The Vow Has a Seat of Its Own

3.1 The Vow Has a Seat of Its Own

The Avataṃsaka Sūtra records a scene that, at first sight, makes no sense.

A bodhisattva cultivated to the eighth ground—named the Immovable. The sūtra strikes a simile: a man taking ship for the great ocean must, before he reaches open water, labor at every point—poling, rowing, hauling sail; but once out on the sea, he simply runs before the wind, no human strength needed, and one day's sailing outruns many days of the earlier toil. So it is with the bodhisattva of the eighth ground: he has entered the realm of "effortlessness," where what he does no longer waits on exertion but comes about of itself; his mind is quieted to its depths, settled beyond settling, scarcely a paper's thickness from nirvāṇa.

By rights, one cultivated to this point should have nothing left to be anxious for. Yet the sūtra records: at just this moment, the buddhas of the ten directions appear together before him. They speak, and first they confirm him—well done, well done, good son; this acceptance is foremost, in accord with the dharmas of the buddhas. Then, at once, the words turn:

"Though you have gained this quiescent liberation, the ordinary beings have not… you should think of such beings with tender concern. And again, good son: you should be mindful of the vow you first made—to bring great and universal benefit to all beings, and to lead them all into the gate of inconceivable wisdom."

You have gained the quiescent liberation; the ordinary beings have not. You must remember the vow you once made—the vow to bring vast benefit to all beings.

Please pause here. A great bodhisattva, arrived at effortlessness, nirvāṇa within reach—and the buddhas come in person, not to teach him a deeper dharma, but to remind him of one thing: do not forget your vow.

This scene forces a question into the open: what kind of thing is a vow, that even one cultivated to the highest places must still be wakened by it?

Among the Ten Perfections, the Vow Sits Eighth

To answer, look first at the vow's standing on the bodhisattva path.

Most students of the Buddha know the six perfections: giving, discipline, patience, effort, meditation, prajñā. But the Mahāyāna treatises keep a fuller list—the ten perfections. After the six, four more are established: skillful means, vow, power, knowledge. These latter four assist and complete the former six; and "vow," in full standing, holds the eighth seat.

The seat was not given for nothing. The treatises say that for any of the ten to be called a "perfection," it must pass one and the same test: it must bear maturing across three great incalculable aeons, its own nature must be supremely pure, and it must be able to secure the consummate fruit of unsurpassed awakening. The vow entered the list by this same test, exactly as giving and prajñā did—not carried in on anyone's coattails.

Then what is the native character of this perfection? The Yogācārabhūmi gives it in one line:

"Longing for the knowledge that lies further and further ahead, in its excellence—this is to be known as the perfection of vow."

Longing is the leaning of hope; the knowledge "further and further ahead" is the wisdom always one stretch beyond. The vow's native character is a mind forever leaning forward—it does not turn back to count what it already has; it looks always at the place not yet reached.

The Cheng Weishi Lun, for its part, divides the vow's content into two faces:

"Vow is of two kinds: the vow to seek awakening, and the vow to benefit beings."

One face turned upward, seeking awakening; one face turned downward, benefiting beings. Seeking above, transforming below, both wheels complete—a mind that can hold up both faces at once naturally carries the standing of a perfection.

Pāramitā Means "Crossing to the Far Shore"

Here the word "pāramitā" itself must be looked at squarely, or the vow's place cannot be seen true.

Pāramitā means, at root, "crossing to the far shore"—from this shore of birth and death, over to the far shore of awakening. Some explain it as "perfection," "completion," and in the sense of "cultivated to the utmost" that reading also passes. But when it comes down to the perfection of vow, it is the "far shore" reading that fits. For the vow's native character is precisely "not yet arrived"—what it longs for is the knowledge further ahead; what it draws toward itself are the conditions still to come. The treatises say the vow's office is to "draw in the excellent conditions that are to come": for the practice not yet arrived, it reaches ahead and lays the conditions out in advance.

"A completed vow" is very nearly a phrase that cannot be said; the vow's whole office is to lean, always, toward the not-yet-reached. So the vow is the strangest of the ten: its fullness lies not in having arrived, but in facing the far shore without cease—it is the perfection of the not yet across.

The Eighth Ground Is Exactly Where the Vow Is on Duty

Once this layer is clear, look back at the opening scene, and the whole of it comes through.

The sūtra sets out a correspondence between the ten grounds and the ten perfections: on each ground, one perfection stands especially forth. What answers to the eighth, the Immovable, is precisely the vow:

"In this bodhisattva, among the ten perfections, the perfection of vow is predominant; it is not that the remaining perfections are not practiced, but that they are practiced according to capacity and measure."

Predominant means preeminent, carrying the chief weight—the other nine are still practiced, only according to capacity and measure; the vow alone bears the main beam on this ground.

Why this ground of all grounds? Think of the eighth ground's situation and it is plain. The eighth is the ground of effortlessness, the ship on open sea running before the wind, the place where cessation lies within arm's reach. And exactly here hides the deepest pass on the whole bodhisattva road: that quiescence is so secure—secure enough that a mind could moor in it and never come out. What calls the bodhisattva back out of that quiescence, what keeps him from mooring, is not a deeper concentration, not a sharper wisdom—it is the vow he himself once made. That is why, on this ground, the vow is "predominant"; that is why the buddhas hurry to him, and what they waken is, of all things, "the vow you first made."

And this lights up one of the vow's deepest traits: a vow is not a fire that, lit once, burns by itself to the end. It sinks—sinks in weariness, sinks in comfort, sinks even in the highest quiescence. It must be wakened again and again, the fuel added and the fire tended; and at the deepest place, it must be guarded and roused by the buddhas with the power of their own original vows. The vow's real strength lies not in the vehemence of the moment it was made, but in its being wakened time after time, and never falling.

One Thing to See Clearly Here

From this, one thing must be seen clearly.

Many take the making of vows for a line of preamble before practice—recited once at the head of the assembly, made, and set aside, everything after left to "real cultivation." But the vow the treatises install is no prologue; it is a role inside the play—and not merely a role, but the one on stage the whole way through, setting the direction for every other perfection. Even the bodhisattva of the eighth ground must be wakened; how much more the beginner.

This is also exactly why, in the morning and evening liturgy of the Buddha's gate, the verses of vowing are recited every day. The four great vows—recited yesterday, recited again today, recited again tomorrow—are not repetition; they are waking. A vow has never depended on how fiercely it was first made, but on how faithfully it is wakened thereafter. Wakened once a day, the fire goes one more day without dying.

Walking On

The vow's seat is established. But a seat is only a standing—on the road, what does this perfection concretely do?

The Avataṃsaka's answer is very concrete. The moment a bodhisattva enters the first ground, full of joy, the first thing he does is not giving, not absorption, but the raising, before the assembly, of ten vows. And the last of these ten closes in a most particular way—it sets itself a condition of ending, and that condition can never come true.

The next chapter watches these ten vows hold a whole road of ten grounds open.