Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to... (Zen)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Don, Ron, Richard, Pasadharma.org; Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

There are four traditional vows in Zen, a Mahayana Buddhist sect of the Ch'an school as it developed in Japan. They are customarily translated as:

1. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
2. Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
3. The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them.
4. The Buddha-Way is unsurpassable; I vow to attain it.

A practitioner at ZCLA (Zen Center of Los Angeles) recently called this translation into question hoping to change it to a new and improved four:

1. Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to serve them.
2. Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them.
3. The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to practice them.
4. The Buddha way is unsurpassable; I vow to embody it.

Why would anyone tamper with tradition? While Zen Buddhism as practiced in the US is iconoclastic and tends toward rebellion, is it any reason to make this gatha less of a conundrum?

  

Some Zen Buddhists are recovering fundamentalist Christians. And whenever they hear, "Desires are inexhaustible; I vow to put an end to them," they can only assume it refers to sex. Population control advocates (who seem to im0plicitly favor mass die offs helped along by government interventions) might be put off by the first vow. And similarly the remaining two vows present their own difficulties.

In thinking about these changes for a few weeks, it seems to me that there are several perspectives about this old Sanskrit hymn (gatha) to sit with.

The old version has always been a bit of a koan, an inscrutable riddle that might lead one to enlightenment when one breaks free or lets go of linear reasoning. 

   

Each vow is impossible to fulfill. Yet, many of us have chanted them daily for many years. They speak of a spiritual intention, a higher aspiration. They are a manifestation of attaining the unobtainable. In this way, "Zen" is bigger than I am, bigger than I can wrap my mind around.

  

Do we change them now to make them more accessible? Does making them more palatable by using a more devotional translation take away from the spirit intended?

Admittedly, the old translation is a bit cryptic, even clunky. There is a better flow, a clearer connection between the first state mentioned and the vow that flows from it.

What do folks think about this debate?

Posted in: chant,chanting,indian religious traditions,japanese,mahayana buddhism,pasadharma,rebels,vows,Zen Buddhism