What makes a vow a Great Vow? Are there any great vows? Are there any meaningless ones?
The Founder of the Five Mountain Zen Order and, fortunately for me, one of my first teachers, the late Ven. Wonji Dharma, told a story of studying kung-an with Zen Master Seung Sahn. During a session, ZMSS responded to one his questions by shouting “You don’t understand! You have no choice.” Asked for an elaboration, the Master said that everything is already determined and that is why he had no choice.
Ven. Wonji Dharma, thinking in terms of Western ideas like determinism, Christian concepts of an omniscient being who already knows everything we will ever do, expressed shock and outrage. Zen Master Seung Sahn told him that it was only when he understood that he had no choice that his he would realize that there is a choice:
Everything has no meaning, no reason, and no choice, and we have our practice to help us understand our true self. Then, we can change no meaning to Great Meaning, which means Great Love. We can change no reason to Great Reason, which means Great Compassion. Finally, we can change no choice to Great Choice, which means Great Vow and Bodhisattva Way.
The Ven. Wonji Dharma did not describe his eventual understanding of this teaching, though he said he did use that quote as a sort of haiku, and he studied it until understanding did come.
Is this a description of the “Enlightened” mind a case of laying it all down in a state of unknowing, of without judgment taking up every single thing until you realize they are all, as in a Seung Sahn poem, One Pure and Clear Thing?
“Understanding is not mystical nor permanent. Like a vow, giving insight the space to fail miserably, but to return again and again to a grounding in one’s insight or vow. Neither True Understanding nor a vow will never protect you from pain nor from your own occasional stupidity. One never escapes the bloody mud of life, especially that which is in our own guts.”
“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape having ill health.
I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.”
(The Five Remembrances, from the Upajjhatthana Sutta)
This idea of only being able to rely on one’s actions, one’s vow, runs like a red thread through the Numbered lists of the Vinaya, through the Paramitas and Four Immeasurables, etc., until it rests most emphatically in the 200 + bhikṣu & bhikṣuṇī Vows.
The meat of the Bodhisattva may find it impossible to remember all these vows: by choosing the skillful, compassionate response in the service or all beings, one can nevertheless embody them in the most crucial way. The daily, minute by minute awareness that leads to those moments in which we see without eyes, beyond words, in which we are just one with the space in which we find ourselves remains the practice no matter how many experiences we have of what some call Enlightenment.
We have no choice to live in the stew of life; the Great Choice involves sitting with a serving within that uncertainty and chaos, that awe and curiosity, all that absurd beautiful, inspiring life we all share in our altogether short visits on this planet.
I take Zen Master Seung Sahn’s teaching to mean that truly, deeply, deeply, the Bodhisattva has no choice. The “How may I help you?” focus of our Seon tradition points to moments of action, of and understanding of what needs to be done, beyond personal choices or beliefs. There is no choice because the situation, relationship, and function of the moment of helping are all one; the Great Choice is the only choice because the personal safety of choice, belief, sense of self, is not in the mix. Is there any good reason for taking on something as absurd as the Bodhisattva Vow? But when you do, that lack of reason become the Great Reason and, should you persist in its practice, you realize that there is no choice, that no choice has become the Great Choice.
This is one of the enigmatic and faintly outrageous vows in the Precepts for ordination:
“Vow to make great vows.”
Master Seung Sahn’s admonishment to the Ven. Wonji Dharma suggests a gate within which we can skillfully work with that one.
So, we Vow to make great vows.
There is no reason. There is no choice.