The Bodhisattva Vow

Mutual becoming in Indra's Net
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​Indra's Net is a metaphorical concept that originates from Mahayana Buddhism, particularly within the Avatamsaka Sutra (or Flower Garland Sutra). It illustrates the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things in the universe. The metaphor envisions a vast, cosmic net owned by the god Indra, with a jewel at each intersection or node of the net. Each jewel reflects all the other jewels in the net, and each reflection contains the reflection of all the other jewels, ad infinitum.
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This image serves as a symbol for the idea that every part of the universe is intimately connected to every other part, and that each individual element contains within it the entirety of the whole. In this way, it emphasizes the Buddhist concept of "dependent origination" (pratītyasamutpāda), which suggests that all phenomena arise in dependence upon other phenomena, and nothing exists in isolation.

Indra's Net has also been interpreted and used as a metaphor in various philosophical contexts, including process philosophy, to illustrate the radical interconnection of all entities in the web of existence. It's often employed to highlight the notion that the universe is a dynamic, interwoven system where every part affects and is affected by the whole. The net is not static. It is a process of mutual becoming or inter-becoming. 

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The Bodhisattva Vows, as discussed below, come to life in the jewels of Indra's Net: in how people treat each other, the more-than-human world, and themselves. These vows are about the intimacies of inter-becoming, highlighting how humans can relate to one another and the natural world with compassion and a sense of interconnectedness, without turning one another into solidified "things."

Practicing them does not mean "becoming one" as if dissolved into a mystical unity in which all differentiations dissolve; nor does it mean being "just two" as if mutually independent, like separate balls on a pool table. Instead, people are together yet different, different yet together. In moments when they embody this spirit of mutuality—of togetherness and difference—they become momentary Bodhisattvas. They need not identify as Buddhists; still, something within them awakens, either implicitly or explicitly, to an ultimacy of togetherness that is within them yet more than them.

In Bodhisattva moments, the illusions of separateness fall away, as do the illusions of mystical oneness. They are not the same and not separate. This "not the same and not separate" is always in process. It is what Buddhists and process theologians mean by inter-becoming. Process theologians affirm that the living whole of the universe, God, is the supreme example of, not exception to, this inter-becoming. God is a cosmic Bodhisattva who vows to save all sentient beings and help end delusions of separateness. God enters all dharma gates, even the most hellacious ones, with loving hands and invites all to walk the way of wisdom and compassion. The way is unsurpassable and yet always surpassing itself. It never ends.

​- Jay McDaniel

​The Four Vows

A Christian Appreciation
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Every Monday night, I sit with a local Buddhist sangha called the Conway Zen Society. Our leader is Shoryu Bradley, a Sōtō Zen priest and the founder and abbot of Gyobutsuji Zen Monastery located near Kingston, Arkansas. At the end of our session, we stand, bow, and chant a well-known vow commonly used in Zen traditions. There are many different translations of the vows from Japanese; the particular translation we use goes like this:

Beings are numberless, I vow to save them.
Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.
Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to realize it.

Some who sit with us are self-identified Buddhists, others are spiritual independents with sympathies for Buddhism, and I am a Christian influenced by Buddhism. The differences don’t matter. We are together in our silence, our breathing, our mutual respect, and our recitation of the vows. When I say the vows, I don’t philosophize; I chant them. But if asked how I understand them philosophically, I’d say something like this:

Beings are Numberless

The beings that are numberless include all sentient beings anywhere in the universe—on our planet, on other planets, in our galaxy, in other galaxies, in three-dimensional space, and in other dimensions. Moreover, even the actualities that we think are insentient—quantum events in the depths of atoms, for example—have a kind of sentience. Thus, beings truly are numberless. “Saving” them is relative to what they need. For us humans, the most important things we can be saved from are greed, hatred, and delusions. And the most important things we can be saved for are the full awakening to our mutual becoming with all other beings (wisdom) and compassion in our relations with them.

Delusions are Inexhaustible

The delusions that hound our minds are many. I’ll name three. One is the belief that we are “selves” cut off from the world by the boundaries of our skin, that these selves endure unchanged over time, and that they stand over our experience as their owners or possessors. Another is the perception that the objects in our world, and we ourselves, are static substances when, in truth, they are momentary events in relation to one another. A third delusion is the notion that our desires for happiness can be satisfied by the allures of fame, fortune, and power over others. These delusions fall away, or end, when we realize that our very selves include all other selves, such that our ‘true selves’ are radically relational, that the world around us, and we ourselves, consist of events or happenings, not substances. Additionally, we come to understand that cravings for fame, fortune, and power are misplaced and that true happiness lies in their dropping away. The world itself, indeed the universe, consists of interconnected events, forming a seamless and evolving whole of interbecoming.

Dharma Gates are Boundless

The Dharma gates are everything that happens to us and to others—indeed, everything that happens anywhere—some of them pleasant and some painful. These gates include the myriad situations, challenges, and experiences that life presents to us. They are boundless because they are infinite in variety and occurrence, continuously presenting themselves in our daily lives. We enter them when we recognize and embrace these experiences as opportunities for growth, learning, and creative transformation. Entering Dharma gates means facing life with an open heart and mind, ready to engage with whatever comes our way with courage, wisdom, and compassion. It involves seeing every moment as a potential teacher, every experience as a chance to deepen our understanding and expand our capacity for love.

Buddha’s Way is Unsurpassable

The Buddha’s way is a way of living that is itself a journey—an ongoing journey of wisdom and compassion. It is unsurpassable because there is always more to it than our lives ever fully embody. The Buddha’s way invites us to cultivate qualities such as mindfulness, equanimity, and loving-kindness in our interactions with all beings. This path encourages us to meet life as it comes to us, accepting both joys and sorrows with a balanced and open spirit. Walking the Buddha’s way means understanding that we are part of, not apart from, the greater whole and living in a manner that reflects this deep interconnection with all existence. It is a lifelong commitment to personal and collective awakening, always aspiring to embody the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha in every aspect of our lives.

The Lure of God in the Heart

For me, these four vows are a way of being with God. I believe the God of love, the God of wisdom and compassion, is inside me as a lure to aspire toward the future in just this way. I won’t pretend that I ever arrive, and I fall short countless times. Still, the aspirational ideals are in my heart, and they pull me forward. That’s what vows are: aspirational ideals.

I realize that my use of the word "God" can sound odd, and perhaps off-putting, for those with Buddhist-influenced ears. The word so easily suggests a self-contained substance, independent of the world, who creates the world out of nothing, and whose dominant concern is reward and punishment, sending some to heaven and perhaps some to hell. But this is not what I mean by "God."

Influenced by open and relational theology and, more particularly, by one of its variants, process theology, I mean a universal Spirit of compassion and creativity, everywhere at once, who is "empty" of substantial own-being, awakened to the interconnectedness of all things, whose metaphorical "arms" reach out and into each living being as its own innermost desire for wholeness or satisfaction, and who is affected by, and shares in, the joys and sufferings of all sentient beings in the entire universe. God enters all Dharma gates.

God is “empty” of own-being in the sense that God is not outside the universe but rather the living whole, the Consciousness, of the universe: a womb-like Life in whose life the universe unfolds. This means that we humans and other living beings on Earth are always already inside God, not unlike the way in which fish are always already inside the ocean, or clouds are always already inside the sky, or embryos are always already inside a womb. God’s consciousness, and thus God, is the cosmic environment, the divine milieu, in which our lives unfold. The divine milieu does not and cannot fully control us, but it can and does lure us from within our own natures. The divine Consciousness is more than us but inside us, and we are more than the Consciousness but inside it. This way of thinking about God is sometimes called panentheism, which means everything-in-God.

God as Deep Listening

In addition to God as an indwelling lure, there is another side of God that is very important to me as a Christian. It is God as the Deep Listening of the universe. By Deep Listening, I have in mind a state of consciousness not unlike the shikantaza of Soto Buddhism, except filled with a sense of love and appreciation. It listens to each and all, everywhere, with tender care and loving-kindness, and it is affected by all that it hears. In the words of Whitehead, this is God as a companion: a fellow sufferer who understands.

This side of God is also composed of the world. The listener is at one with what is listened to, not unlike how we are ‘at one’ with music when we listen to it. This means that God is many as well as one, or, better, an ongoing process of the many becoming one. Thus, it is a mistake to think of God as one without many, as existing without a world. God is the living whole of the universe, a consciousness that is composed of the world it so loves.

God as a Cosmic Bodhisattva

My suggestion, then, is that God, understood panentheistically, is a cosmic Bodhisattva who undertakes a vow, a promise, to be with each and every sentient being, forever, until they are awakened, and to be a receptacle for their joys and sufferings. For me as a Christian, a young Jew from Nazareth, Jesus had the same sensibility when he felt drawn to, and called by, his Abba to help create a beloved community in which people would be equal, treat one another with respect and care, and move past the resentments and jealousies that divide them. He was a window to the Bodhisattva, a window to God.

But of course, “Christ” is more than Jesus. Christ is the Logos, the living and creative energy of the universe, that preexists Jesus. Christ is the inwardly felt lure and the Deep Listening. For my part, as a Christian, I see Christ wherever there is wisdom, compassion, and creativity. Christ is by no means limited to Christianity. In sitting in meditation with my friends on Monday night, Christ is in them as well as in me, and Christ is the surrounding atmosphere of care and respect that we all feel for one another. Christ does not need to be named “Christ” in order to be present. Christ, without being named at all, is also Christ.

God and the Ultimate Reality

The God thus described, who is everywhere at once, is the most important actuality there is, but not the only actuality. Wherever there are beings or, better, creative becomings, there is actuality. Thus, there is more actuality to the world, to the universe, than God. Each actuality, each concrescing subject, each moment of experience, has its own self-creativity, its own spontaneity, its own purposes. In human life, our purposes can be to be rich, powerful, and famous, to wield power over others, or to love and live simply, that others might simply live. This means that we cannot look out at the world and say that it is all a theophany, all God godding. And it means that, in addition to God, there is the ultimacy of spontaneity itself. This is the groundless God, the tehom, from which God beckons the world into whatever forms of creativity it can create. It is the creative Emptiness of which all things, even God, are expressions. It is, as it were, the ultimate reality. God, the cosmic Bodhisattva, is an actualization of it, but so are all other things, both good and evil.

Moving On

I've sought to bridge the vows of Zen Buddhism with my Christian faith, finding deep resonance between the two. The four vows—saving all beings, ending delusions, entering Dharma gates, and realizing the Buddha’s way—are not just lofty ideals but practical, daily aspirations that guide us toward a life of compassion, wisdom, and interconnectedness. For me, these vows are more than religious commitments; they are ways of being in the world, deeply aligned with my understanding of God as a cosmic Bodhisattva, a universal presence of love and creativity that calls us to awaken to our true selves.

In the stillness of our Monday night meditations, as we chant these vows together, I am reminded that the path we walk is both personal and collective. Whether through the lens of Zen or Christianity, or any spiritual tradition, we are all called to live in ways that reflect the deep inter-becoming of all life. We are invited to embrace the challenges and joys of life with open hearts, to let go of delusions, and to engage with the world in a spirit of loving-kindness. In this journey, my hope is that find the courage to face our delusions, the wisdom to enter every Dharma gate, and the compassion to save all beings, knowing that in doing so, we are realizing the unsurpassable way of the Buddha, the love of God, and the boundless potential within each of us to walk with Christ, however named.

- Jay McDaniel