Four Vows

                                                                                                                   Commentary by Gendo
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SHIGU SEI GAN
(Four Great Vows)
shu   jo  mu  hen
sei  gan   do
bon   no   mu   jin
sei  gan   dan
ho  mon  mu   ryo
sei  gan   gaku
butsu  do  mu   jo
sei  gan   jo

(Translation)
Beings numberless
Vow to liberate
Faults without end
Vow to overcome
Wisdom boundless
Vow to learn
Awakened way unsurpassed
Vow to embody

In Zen practice, we often chant the Four Vows in ancient “Sino-Japanese” language. People ask about their meaning.  I regard meaning as inherent in the act of chanting itself.  Zen is practice, not doctrine.  Still, words are worthy of study and can be helpful, in the way that road signs help navigate the road .
 
Beings numberless, vow to liberate.  What are beings and what does it mean to liberate them?   Buddhism is concerned with consciousness; and all beings are objects of consciousness; including the beings that are objects of thought, like ideas and feelings.  Huineng says:  The beings in my own mind are infinite; I vow to liberate them.
 
Why do beings need liberating?  Because consciousness is misleading.  Remember Adam and Eve, the serpent and fruit of the ‘tree of knowledge’ that led to suffering?  All things are impermanent.  To fixate on something as an ego preference becomes suffering, described by such words as:  “…delusion, deception, immorality, jealousy, malice.”  The first vow is, essentially, to notice suffering and vow to resolve it, reminiscent of the first “Noble Truth” of Buddhism.
   
Faults without end, vow to overcome.  But even liberation can become prideful.  So the second vow is the reminder that liberation is an act of selflessness; a reminder that attachment causes suffering.  Investigation of causes is the second of the four noble truths.  To look at it another way, the first step is expansive, all beings.  The second is contraction, no self (as in the Diamond Sutra).  Nisargadatta:  “When I look outside and see that I am everything, that is love.  When I look inside and see that I am nothing, that is wisdom.”
 
Wisdom all pervading, vow to learn.   To embrace both expansion and contraction is the wisdom of the ‘middle way;’ and the letting go that is the third of the Noble Truths. 
 
Awakened way unsurpassed, vow to embody.  The culmination is to embody wisdom in the ordinary activities of daily life, in everything that we do; also called the Eightfold Path, fourth of the Noble Truths.