Live By Vow, Not By Transaction

As we approach the new year, I find myself thinking about vow. In Zen communities, this is the traditional time to renew our commitments—not as New Year’s resolutions, but as something much more essential to how we live and who we are. For years, I would sit in the zendo thinking: ‘How am I doing? Don’t you think I’m good? Can I get a gold star? An attaboy?’

When we practice and live like this, we are living by transaction, by mere cause and effect. It is as if we are saying, ‘I made a commitment, so don’t I get something for it? I’ve been practicing for twenty years, so shouldn’t I be seen a certain way? I came to sit zazen today, so shouldn’t I have a great experience?’

With transactional living, we evaluate everything. Was that a good meditation or a bad meditation? Was I concentrated or distracted? Then we decide if this practice is working for us or not.

There’s a koan that says: “How miserable, how miserable, transmigrating the three worlds.” When I’m caught in this transactional thinking, when I’m seeing everything as something I should get credit for, it is totally miserable. Even spiritual practice becomes just another place where I want to be affirmed, recognized, and told that I’m good enough.

Vow is not like this, not a transaction. It is about the shape we give our life.

Living by vow is a place of practice.

Shakyamuni Buddha said that vow is the spine of practice. Without a vow, it collapses. Our bodhisattva vow comes from Bodhidharma, who said: ‘Vast is the suffering of beings, I vow to end it all. Though beings are numberless, I vow to save them all.’

In his teaching, Bodhidharma said: ‘People who seek the way without a clear vow are like a house without a foundation.’

There is no sentimentality with Bodhidharma. That’s one of the reasons I love him. He is not letting us off the hook, saying, ‘Oh, well, never mind, it’s hard.’ Rather, he is saying, ‘Yes, it’s hard.’ And, ‘What is your life built on? What is at the true center?’

It’s not about me, or you. And it is also not about this particular time. We can vow to actually serve this world in the past, present, and future.

Dogen Zenji says in the Eihei Koroku that vows are the heart of practice. Without vow, there is no practice and no realization. If we’re not living our vow in every thought, word, and action, there is no practice and no real realization.

It is not so important what I say my vow is. Vow is not a promise to the world. It is the active shape we allow our life to have. Will it become clear to everyone around us?

Vow is not what we think in our heads. It is what we do with our bodies, in our lives. And it is not about being perfect.

My teacher said: ‘You are not asked to be perfect. You’re asked to be vowed.’

Perfection easily collapses. Vows are what stand upright.

Many of us have retrospective hesitation—’What have I been doing for decades?’

Doesn’t matter. What are you doing now?