Bodhisattva Vows Ceremony: Program and Chant Sheet

Planetary Dharma Bodhisattva Vow Ceremony

Opening & Grounding

Invoking the Lineage

Taking Refuge

John: Please repeat after me:

• We take refuge in the Buddha, The Beautiful Open Clarity of Reality

• We take refuge in the Dharma, The Truth of how things are

• We take refuge in the Sangha. The Goodness of Relationship

Acknowledgement & Purification

Nicole: Before we vow to liberate others, we acknowledge our own confusion, our own harm, our own forgetting. 

Please Recite with me:

• We release our Mistrust and Invoke Trust

• We release our Shame and Doubt and Invoke Autonomy

• We release our Guilt and Invoke Initiative

• We release our Inferiority and Invoke Industry

• We release our Confusion and Invoke Identity

• We release our Isolation and Invoke Intimacy

• We release our Stagnation and Invoke Generativity

• We release our Despair and Invoke Integrity

• All harmful karma ever created by through these eight poisons  

• Through body, speech, and mind

• From beginningless time

• I now fully acknowledge and release.

Generation of Bodhicitta

Nicole:

Let us now generate bodhicitta—the awakened heart that longs for the freedom of all beings. (Pause, take a moment to rest in Bodhichitta)

Recite with me:

• May all beings be free from suffering,

• May all beings awaken,

• May I become the cause of their liberation.
  
  

Recitation of the Bodhisattva Vows

John:

We will now recite the Four Great Vows. These are boundless aspirations—not to be completed, but to be lived, every day.

Chant with me:

• Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to awaken them.

• Confusion is inexhaustible; I vow to liberate it.

• The Dharmas are boundless; I vow to master them.

• The Buddha Way is unattainable; I vow to attain it.

Bestowal of Bodhisattva Names

(Online students first, and then in-person)

Dedication of Merit

John:

Let us dedicate the energy of this ceremony to all beings in all realms, seen and unseen.

Recite with me:

By this merit, may all beings awaken.
May all obscurations be cleared,
May the sacred world reveal itself
And may our vows bring benefit to every corner of the Earth.

Closing Words