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Liberation Through the Gate of No-vow | There Is No Suffering


The third gate is no-vow. Bodhisattvas vow to attain buddhahood and to deliver sentient beings. The path to buddhahood must begin with vows, otherwise there would be no clear direction, no enduring will, no motivation. We ordinary beings need vows to persist in practice, and so we repeat the four great vows of a bodhisattva and the ten vows of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva.14 As ordinary sentient beings, we must continue to make vows. Even bodhisattvas at the first through seventh bhumis15 continue to vow to help all sentient beings. At the eighth bhumi, however, there is no longer any effort or intention to make vows, for at this level there is no longer any notion of a self.16 If there is no self, there will be no corresponding notions of sentient beings to deliver, or buddhahood to attain. Nonetheless, bodhisattvas still respond compassionately and appropriately to the needs of sentient beings. Only at this level of no-vows is bodhisattva truly liberated. This does not mean that one ceases to exist. As far as buddhas and great bodhisattvas are concerned, notions of existence and non-existence do not apply. Sentient beings, on the other hand, see things differently.

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Venerable Sheng Yen is a well-known Buddhist monk, Buddhist scholar, and educator. In 1969, he went to Japan for further studies and obtained a doctoral degree from Rissho University in 1975, becoming the first ordained monk in Chinese Buddhism to pursue and successfully complete a Ph.D. in Japan.
Sheng Yen taught in the United States starting in 1975, and established Chan Meditation Center in Queens, New York, and its retreat center, Dharma Drum Retreat Center at Pine Bush, New York in 1997. He also visited many countries in Europe, as well as continuing his teaching in several Asian countries, in particular Taiwan.
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