Samantabhadra’s ten vows as an aspiration practice

Read the Avataṃsaka’s closing vows of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra as ten aspirations to act, and use them to shape what you intend to do with your practice.

Perché funziona

The final chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, the Practices and Vows of Samantabhadra, sets out ten vows that a bodhisattva takes on: pay homage to all buddhas, praise them, make offerings, repent of obstacles, rejoice in others’ merit, request the teaching, invite the buddhas to remain, follow the buddhas’ example, accord with living beings, and dedicate all merit to others. The vows are aspirations, not statements to repeat for mood. Their mechanism is that naming the intent to act in each domain makes the aims of practice concrete and public to oneself, and ties individual effort to the welfare of others.

Come farlo

1. Read the ten vows once through, from the first, paying homage to all buddhas, to the tenth, universally transferring merit.
2. Choose one vow that matches a real area of your life, such as the ninth, accord with living beings, and write one sentence about how you would act on it this week.
3. Set the sentence aside and carry it into one ordinary situation, such as a conversation or a decision.
4. At the end of the day, note what you did that matched the vow and what did not, without grading yourself.
5. If you want to take these as formal vows, learn the procedure from a qualified teacher in a lineage. The text I read does not describe how formal vows are taken.

Prove scientifiche

The ten vows are described in the Pure Land Buddhism website’s translation of the chapter, which attributes the Tang translation to Prajñā (read 2026-10-14). The practice is a devotional and ethical tradition, not a trial-tested intervention; no controlled study has tested it. (anecdotal)

The translation I could read is not a scholarly edition and gives no Taishō number. The vows are a devotional aspiration, and I have not tested any claim about their effects. If you are using them in a time of strain, bring them to a teacher or community rather than using them to push through.

Fonti

• The Practices and Vows of Bodhisattva Samantabhadra (Pǔxián xíngyuàn pǐn), final chapter of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, Tang translation attributed to Prajñā. Pure Land Buddhism website (read 2026-10-14).

Errore comune

Repeating the vows as affirmations to produce a feeling, rather than using them as aspirations to act on. The vows ask for conduct, and a feeling is not the measure of whether a vow was kept.