Zen Vows for Daily Life

by Robert Aitken

A poetic classic from a major figure of American Zen.Zen Vows for Daily Life is a collection of gathas, vows in verse form for daily practice, similar to prayers or affirmations for use at home, at work, and in the meditation hall itself. Reciting these poetic vows can help us be fully present in each moment and each activity of our lives. These gathas serve as gentle reminders to return again and again to our highest aspirations, with acceptance, joy, and compassion—for ourselves and all beings. Zen Vows for Daily Life will be a steadfast companion in keeping the reader inspired and committed on their spiritual path. “Each act in a Buddhist monastery—washing up, putting on clothes, entering the Buddha hall, sitting down for meditation, getting up from meditation—receives its own Dharma poem. Events on pilgrimage—encountering a tree, a river, a bridge, a dignitary, a mendicant—likewise offer entries into truth. My purpose in this book is to show how ordinary occurrences in our modern lay lives are in fact the Buddha’s own teachings—and also to show how we can involve ourselves accordingly in the practice of wisdom and compassion with family and friends, with everyone and everything.”—Robert Aitken, from the Preface “In [Zen Vows for Daily Life], poetry and meditation always go together. Poetry is comprised of images and music, and images make the practice easy. Robert Aitken Roshi is a poet who deeply appreciates practicing with these gathas. He offers us many beautiful verses, sterling examples of this practice, that we can use to reflect more deeply on what we are doing. I am grateful to Aitken Roshi for offering us this beautiful book.”—from the Foreword by Thich Nhat Hanh

Genres: Buddhism

72 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 28, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Robert Aitken was a retired master of the Diamond Sangha, a Zen Buddhist society he founded in Honolulu in 1959 with his late wife Anne Hopkins Aitken.

A lifetime resident of Hawai‘i, Aitken Rōshi was a graduate of the University of Hawai‘i with a BA degree in English literature and an MA degree in Japanese studies. In 1941, he was captured on Guam by invading Japanese forces, and interned in Japan for the duration of World War II. In the camp, he met the British scholar R.H. Blyth, who introduced him to Zen Buddhism. After the war, he practiced Zen with Senzaki Nyogen Sensei in Los Angeles, and traveled frequently to Japan to practice in monasteries and lay centers with Nakagawa Sōen Rōshi, Yasutani Haku'un Rōshi, and Yamada Kōun Rōshi. In 1974, he was given approval to teach by the Yamada Rōshi, Abbot of the Sanbo Kyodan in Kamakura, Japan, who gave him transmission as an independent master in 1985.

Aitken Rōshi is the author of more than ten books on Zen Buddhism, and co-author of a book-length Buddhist-Christian dialogue. In Hawai‘i he was instrumental in founding the Koko An Zendo, the PĀlolo Zen Center, the Maui Zendo, and the Garden Island Sangha. A number of other centers in Europe, North and South America, and Australasia are part of the Diamond Sangha network.

Aitken Rōshi is co-founder of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (now with a local East Hawai‘i Chapter) and serves on its international board of advisors. He has been active in a number of peace, social justice, and ecological movements, and his writing reflects his concern that Buddhists be engaged in social applications of their experience.

Aitken Rōshi has given full transmission as independent masters to Nelson Foster, Honolulu Diamond Sangha and Ring of Bone Zendo in Nevada City, California; John Tarrant, Pacific Zen Institute in Santa Rosa, California; Patrick Hawk, Zen Desert Sangha in Tucson, Arizona, and Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Joseph Bobrow, Harbor Sangha in San Francisco, California; Jack Duffy, Three Treasures Sangha in Seattle, Washington; Augusto Alcalde, Vimalakirti Sangha, in Cordoba, Argentina and Rolf Drosten, Wolken-und-Mond-Sangha (Clouds and Moon Sangha), in Leverkusen, Germany. He authorized Pia Gyger, One Ground Zendo in Luzern, Switzerland, as an affiliate teacher of the Diamond Sangha. He joined with John Tarrant in giving transmission as independent masters to Subhana Barzaghi in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; and to Ross Bolleter in Perth, Western Australia.

As a retired master, Aitken Rōshi worked with a few long-time students, and continued to study and write. His work, Zen Master Raven: Sayings and Doings of a Wise Bird , was published by Tuttle in 2002 [review]. His more recent publications, The Morning Star: New and Collected Zen Writings , and a new edition of A Zen Wave: Basho's Haiku and Zen , were released in October, 2003, by Shoemaker and Hoard.

Reviews

[B.]

Wasn’t a fan of this one....it was like Buddhist fan fiction . To me this was someone trying way too hard to sound deep.

[Chris LaTray]

One of the more enjoyable books I've read this year. It's a simple one, and what I like about this concept of Zen vows—or gathas—is the way they work as short poems one may reflect on. I'm no monk, but I do take my studies, such as they are, seriously, and while only a few have specific relevance to my day-to-day life, it is the concept I came away with happily. I've even begun a list of parts of my life where a short vow will be valuable. It's something many of us can benefit from, even if only, as Thich That Hanh writes in the Forward, we "start with one or two or three or four and memorize them." I know I will.

[Nathan Albright]

I want to make it clear at the outset of this review that I am not endorsing the author's approach or the book's contents.  This is a volume that was promoted as a new book by my local library and being someone who has previously been a resident in a majority Buddhist country and a critic of the approach of Buddhism as a whole, I thought it worthwhile to demonstrate my critical approach to American Buddhist perspectives like this book offers [1].  To be clear, I found much in this book to criticize, as I expected to.  On the other hand, I was impressed by the honest admission of the author that the Buddhist worldview he was practicing and promoting was in clear hostility to biblical truth.  Given the way that the author attempted to appropriate a great deal of objectionable trends in the contemporary intellectual world, the author's clear admission that Christianity and its call for God's kingdom to be set up on earth was antithetical to his own worldview was a pleasing admission that certainly made me appreciate the author's honesty if not the contents of his writing or thinking.

As a whole, this book is a short one of less than 100 pages, and so the task of reading the book is not particularly challenging.  That said, these contents do get a bit monotonous after a while.  After a thoughtful introduction by a Buddhist named Thich Nhat Hanh that appears designed to give the book credibility to those who are within the Buddhist reading audience aimed at by this book, the contents of the book shows the late Aitken writing a large quantity of short poems that amount to personal vows and self-affirmations that range from efforts at positive self-talk after having difficult times in the monastery to dealing with traffic and avoiding meaningless sex and smoking and use/abuse of alcohol.  A lot of the poems use technical Buddhist language reflective of religious practice, and the author is assuming that he is writing to an insider audience, although he helpfully includes a glossary at the end so that the terms of Zen Buddhism practiced by the author are at least defined rather than merely assumed as part of the reader's knowledge.  This does not make their contents more easily agreed with, but certainly better understood.

Overall, the author's unawareness of the self-contradictory nature of his worldview can be contrasted with his admirable awareness that it it is contrary to Christianity.  On one page the author asks himself for help in realizing the meaninglessness of life, but then criticizes meaningless sex and appears to desire an understanding of what is meaningful of life, not aware of the contradiction.  The author attempts to burnish his Buddhist thought with references to pop psychology and leftist peace activism, even as he considers himself to be the real authority in his life, as he gives honor to no Creator or Lord.  In this self-regard in the face of the meaninglessness of life, the author demonstrates the true nature of his hostility to Christianity, a desire to be his own authority and to live according to the dictates of his wicked and self-deceived heart, rather than to understand the truths of existence and give honor and glory where he ought to.  One could pity and have compassion on the author if he was not attempting to encourage other people to follow his misguided quest into error and to seek to be deities on their own terms and to deny the existence of the One whose dictates he cannot bear to follow.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2012...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2018...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2017...

https://edgeinducedcohesion.blog/2016...

[{erika}]

The introduction is amazing. There are quite a few of these vows that I think resonate with everyone and are very good to focus on.