Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows: Stretching Buddha-Recollection into a Whole Way of Living

7.1 Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows: Stretching Buddha-Recollection into a Whole Way of Living

The last station on the road of buddha-recollection is the Flower Ornament Sūtra.

The home ground of this part is the sūtra's final scroll — the "Chapter on the Practices and Vows of Samantabhadra, on Entering the Inconceivable Realm of Liberation." The scripture opens straight onto a scene:

At that time the bodhisattva-mahāsattva Samantabhadra, having praised the surpassing merits of the Tathāgata, said to the bodhisattvas and to Sudhana: "Good son! The merits of the Tathāgata — even if all the Buddhas of the ten directions were to recount them without pause for kalpas as numerous as the dust-motes of unspeakably, unspeakably many buddha-fields, they could never be exhausted. One who wishes to accomplish this gateway of merit should cultivate ten kinds of vast and great practice-vows."

Samantabhadra has just finished praising the Tathāgata's merits. He turns to the assembled bodhisattvas, and to Sudhana — the youth who has sought his way here through a long pilgrimage — and says: the Tathāgata's merits could not be told to the end even by all Buddhas relaying one another through measureless kalpas; yet if you wish to accomplish this gateway of merit, there is a road. Cultivate ten vast practice-vows: "first, to reverence all Buddhas; second, to praise the Tathāgatas; third, to make offerings extensively; fourth, to repent karmic obstructions; fifth, to rejoice in merit; sixth, to request the turning of the dharma-wheel; seventh, to request the Buddhas to abide in the world; eighth, to follow the Buddha constantly in study; ninth, to accommodate sentient beings; tenth, to dedicate all universally."

Sudhana asks on the spot: "Great sage! How does one reverence — and so on, up to dedicate?" That single question draws out the whole scroll that follows. This part of our book simply walks behind that question.

Not Ten Things, but One Vow-King

Do not rush to take the ten one at a time. First look at what they are when taken together.

People see "ten great vows" and naturally read them as ten good deeds set side by side, like a list of chores: bow today, praise tomorrow, make an offering the day after. But the sūtra calls them the "vow-king" — the king among vows; and when it speaks of receiving them, it says "hearing this vow-king" — one king, not ten items. Ten is the number when they are listed out; received and held, they are one.

What glues the ten into one? A passage repeated, word for word, at the close of every vow. Take the first vow, reverence. Samantabhadra says:

When the realm of empty space is exhausted, my reverencing shall be exhausted; but because the realm of empty space cannot be exhausted, my reverencing has no end. … Moment by moment continuous, without interruption; my actions of body, speech, and mind without weariness.

Only when empty space itself is exhausted will my reverencing be exhausted; but empty space cannot be exhausted, and so this reverencing of mine will never see its ending day — thought joining thought, without interruption, body, speech, and mind never wearying.

Look at what this passage has done. It has taken "reverencing all Buddhas" — a countable thing, done a few times and finished — and turned it into an unbroken river. And this passage returns at the end of every one of the ten vows. The ten are thus strung into a single whole by one same cord: "to the end of future time, moment by moment continuous."

Reading the words "moment by moment continuous," a reader of this book should feel a start of recognition: is this not the very "recollection" we have followed all along? From the recollection of the Āgamas, to the fixed mindfulness of the Pratyutpanna, to the Pure Land's thought never letting go — by the Flower Ornament, "moment by moment continuous" has become the floor under all ten vows. Every one of the ten is a form of unbroken recollection.

Sudhana Walked a Long Road, and Heard the Ten Vows Here

In the scene stands Sudhana. In the sūtra's closing book, the "Entry into the Dharma-Realm," this youth arouses the awakening-mind and sets out to call on good teachers, city after city, beginning under Mañjuśrī and arriving at last before Samantabhadra — the "fifty-three visits" of tradition. The ten great vows are the Dharma heard at that long road's end.

And on that road, he had met "buddha-recollection" already — met it early. The sūtra records that he "traveled on by stages, and after twelve years reached the city of Sthāna, seeking everywhere the lay-elder Vimuktika"; finding him, he prostrated himself full-length. And the gate this elder taught Sudhana was this:

Good son! If I wish to see the Tathāgata Amitāyus of the World of Peace and Bliss, I see Him the moment I wish to.

If I wish to see the Buddha of Measureless Life in His Land of Peace and Bliss — I wish, and I see. Nor only Him: of all the Tathāgatas of all worlds in the ten directions, "whomever I wish to see, I see the moment I wish to; yet those Tathāgatas do not come here, and I do not go to them." The Buddha has not come; I have not gone; and yet we have met. How can this be? The elder says it plainly himself: "I know that all Buddhas, and this mind of mine, are all like a dream"; "I see that all Buddhas arise from my own mind; I know my own mind to be like water in a vessel, and I understand all dharmas to be like reflections in that water."

The reader will know this voice — it is the very lineage of the Pratyutpanna samādhi from Part Three: "it is the mind that makes the Buddha"; no coming, no going, and yet the meeting is vivid. The Flower Ornament keeps it among the early lessons of Sudhana's pilgrimage. Such is the air buddha-recollection breathes in the dharma-realm: in a single thought, to see the Buddhas of the ten directions the moment one wishes — and the floor under that "seeing at will" is still a mind like clear water.

The Long Circle Comes Back to Amitābha

But what moves one most is how the scroll ends.

So vast a Flower Ornament, so endlessly layered a dharma-realm — and where does Samantabhadra finally point these ten vows? The sūtra says: for one who holds this vow-king, at the approach of death everything scatters —

In the final moment, all the faculties scatter and fail, all kinsmen are left behind, all power and standing fall away. … None of it follows any longer; only this vow-king does not depart. At all times it leads the way before one, and in a single instant one attains rebirth in the World of Utmost Bliss.

The body fails, the family scatters, power and treasure cannot follow one step; only the vow-king does not leave, walking ahead to lead the way — and in one instant, one is born in the Land of Utmost Bliss, sees Amitābha Buddha there, encircled by Mañjuśrī, Samantabhadra, Avalokiteśvara, Maitreya and the great bodhisattvas, finds oneself born within a lotus flower, and receives the Buddha's prophecy of awakening. In the closing verses, Samantabhadra vows it in his own voice:

I vow that when my life approaches its end, all obstructions will be swept away; I will see that Buddha, Amitābha, face to face, and be born at once in His Land of Peace and Bliss.

Look — after so great a circle through the Flower Ornament, with buddha-recollection stretched to the whole dharma-realm, the road descends again upon the one Buddha we know best, Amitābha; upon the one land we have walked toward all along, Utmost Bliss. The Ming master Yunqi, in his Commentary with Notes on the Amitābha Sūtra, set down a fine pair of lines on this: "With Mañjuśrī, faith stands first, and the one mind is complete; with Samantabhadra, the vow-king never leaves the present thought." And he records that Mañjuśrī's own verse of aspiration for rebirth runs: "When my life draws to its end, may all obstructions be removed; may I see Amitābha Buddha face to face, and go to be born in the Land of Peace and Bliss" — matching Samantabhadra's verse, he says, like the two halves of a tally. Mañjuśrī, foremost in wisdom, and Samantabhadra, foremost in practice, make the same vow at the end.

Living Buddha-Recollection as a Whole

In the end, the ten great vows do one thing: they stretch "buddha-recollection" from a practice you perform alone into an entire way of living.

By the Flower Ornament, buddha-recollection is no longer only "I recollect my Buddha." It is: to reverence, praise, and make offerings to all Buddhas; to face one's own faults (repentance) and others' goodness (rejoicing); to ask for the Dharma and ask the Buddhas to remain; to follow the Buddha closely in study and to bend low before all sentient beings; and at the last, to pour every merit out toward the beings of the dharma-realm. Between you and all Buddhas, between you and all beings, woven layer upon layer, dedicated without end — and under every strand, those same four words: moment by moment continuous.

The next ten chapters walk the ten vows one by one, a chapter to each. We begin with the first — reverence to all Buddhas — the threefold veneration of the Buddhas opening with the body's bow.