When you live in vows, not only are you not harming others but for twenty-fours a day you are constantly creating merit—while you eat, talk, walk and do all your activities, and even while you’re sleeping. This makes life so meaningful, so enjoyable.

Abandon negative karma and practice virtue

We want the smallest happiness, the smallest comfort, in our daily life, and even in our dreams, therefore we should abandon even the smallest negative karma and practice even the smallest virtue. This should be done while we are walking, eating, talking, doing our job—twenty-four hours a day. As Lama Tsongkhapa explained in The Foundation of All Good Qualities, in the section on karma:

This life is as impermanent as a water bubble;
Remember how quickly it decays and death comes.
After death, just like a shadow follows the body,
The results of negative and positive karma follow.

Finding firm and definite conviction in this,
Please bless me always to be careful
To abandon even the slightest negativities
And accomplish all virtuous deeds.

A powerful way to accomplish this is (1) to refrain from negative actions by living in the vows of individual liberation and (2) to purify karma already created (see chapters 15 and 16).

There are three levels of vows:

• vows of individual liberation (in Sanskrit, pratimoksha)
• the bodhisattva vows
• the tantric vows

1. Vows of individual liberation: the five lay vows

As I mentioned before, there are as many sentient beings as there are particles of dust on the earth, but those that are reborn as human beings are as few as the dust particles that remain beneath your fingernails after having scratched the earth.

And this is because the vast majority of all beings haven’t created the main cause of a human rebirth—the practice of pure morality by living in vows of morality.

Then if you look at the world you can see among the few who have received a human rebirth that there are so few living in vows, in precepts. If you compare those who practice morality and those who don’t, you will see that the number of people who engage in negative actions is uncountable while those who engage in good actions by living in vows is so few. Even those living in one vow is so few.

Therefore, you should take vows, whichever you can, not only for your own happiness but for the happiness of all other living beings.

One set of the vows of individual liberation is the five layperson’s vows. They are to not:

• kill
• steal
• commit sexual misconduct
• tell lies
• take intoxicants

The power of vows

There is a huge difference between simply not killing, for example, and living in the vow not to kill. Without the vow, indeed you are not creating the negative karma of killing, but you are not collecting any merit, not creating any good karma. We need to create merit.

And not only that. When you live in vows, not only are you not harming others but you are constantly creating merit, twenty-fours a day—while you eat, talk, walk and do all your activities, and even while you’re sleeping. Even if you are in a coma for years, you are collecting good karma continuously. And not only that, having taken vows, every day whatever merit you collect increases one hundred thousand times. This makes life so meaningful, so enjoyable. You create the unmistaken cause of happiness all the time.

Buddha explained in the King of Concentration Sutra that by keeping just one precept for one day in this degenerate time you collect far greater merit than you would if you were to offer umbrellas, banners, flags, lights, garlands of flowers and so forth to ten million buddhas, one billion times, for eons equaling the number of grains of sand in the Ganga River.

By the way, when it comes to talking about the benefits of keeping vows, or of practicing bodhicitta, or of hearing or reciting sutras, let’s say, “Ganga River” does not refer to the Indian Ganges River; it refers to the Pacific Ocean.

And the grains of sand referred to are not just ordinary grains of sand—and even if they were, that would be amazing enough. It is explained in the notes of the great enlightened Pabongka Rinpoche that these grains are made of extremely subtle atoms. There are seven kinds of subtle atoms—water atoms, earth atoms and so forth. These grains of sand are much, much finer than ordinary grains.

In other words, you can’t imagine how much merit you collect by keeping just one vow—not the five lay vows, or the eight precepts or the thirty-six vows of a novice monk or nun—but keeping just one vow for one day. So much merit!

If you want to fly to another country, you need an airline ticket, otherwise you can’t travel there by plane. Or if you want to start a million-dollar project, you need a million dollars. You need to create the causes. Well, living according to vows is like that: it creates the cause for happiness in future lives, as well as liberation and enlightenment.

If your living in the vow to not kill is performed with the motivation of renunciation of samsara, it will cause liberation from samsara. If it is performed with bodhicitta, it will cause enlightenment. You are causing these results all the time by living according to that vow.

When you live in vows, whatever merit you collect, either in relation to sentient beings or in relation to the Guru, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, increases so much. The more vows you take, the more merit you collect.

Living in the lay vows helps achieve world peace

Living in vows is something that you can do for world peace every day. You might not be one of those high leaders of the various countries going to meetings here and there, giving talks for world peace. But living in vows is one practical thing that you can offer for peace; you can do it immediately. Many people can talk words, but words alone can’t do much for peace. We need action.

First of all, you don’t give harm to yourself. If you engage in those negative karmas, you yourself receive harm. You stop giving harm to yourself by living in these vows.

If you want to benefit others, then living in vows is essential. Living in vows means that you stop many negative karmas that harm others, directly or indirectly. You stop because you made a vow.

By living in vows you stop giving harm to your family, to the people around you, as well as to animals. You stop harming them.

You stop giving harm to all the people in your country. You stop giving harm to the billions of people in this world. The absence of harm is peace—that is what they are receiving. You are giving peace, first to yourself, then to others—to your family, to those around you and to the rest of the sentient beings.

The greater the number of vows you take, the less the harm you give to others and the greater the peace and happiness they receive from you. Living in vows is a real source of peace and happiness for yourself and for other sentient beings.

Living in vows helps the environment

Living in the lay vows also helps the environment. The more people there are living in vows, the more it helps to bring prosperity and enjoyment to your country. It helps stop scarcity of food or crops, the rains come at the right time, the crops grow, etc. This is such a practical thing you can do to help the environment.

Take the vows for life or for as long as you are in prison

Normally you take these vows for life. But if you cannot do that, you can take them for as long as you are in prison. Even though there is less chance to kill in prison, still, by living in even just the vow to not kill, you collect merit day and night, every hour, every second.

Of course, by taking that one vow until death you create such good karma, the cause of happiness, every second, continuously—therefore you are making your life meaningful continuously. And, as I mentioned, taking a greater number of vows is unbelievable.

During the time of the Buddha, an arhat called Arya Katiyana gave vows to a butcher. The butcher couldn’t take the vow to not kill during the daytime, when he had to kill animals, so he took the vow to refrain from killing just at night-time. He didn’t collect the merit of living in the vow during the day, only at night. All those nights in his lifetime he was collecting so much good karma. Even though he created negative karma during the day, there was also good karma.

The arhat also gave a prostitute the vow to abstain from sexual activity in the daytime. During the daytime it was easier to live in the vow to not commit sexual misconduct, even though at night-time she couldn’t live in the vow. Even though she had a lot of negative karma, she created so much merit by making the daytime so meaningful.

The vows of individual liberation are the basis of success in all practice

Because of the state of our mind—the habituation with delusions from beginningless rebirths and, in particular, habituation with attachment—it is very difficult to keep even one vow of morality purely.

First of all, not having met Buddhadharma, we do not accept reincarnation or karma. Then, when we do hear Buddhadharma, it is not so easy to accept; we don’t understand, don’t have faith. Then finally, due to the imprints of some merit created in the past, we are able to have faith and accept, but still it doesn’t mean we are able to practice.

To be born as an ordinary human being, you need pure morality from living in vows as the preliminary cause. Without that, it is impossible. To have a perfect human rebirth, which is even rarer, you need each of the eighteen preliminary causes.

And then, having this perfect human rebirth, to take the lay vows and follow the path to liberation, this is extremely rare—you need so much merit.

Even rarer than that is to take the bodhisattva vows, to practice the Mahayana path to achieve enlightenment. And rarer still is to receive a great initiation to follow the tantric path, as a result of which you can practice and achieve enlightenment in one short life instead of in three countless great eons, which is how long it takes if you follow just the sutra Mahayana path.

So, this opportunity to achieve enlightenment in a brief lifetime of this degenerate time with Highest Yoga Tantra, which depends upon having taken highest tantric vows and the lower tantric vows, which in turn depends upon having taken the bodhisattva vows—all this comes from having taken the vows of individual liberation, such as the lay vows.

You can see how incredibly important it is that you take the lay vows. It is the foundation of your enlightenment. As I said, just to become a human being in the next life you need pure morality gained from living in vows. For your spiritual development, the development of your mind in the path to liberation and enlightenment, you need to take the lay vows.

2. The bodhisattva vows

Having taken the five lay vows, you can now take the eighteen root and forty-six secondary bodhisattva vows. Ask Liberation Prison Project about this.

3. The eight Mahayana precepts

Within the Mahayana path there are also the eight Mahayana precepts, which are taken for twenty-four hours. You don’t need to have taken the bodhisattva vows to take them.

For twenty-four hours you vow not to:

• kill
• steal
• have any sexual contact
• tell lies
• take intoxicants
• eat food after noon (including not eating meat, garlic, onions, radish or eggs)
• wear jewelry and perfumes, etc.
• sit on a high seat.

You could take them several times a month. This makes your life most meaningful; you create so much merit. Taking the eight Mahayana precepts creates the cause to have a good rebirth in your next life, to be free from samsara and eventually achieve enlightenment. And because these precepts are taken with the mind of bodhicitta, they become a cause for happiness and ultimately enlightenment for all sentient beings.

Before taking them, you need to receive the lineage. You can get that from someone at the prison project. Once you have received it one time, from then on you can take the precepts from your altar.

There are books explaining these vows, which you can get from the prison project. See chapter 22.

4. The tantric vows

And then, when you are out of prison, you can take the tantric vows when you receive a Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment.

Remember

• Living in the five lay vows is incredible!
• With vows, you create merit and purify your mind twenty-four hours a day.
• With vows, you help achieve world peace.
• With vows, you help the environment.
• Vows are the basis of all success in your practice.
• With the lay vows you can then take the bodhisattva vows.
• With the bodhisattva vows you can then take the tantric vows.