember to stay curious about how what this means for me, for us, as practitioners here and now. How do these ancient texts inform us and support us on our journeys?
The last one of these at the end of November was the chant before the Dharma talk which we just did. One notable discovery there was that the first line, that this is the unsurpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma is a quotation straight from the Lotus Sutra. A cool think about Chinese is each block of characters is kind of unique so you can find these quotes if you're operating in Chinese. In English translation it's a lot harder since a given character can, and should, be translated differently in different contexts. So many shades of meaning backed into one of those little pictograms.
That talk is on the website. There's a section on Chat Book talks. You'll also find solid talks by Hannah and Desiree on the repentence verse and on taking refuge in the three jewels.
So notice we begin an exploration of the four bodhisattva vows. This is such a central and important one that we'll take a few weeks on it and go down to the Chinese together. The Red Cedar translation lab is open for business again!
First, a story.
When I was about 15 or 16 I was browsing in a bookstore in Stanford Shopping Center by Palo Alto, California, where I lived my teenage years. I found a book about Buddhism on a display table and flipped it open out of curiosity. I'd never looked at a Buddhist book at that point I don't think.
It fell open to a page with a verse with some whitespace around it.
I don't know what the exact translation was but something like:
Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
Dharma Gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.
Buddha's Way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it.
It brought me up short. I read those lines several times. I don't think I read the surrounding body of text, just the Four Bodhisattva Vows. I can't remember what I felt or what I thought about them but something there impressed me. Must've since I can remember that moment over 40 years later.
The first thing you notice about these vows is how utterly impossible they are. I don't know that I can save one being not to mention all beings which is what they mean by numberless - every single being.
I have a handle, maybe, on a few of my delusions and I can release from them. Plenty sneak up on me and I fail to release until after I've expressed something grouchy and hurt someone's feelings. Probably the vast amount of delusions i'm toally unaware of as I take the delusion as real.
Dharma Gates could be anything from reading that verse in the book - that was entering a Dharma gate - to navigating a challenging time with a friend, to responding to the insane political situation we live under with some degree of wisdom. and compassion. And there must be a bunch of Dharma gates we pass through when we come here and sit, hanging with our heart-minds and with each other. Boundless for sure - impossible to enter them all but that's what it says we vow to do.
And yeah becoming Buddha. Well, we say the work here is dropping the delusion that we aren't Buddha so there's the usual way every one of these 4 vows also depends on the other 3.
Vow 1 used the important character 度 dù which is usually translated as "save" but as Nelson Foster points out in Storehouse of Treasures ("Crossing Over") that sounds like fixing and solving in English but the meaning in Chinese is complex and layered especially in the context of a Buddhist saying.
Crossing over being code for awakening and reaching nirvana. Crossing over the river of samsara on the raft we build from Buddha's teachinigs.
The ordinary meaning of 度 dù is "to measure"! The left part 广 is a building, the top right 廿 is twenty (an example number?) and the bottom right 又 is a hand. So measuring a building by hand which is 20 whatevers.
The Chinese Buddhist picked it to translate Paramita! If you were here on Sunday we explored how that other great list of teachings for the bodhisattvas, the Six Paramitas, are all about going beyond and crossing over.
The used it for paramita thinking of it's element of Tara to ferry across with the logic if you take the measure of the waters of suffering you have the means to cross over.
So we're not saving people, we're helping them to cross over meaning to understand the the deeper patterns of life and suffering beyond our egoistic frame. Like how we create our own suffering with reactivity and the bubbling up of afflictive karmic seeds being activated by a present moment stimuli. (Not our fault but our responsibility not to replant a negative seed in how we meet that unpleasant moment)
Apparently the first first Chinese translators did a transliteration of "paramita" using 4 different characters until one of them came up with dù and then that stuck.
The Evolution of the Four Bodhisattva Vows
Proto Vows from Zhiyi #1##
The fifth century Chinese Tien'tai master Zhiyi often quoted a four-line verse from the Lotus Sutra (specifically Chapter 5) that connects to the four noble truths and you can see the beginning of the vows in there.
The Grammar: This version uses 者 (zhě) to designate "the ones who" and 令 (lìng) to designate the "cause." It is five characters long (except the last line), making it a bit clunky to chant compared to later versions.
| Line |
Chinese |
English |
| 1 |
未度者令度 |
Those not yet ferried across, I will cause to cross. |
| 2 |
未解者令解 |
Those not yet understanding, I will cause to understand. |
| 3 |
未安者令安 |
Those not yet at peace, I will cause to be at peace. |
| 4 |
未涅槃者令得涅槃 |
Those not yet in Nirvana, I will cause to obtain Nirvana. |
令 (lìng) is the verb here: "to command, order; 'commandant', magistrate; allow, cause"
|
Verse |
Character-by-Character Gloss |
| 1 |
未度者令度 |
未 (not yet) 度 (crossed/saved) 者 (those) 令 (cause) 度 (to cross) |
| 2 |
未解者令解 |
未 (not yet) 解 (understanding) 者 (those) 令 (cause) 解 (to understand) |
| 3 |
未安者令安 |
未 (not yet) 安 (at peace) 者 (those) 令 (cause) 安 (to be at peace) |
| 4 |
未涅槃者令得涅槃 |
未 (not yet) 涅槃 (Nirvana) 者 (those) 令 (cause) 得 (attain) 涅槃 (Nirvana) |
Proto Vows from Zhiyi #2
In his major work, Mohe Zhiguan, Zhiyi formulated his own set of four vows to match the Four Noble Truths. This is where the specific topics we see in the Four Bodhisattva Vows (Beings, Afflictions, Dharma Gates, Buddha Way) first aligned. This one has 8 character lines.
| Vow |
Zhiyi’s Formulation |
Matches Noble Truth |
| 1 |
未度苦諦令度苦諦 |
Those not yet saved from Suffering, cause them to be saved. |
| 2 |
未解集諦令解集諦 |
Those not yet understanding the Cause, cause them to understand. |
| 3 |
未安道諦令安道諦 |
Those not yet at peace in the Path, cause them to be at peace. |
| 4 |
未得涅槃令得涅槃 |
Those not yet attaining Cessation, cause them to attain it. |
| Line |
Chinese Text |
Literal Character-by-Character Translation |
| Vow 1 |
未度苦諦令度苦諦 |
[Not yet] [crossed] [Suffering Truth], [cause] [crossing] [Suffering Truth]. |
| Vow 2 |
未解集諦令解集諦 |
[Not yet] [resolved] [Cause Truth], [cause] [resolving] [Cause Truth]. |
| Vow 3 |
未安道諦令安道諦 |
[Not yet] [settled] [Path Truth], [cause] [settling] [Path Truth]. |
| Vow 4 |
未得涅槃令得涅槃 |
[Not yet] [attained] [Nirvana], [cause] [attaining] [Nirvana]. |
Early Version of the Vows - Platform Sutra #1
In the 8th century version of the Platform Sutra found in the great cave full of scrolls at Dunhuang in the deserts of Eastern China - along the Silk Road we have recognizable Bodhisattva Vows but with an interesting addition.
This is the version of the Platform Sutra translated by Red Pine.
This version is interesting because it includes the "Self-Mind" (自心) and "Self-Nature" (自性) markers within the lines themselves. Huineng here wanted to acknowledge that "sentient beings" are actually an expression of our own consciousness. If you save your mind from delusion, you have saved the beings. And does it in consistent 9-character lines.
| Vow |
Chinese (Dunhuang) |
English Meaning |
| 1. Beings |
衆生無邊自心誓願度 |
I vow to save the limitless beings of my own mind. |
| 2. Afflictions |
煩悩無盡自心誓願斷 |
I vow to cut the infinite afflictions of my own mind. |
| 3. Dharma |
法門無量自性誓願學 |
I vow to learn the boundless dharma gates of my own nature. |
| 4. The Way |
佛道無上自性誓願成 |
I vow to complete the supreme Buddha way of my own nature. |
|
Vow |
Character-by-Character Gloss |
| 1 |
衆生無辺誓願度 |
衆生 (Living beings) 無辺 (limitless) 誓願 (vow) 度 (to save/cross) |
| 2 |
煩悩無数誓願断 |
煩悩 (Afflictions/Kleshas) 無数 (numberless) 誓願 (vow) 断 (to sever) |
| 3 |
法門無尽誓願知 |
法門 (Dharma gates) 無尽 (exhaustless) 誓願 (vow) 知 (to know) |
| 4 |
無上仏道誓願成 |
無上 (Unsurpassed) 仏道 (Buddha way) 誓願 (vow) 成 (to complete) |
An important change here is that the verb 令 (lìng) is replaced with 誓願 (shìyuàn - "I vow to...").
The pivot from "of my own mind" in vows 1 & 2 to "of my own nature" may imply that while at first we think theres is something to alter about our minds, we realize as we enter the way (learning the Dharma and being Buddha in vows 3 & 4) that actually this is about understanding our true nature, not fixing ourselves.
Platform Sutra 2 -> the Modern Version
What became the standard version of the Platform Sutra, the Zongbao Version, was revised in the 13th Century and the final version of the Bodhisattva Vows is found there. This is the version usually studied and chanted especially as before the Dunhuang caves were unsealed in 1900, knowledge of the earlier version was lost to the Zen Buddhist world. (Those scrolls were sealed up and hidden away for 900 years!). This is also the version translated by John McRae and the first complete translation into English were from this later version.
Our vows are found in the "Chapter 6" of later editions and chanted in monasteries. It removes the explicit "Self-Mind" labels to create nicer, rhythmic 7-character meter for chanting it in Chinese or Sino-Japanese.
| Vow |
Chinese (Zongbao) |
English Meaning |
| 1. Beings |
衆生無邊誓願度 |
Sentient beings are limitless; I vow to save them. |
| 2. Afflictions |
煩悩無盡誓願斷 |
Afflictions are inexhaustible; I vow to cut them. |
| 3. Dharma |
法門無量誓願學 |
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to learn them. |
| 4. The Way |
佛道無上誓願成 |
The Buddha Way is supreme; I vow to complete it. |
| Vow |
Character-by-Character Gloss |
| 衆生無辺誓願度 |
衆生 (Beings) 無辺 (limitless) 誓願 (vow) 度 (to save) |
| 煩悩無辺誓願断 |
煩悩 (Afflictions) 無辺 (limitless) 誓願 (vow) 断 (to sever) |
| 法門無辺誓願学 |
法門 (Dharma gates) 無辺 (limitless) 誓願 (vow) 学 (to study/learn) |
| 無上仏道誓願成 |
無上 (Unsurpassed) 仏道 (Buddha way) 誓願 (vow) 成 (to complete) |
This version relies on the practitioner to internally apply the "Formless" teaching. By this stage in Zen history, it was understood that "Beings" and "Self" are not two, so the extra characters were pruned away for liturgical beauty.
So that's a lot of history and geekery into the Chinese and original sources.
What do the four vows mean to you?
