Brief and unassuming, stealthily situated in the evening liturgy between more well-known giants like the Great Compassion Dharani and The Heart Sutra, the Twelve Aspiration Prayers to Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva is a chant that for most of my life I paid very little mind to, often rushing through it, mindlessly reciting by rote, so I could then devote all my contemplative attention to The Heart Sutra that followed it. In my tradition, the Zen transmission in Vietnam, called Thien, the evening liturgy is a moment to sit in daily mindful devotion to the great merciful and compassionate bodhisattva, Avalokitesvara, and contemplate her myriad wonderful qualities. The Twelve Aspiration Prayers never really interested me in the past, lacking the infinite depth of meaning The Heart Sutra folded into itself or the alluring mystery of the mantras and dharanis. Lately, though, this short interlude in the evening chanting session has been occupying more and more of my thoughts, and I’ve come to realize it has so much more depth than I’d previously given it credit for.
In this chant, practitioners make vows committing to twelve practices in model of and honoring Avalokitesvara, culminating in a final vow to practice seeing and acting in the world as if we ourselves were one set of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva’s thousand hands-and-eyes manifested in the Triple World to spread the cool healing waters of compassion and alleviate suffering in the ocean of beings. Thien distinguishes itself from the other Zen traditions, perhaps most famously through the philosophical orientation toward practice called Engaged Buddhism (Vn: Phật giáo dấn thân), first introduced by Master Trần Nhân Tông in the 13th century. The twelve vows are a profound and particularly unique expression of this tradition of Engaged Buddhism, calling on Thien practitioners to not be content with only bowing to statues in temples but to bring our practice with us wherever we go. As we chant at the altar, we affirm through the vows that true veneration of Avalokitesvara is a Zen practice that is capable of leaving the cushion and engaging the world with loving-kindness and compassion.
I see now that if practitioners are able to keep the Twelve Aspiration Prayers in mind throughout the day, we will naturally develop into more skillful instruments of the buddhadharma, extending loving-kindness to all beings, recognizing that the business of a bodhisattva is to engage the world, and tending to not only the suffering of beings but also the suffering of the planet and environment in which our being and inter-being is tangled up.
Vowing to Pacify the Mind
1) I vow to cultivate loving-kindness and compassion, and to cherish and protect life, and promote well-being and happiness for all living things.
2) I vow to appreciate all living beings and understand their suffering, and through this deep connection bring joy and happiness to all.
3) I vow to let go of attachment to anger, worries, anxieties, and complaints, so I can live freely, happily, and peacefully with everyone.
4) I vow to live in harmony and at peace with friends, family, and all beings.
In these first four aspiration prayers, practitioners resolve to cultivate certain mental factors within our own hearts, gently and deliberately opening the mind to rest in calm awareness, wherein loving-kindness and compassion naturally arise. By orienting the mind every day with the intention of cultivating these factors, we abandon the fetters that lead us to selfishness, resentment, and distress, and deliberately bring our minds to abide in and center on wholesome mental factors that dispel discord and invite harmony with others.
Vowing to Practice the Deep Listening of Avalokitesvara
5) I vow to listen with compassion and an open mind in order to understand what the other person is saying. I will listen without prejudice and judgment, and in an open and receiving posture of acceptance. I will not say things that are cruel, unkind, or hurtful.
6) I vow to practice mindful breathing, letting go of attachments and resting in equanimity. Each sound of the bell profoundly resonates with my deeper awakening. Through deeply listening, all sound becomes the voice of love and wisdom.
In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha tells his audience that Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva is the so-named “Perceiver of the World’s Sounds” because of her deep listening—such that suffering beings need only call her name in mindfulness, and she will hear these petitions and swiftly deliver beings from calamity. Through the fifth and sixth aspiration prayers, practitioners commit to the deep listening practice associated with Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. In the fifth aspiration, we resolve to practice deep compassionate listening imbued with non-discriminative wisdom to heal others through the profound and powerful practice of listening without judgment. In the sixth aspiration prayer, we commit ourselves to the sublime practice of mindfulness and, when we open our sitting sessions with three rings of the standing bell, to contemplate the bell’s gentle, soothing reverberations in light of the “meditation on hearing” section of the Surangama Sutra, where Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva describes to the Buddha how his practice of meditation on hearing and non-hearing has led to his realization of non-dualism. He says,
“At first by directing the organ of hearing into the stream of meditation, this organ was severed from its object, and by [eliminating the conceptualization of] sound, both phenomena and voidness become clearly empty. Thus advancing step by step both hearing and its object ceased completely. …When sense and object were realized to be non-existent, both subject and object merged into the void, the awareness of which became all-embracing. With further elimination of the void and its object, both creation and annihilation vanished, giving way to the state of Nirvana which then manifested.”
When we mindfully attune our awareness to the rise and fall of our breathing, or send our hearts with the sound of the mindfulness bell, we practice the indiscriminate compassion of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva’s deep listening practice. When we are able to mindfully rest in the realization that the sound of the bell and the soundlessness following after it are interdependent experiences, then all conception of separation dissolves into blissful emptiness, and we are able to abide joyfully in the infinite love and non-discriminatory wisdom of the buddha-realm.
Vowing to Build a Pure Land in the Human Realm
7) May the sick be healed. May the old be well taken care of, and may those who have passed away be reborn in the Pure Land.
8) May the poor be fed. May all turn away from wrongdoing. May all in captivity be free, all disabled be healed, all addicts rehabilitated, and all murderers give up their arms.
9) May all beings cultivate boundless love. Let no one do harm to anyone. Let no one put the life of anyone in danger, and let no one, out of anger, ill will, or for any other reason wish anyone harm.
10) May I and all beings protect this blue-green earth and keep it beautiful. I commit myself to the transformational work of nurturing and nourishing nature’s flowers and fruits, protecting life and the environment, and building a Pure Land on earth.
The second half of this liturgy opens with four exercises in imagining what a Pure Land in the human realm might look like—how do people exist and co-exist? What conditions of this world would have to change or be undone? We make these aspirations on behalf of the collective body of all sentient beings and not only as individual practitioners. Holding this vision in mind, practitioners generate a sincere resolve to make that world our reality on behalf of all beings. In this ideal human realm, all beings live virtuously with one another, peacefully, freely sharing loving-kindness and compassion, working together to preserve and protect all the natural beauty of our blue-green earth. All live with mindful awareness, residing in the Pure Land that is the pure mind, and will be reborn in the Pure Land when departing this realm. All beings are committed to protecting this planet, being compassionate stewards of the earth to make it a beautiful home for all sentient beings, human or otherwise. Then, when we take our practice and enter the world with it, we see that compassionate commitment to social justice and environmental activism is dharma practice. This world becomes a Pure Land every moment we choose to engage with compassion and wisdom in worldly causes, aspiring without discrimination to alleviate the suffering of others.
Vowing to Become an Emanation Body of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva
11) May afflictions end for all beings so that wisdom can arise and the fruit of supreme awakening be fully realized by everyone.
12) May I and all living beings act with the wonderful power of a thousand arms and eyes of compassion, to come and go freely in the Three Worlds. We aspire to practice with a Bodhisattva’s vows. We commit to being an instrument of the Buddha in helping to alleviate pain and suffering in the Ten Directions of the Cosmos.
In the final two aspiration prayers honoring Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, practitioners direct their awareness to recognize the buddhanature implicit in all beings. In the eleventh aspiration prayer, we generate the sincere wish, so emblematic of the Mahayana, for all beings to be free from suffering and to realize the supreme awakening of Buddhahood. And the twelfth and final aspiration prayer, I think, is the most special and insightful of all. It calls practitioners to visualize ourselves as—and truly believe that we and all other beings throughout the Triple World and Ten Directions are—manifestations of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva’s thousand-hands-and-eyes form that plunge into samsara, skillfully practicing the bodhisattva way—a secret even to our own minds! Every time we practice the dharma, and commit to practicing the dharma in a way that is engaged with the world, we are literally transformed. We let go of discriminations of self and other, becoming part of the great and mysterious emanation body of the thousand-hands-and-eyes Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva.
Being and Interbeing
More and more, I am captured by the incredible scope of the Twelve Aspiration Prayers and the way it asks us to orient worship of the great compassionate bodhisattva through a practice of Engaged Buddhism that extends compassion not only to all beings but also to the environment and nature. We are asked to truly see ourselves as Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, emanated into the world to share compassion and ease suffering, and then to act accordingly, bringing our Zen practice with us into the world. The infinite compassionate activity of Avalokitesvara enters the world through our shared buddhanature when we are able to practice mindful awareness. We heal others by simply existing in the world, practicing mindful breathing with patience, and deeply listening with heartfelt compassion. We show love to all beings by tending to the natural environment and being good stewards of our blue-green earth. Practicing in this way, the dualistic distinctions between ourselves and others, or between suffering beings and awakened bodhisattvas, are all blurred together—the realization of interbeing breaks through: we are all Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva; we are all Buddha; there is no distinction.
Whenever you meet another being, whomever it may be, remember that your inner true nature is none other than that of the great merciful, great compassionate Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, and that you have come into this world in this body and mind to shower all beings with loving-kindness and compassion, heal all hearts through deep listening, and share the soothing medicine of mindfulness. Engaging the world in this way, you build a Pure Land in the human realm. Engaging the world in this way, you become an instrument of the buddhas to deliver beings from suffering; you become the great bodhisattva of compassion’s living embodiment in this mundane world—you always have been.
