Welcome in,
Take a moment to settle,
Allow your breath to slow down,
Let your attention arrive and your body relax.
Breathing in,
I soften.
Breathing out,
I allow.
There's nothing to fix here,
Your presence and showing up is enough.
Let's take a deep breath,
Inhale through the nose and release slowly through the mouth.
Go ahead and take a few more of those with your own natural rhythm and we'll get started.
Beings are numberless,
I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible,
I vow to transform them.
Dharma gates are boundless,
I vow to enter them.
The Buddha way is unsurpassable,
I vow to embody it.
These vows shape the Bodhisattva path.
The Bodhisattva path is a living practice,
One that calls us to wake up with others,
Not ahead of them or separate from them,
To wake up with others.
A Bodhisattva is someone who chooses to walk through life with an open heart,
Even when it's uncomfortable.
They make a vow to keep showing up,
To keep turning toward truth,
To keep offering their presence as a gift.
These vows have been chanted and lived for generations in the Mahayana Buddhist traditions.
They're not tied to any one tradition,
They're deeply human.
They speak to something that lives inside each of us,
The part that wants to live with meaning and care,
Even when life is messy.
There are four traditional vows,
And over the next few days,
We'll spend time on each one.
When I first encountered them,
They struck a chord.
They didn't feel like instructions,
They felt more like invitations to remember,
To come back to myself,
To keep choosing love.
Each vow is simple in its wording and endless in its depth.
We're not going to try to master them here,
We're just going to live with them,
Try them on,
See how they feel,
Explore how they might support us in daily life.
So let's take a few minutes to be still.
Allowing yourself to settle in deeply,
Drop into your internal world.
Maybe you soften your gaze,
Close your eyes.
Let's go ahead and take the deepest breath we've taken all day.
Inhale through the nose,
And release through the mouth.
Breathing in,
I soften.
Breathing out,
I allow.
Allowing your breath to be easy and natural.
Now asking yourself gently and honestly,
What brought me here?
What do I long for?
What kind of presence do I want to bring into the world?
Let any answer that arises just be,
Just be.
Just noticing them.
Even the longing itself is a kind of vow.
I invite you now to come back to the breath.
Noticing the inhale.
Noticing the exhale.
Taking a few deep breaths here.
Taking a moment to honor the time that you spent here.
You carved out space for stillness,
For listening,
And for something deeper to stir within you.
Let's close with this intention.
May I walk this path with compassion and presence.
May this vow move through me and ripple out into the world.
If you feel moved to journal after this session,
Here is a prompt to help guide the process.
Why am I drawn to the bodhisattva path?
At this time in my life.
Why am I drawn to the bodhisattva path?
At this time in my life.
In our next session,
We will begin with the first bodhisattva vow.
Sentient beings are numberless.
I vow to free them.
Together,
We'll explore what it means to walk with compassion.
Not just as a feeling,
But as a way of being in the world.
I'll meet you there.
Namaste.
