“Shigu Seigan” (Fourfold Great Vow)
Beings are numberless, I vow to free 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 realize it.
These four vows, or a variation of them, are repeated daily in Zen temples, Zen centers and monasteries all over the world. I myself prefer "Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to liberate them," to “Beings are numberless, I vow to free them.” But there you go…
Before I decide to write on something as pervasive as the 4 great vows I usually check around, read a bit of what the Zen and/or Buddhist teachers are saying on the subject, and see if I should even bother writing my blog on it. I have felt an urge to write on this for a while and today I checked out what the Zen masters of the Internet had to say about them.
If any of you internet Zen Masters ever stumble across this blog, listen up!
The first great vow has nothing to do with soup kitchens, contributing to charity or visiting people in mental institutions. You can not free a person or liberate them by paying their bills, mowing their lawn or even feeding them food. These are all wonderful things to do, but they have nothing to do with this vow.
The first and only being you can free or liberate is that amalgamation of delusions you tentatively call “you”. The only way to accomplish this is by the next three vows.
You have within you at all times every one you have ever been and will ever be. These sentient beings reside within you from instant to instant and from life time to life time. Attention: If you ever manage to free or liberate one of these beings then you free and liberate numberless others both past and future.
As Dogen would say, investigate that!
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JMHO, but I see your observations on the first vow as a matter of degree and focus. If I haven't eaten in two days, liberation isn't important. Eating is. Then I might have the ease in which to discover liberation. Running a soup kitchen? So that no one has to be that hungry? At what degree of pain and what focus does it become relevant to liberating sentient beings? My personal belief is that persistent pain wins, especially as it becomes severe. Not the discomfort of cushion time, the gut pain that doubles you up from hunger or illness.
ReplyDeleteRe the other examples, I've done most of them over the years and found them useful to the people I've tried to help. Whether they contributed to their eventual liberation is certainly in question because I was not Buddhist then :) That it demonstrated compassion is a given. That it freed some to consider beyond their immediate world of suffering might be possible.
When I mowed the lawn that one time, I think it did none of the above - chuckle. But they were unable to mow it and I could, so it was a kindness at least :) So again, JMHO, but I see any of those acts as contributing and recognizing where the other person is starting.
It is also noteworthy the ancient buddha's declaration that bodhisattvas are still fettered by the notion that there are beings to be saved.
ReplyDelete---Rev. Taiun M. Elliston
Well said :) That's a fetter that's likely to take a while to loosen for me.
ReplyDelete