Sentient Beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

On the impossibility of vows.

We’re living in a moment of unimaginable suffering. Suffering far beyond my ability to express. And starkly beyond my ability—almost anyone’s ability—to control or mitigate. I’m painfully aware, excruciatingly aware, that meditation does not–cannot, will not—replace action, and yet, no path of action is clear to me. How do I take responsibility for myself in the face of ongoing and seemingly intractable, cyclical violence and generational hatred?

Every response-any response in the face of this world of suffering is completely, wholly, inadequate. Yet here we are. And silence is not appropriate. Silence is inattention. Silence can be complicity. I’ll speak, and accept my inadequacy in speaking.

The moment has me reflecting on the Bodhisattva Vows we take as Zen Buddhists.

Sentient Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them.

The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.

The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.

Vows—by definition—impossible to fulfill.

I’ve recited these vows nearly every day for more than thirty years, and never felt this urgent, visceral reality of utter impossibility until now. This specific sucking hollow in the pit of my stomach. This black hole of suffering. As if my whole body will be sucked by despair’s black gravity into oblivion. In zazen this morning, I found myself shaking uncontrollably, simply wracked. Maybe resisting the tug of that black, bottomless gravity. Weeping.

There’s nothing abstract about killing. Nothing abstract about rubble. Nothing abstract about corpses.

Sentient Beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

I—we—simply cannot.

I keep asking myself: what do I do with this?

There’s nothing abstract about the vows. Their impossible obligation is a howl in the teeth of a whirlwind of escalating suffering. There are real sentient beings—real people screaming and howling—whom we cannot save.

Everywhere.

Delusions of hate and hard, unshakable belief we cannot put an end to.

Dharmas both hideous and beautiful we cannot inhabit, fully grasp, or reckon with.

A Buddha Way we cannot fully attain.

And yet. we stay with the vows.

My teacher, Tenshin Fletcher, Roshi, asked me once to turn the vows around. Look at them and inhabit them from the other side of the telescope.

Sentient Beings are numberless, I vow to be saved by them.

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to embrace them.

The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to be mastered by them.

The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to abandon it.

Embracing the vows in both directions that way feels grounding. Embracing the impossibility of fulfilling the vows opens me up somehow to be saved by the act of vow itself: I know I’ll never completely realize this, yet I’m committed to making every effort in every moment to surrender to that promise. in every direction. To embody that which I have vowed to fulfill. Not in spite of, but because of, its utter impossibility. The only place I can effect—the only peace I can practice—is here now, in my own body. In my own life.

Embracing my delusions, my failings. Embracing the world’s failings as they are my own. Accepting that I am wholly part of everything, whether I like it or not. Taking ownership of my complicity, my culpability, my endless capacity—for delusion, rage, violence. We’re all one body, all equally capable human beings of unimaginable cruelty—but also unimaginable tenderness. And so utterly vulnerable to all of it. So utterly exposed.

Dharmas—realities—so vast, so endless and so infinitely varied. I vow to be mastered by them, to be fully open to the catastrophe of the world, and the endless potential of beauty and joy and ugliness and darkness. To surrender to it all. To inhabit it fully, without reservation. To be mastered by it.

To let go completely of my aspiration to the Buddha Way. To just be, right now. In this moment, with whatever is arising, without judgement. To abandon my attachment to the attainment of the ideal, to the perfect path. To just step forward. The path maps itself. In the Heart Sutra, we recite: “No path, no wisdom, and no gain. Thus the Bodhisattva lives…with no hindrance in the mind, no hindrance, therefore no fear…”

Simply stepping forward. Suffering fully in the teeth of unimaginable horror and rage. In my inability to take action to end it. Inevitably failing that, to step forward again.

This specific sucking hollow in the pit of my stomach. This black hole of suffering. As if my whole body will be sucked by despair’s black gravity into oblivion.

Again, stepping forward. And, again. Stepping forward. Simply making that wholehearted effort. In the face of despair and suffering, doing the best I can. Knowing completely that I can—that I will—never succeed. And to keep at it. Endlessly.

And be saved by that commitment.

Sentient Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them.

The Dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.

The Buddha Way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.

Please, in this moment. Be peace.

One more thing.

As a zen priest, I’m a student of Tenshin Fletcher Roshi at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center. For more info on Yokoji, please visit www.zmc.org.

I’m also the caretaker of Warwick Zendo, a small in-person and online sangha based in the lower Hudson Valley of New York. if you’d like to check out our practice community, we’re at www.warwickzen.org.

How this works.

I plan to post at least once a week, at minimum. The Freeside will offer those weekly posts, which will disappear behind the Payside wall after two weeks. Payside opens access to all the archived posts, and will also (eventually) offer access to some longer writing and ongoing investigations into practices both literary and zen.

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