Preface · Turning the Direction Around

The book in your hands is about something everyone has done, and few have ever seen clearly—making a vow.

Everyone has done it, because: who has not joined their palms before the Buddha and asked, in their heart, for one thing? May the family be safe. May the illness pass quickly. May the child do well. May the next life land somewhere good. Stick after stick of incense goes up, wish after wish is made—almost no one who has ever entered a temple has not done this.

Few have seen it clearly, because: the "making of a vow" in the Buddha's gate and our everyday "making of a wish" look, at first glance, like one thing—and are, at the bone, two. What this book has to tell is the difference between those two things—and what kind of road it is that leads from wishing to vowing.

A Wish Adds a Thing; a Vow Turns the Direction

Set this difference at the very front.

A wish asks outward for a thing. Health, safety, smooth sailing—the content of the wish is something to be added into my life that was not there before. The thing arrives, and the wish is finished; the thing does not come, and the wish falls empty. The wisher himself stands in place from first to last, unmoved—what moves is the thing he is waiting to receive.

A vow is the exact opposite. It asks for nothing from outside; it turns the whole person's direction around. "Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to liberate them"—in this sentence there is not one thing to be added into a life; what there is, is a decision about where a person walks from now on. The one who vows has gained not a single thing—and he himself has changed his facing entire.

A wish adds a thing; a vow turns the direction—this sentence is the first foundation-stone of the whole book. Everything told hereafter, from the Buddha's own first vow measureless aeons ago to the four great vows you will chant at tomorrow's morning liturgy, tells of this one "turning of direction": how it is aroused, what keeps it burning, on what ground it does not retreat, and where, at the last, it leads.

A Long Road from the Lamp to the Buddha's Seat

This "turning of direction," in the Dharma, is laid out as an exceedingly long road. The book's subtitle—"from the Pāli vow to Samantabhadra's conduct-vows"—names that road.

It sets out from the Buddha's own telling of His own past: measureless aeons ago, a young man before the Buddha Dīpaṃkara, with five flowers and a spread of hair laid over the mud, spoke a vow out whole—received the prediction on the spot, and from then on did not retreat. Then the road comes back down among people: in the Āgamas the Buddha lays open the force called "wanting"—which kind of wanting is the root of birth and death, and which kind is the engine of the path; and with His own hand He lays the vow out as a ladder, from "may my family be safe" rung by rung up to "may every taint be ended forever"—and kicks away not a single rung.

Then, in the Mahāyāna, the vow grows to its full stature. The treatises give it a seat, in its own right, on the curriculum of the bodhisattva path; Nāgārjuna says its power to the bottom with an ox and a driver—merit is the ox, the vow the driver. The patriarchs of the Chinese tradition condense it into four sentences everyone can chant; the monk Dharmākara makes it into forty-eight clauses and burns it into a land; Samantabhadra welds it to "conduct" in a single word and lays out the ten royal vows. And at the last, the road enters its deepest stretch—the vow meets emptiness face to face: on what ground can a mind with nothing to attain still make a vow? The answer will surprise: emptiness is not the vow's adversary; emptiness is the vow's deepest ally.

The road's end falls on the last sentence of the Heart Sūtra: the buddhas of the three periods, relying on the prajñā-pāramitā, attain anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi. The whole of this volume answers to that one word "attain"—a scripture devoted to nothing-to-attain sets up, at its very end, an "attain"; and what carries the whole road onward to that word is, precisely, the vow.

For Whom This Book Is Written

For several kinds of people.

For those who have chanted the four great vows for decades—"sentient beings are numberless, I vow to liberate them," chanted till it runs of itself; but if the numberless can never all be liberated, is the vow self-deception? That doubt, this book draws out head-on. For those who recite the Buddha's name daily—reciting for rebirth in the Pure Land is often called "leaning on another, taking the shortcut"; what the two words "other-power" actually mean, Master Tanluan's simile will tell you from the beginning. For those who dare not be diligent—who want to practice, and fear the wanting itself is greed; that knot was untied while the Buddha was in the world, and this book retrieves that conversation for you. And for those well on in years, who feel the days are few—the vow, of all things, takes no account of age: it does not ask how many days you have left; it asks only where, this moment, you are facing.

One more sentence, said in advance: the great vow is no preserve of the young or the sharp-rooted. This book will show you the Buddha laying "may my family be safe" and "may I become a Buddha and liberate beings" on one and the same ladder, kicking away not a single rung; the highest vow and the smallest use one and the same heart. Whichever rung you stand on, you are standing on the road.

This Is the Last Volume of the Six Practice Gates

One more thing must be set out at the volume's head.

This book is the sixth volume of the Six Practice Gates—and the last. Recollection, giving, repentance, discipline, concentration, vow—six gates, six books. The first five have each walked their own road to the end: the gate of recollection laid the foundation; the gate of giving loosened the hand; the gate of repentance cleansed the karma; the gate of discipline guarded the conduct; the gate of concentration gathered all the way in to the ultimate. That the gate of the vow brings up the rear is no accident of ordering—why the six gates close on the vow, and why the vow lands exactly on "attaining bodhi," hides a bottom the whole series has carried since its first volume and never once spoken aloud.

That bottom is turned over in this volume's final chapter. The reader who has come through all six volumes will see, in that chapter, the six books join into one complete picture; and the reader who enters by this volume alone loses nothing—this volume is a whole road in itself, and the first five need not be read first; the final chapter will only show you one more layer of the view.

One request only: the last two chapters—please read to them in order; do not turn to them first. Some views show true only to those who have walked the whole road.

How to Read This Book

The book quotes many sūtras and treatises—the Āgamas, the prajñā scriptures, the Avataṃsaka, the three Pure Land sūtras, the Chapter on Conduct-Vows, and the words of the great treatise-masters: Nāgārjuna, Vasubandhu, Zhiyi, Tanluan, Chengguan. Every quotation, word by word, has been collated against the original canonical texts; but the catalog numbers, fascicle references, and source locations are all gathered into the appendices at the back, and do not disturb you in the body text. In the body text, there is only one person, following the scriptures, telling it to you slowly.

There is no need to hurry. One chapter a day is enough. Wherever a sentence stops you, stop on that sentence a while—this book is about the vow, and a vow was never a thing to be understood by reading; it is a thing to be aroused.

The road is about to begin. The first step starts from telling two words apart: wish, and vow.