Question asked by Gomez
Dear Pastors, Can you please tell me about the vow system in Tibetan Buddhism. What happens when a practitioner dies but has held those vows to his best ability till he dies. But what if in his next rebirth he lied or stole things, this will accumulate negative karma yes?, but does it mean he didn't break his vows because he hadn't received the new set of vows yet. Or are the vows from previous lives are held intact? For eg: If in Shakyamuni's previous life he was a fully ordained monk but in his last life prior to enlightenment he was a married man? Would it not affect his vows from his previous life?
Hi Gomez,
It depends on which set of vows you’re referring to 🙂
1) What happens when a practitioner dies but has held those vows to his best ability till he dies?
>> They bring with them into their next life the merits accumulated from holding their vows in this lifetime.
2) But what if in his next rebirth he lied or stole things, this will accumulate negative karma yes?, but does it mean he didn’t break his vows because he hadn’t received the new set of vows yet. Or are the vows from previous lives are held intact? For eg: If in Shakyamuni’s previous life he was a fully ordained monk but in his last life prior to enlightenment he was a married man? Would it not affect his vows from his previous life?
>> When you receive the bodhisattva vows, our vows continue with us in its subtle form on our mental continuum at the point of death. This means our promise to keep them transcends lifetimes, so they don’t apply to just this lifetime but to each subsequent lifetime until enlightenment.
However, if we took the vows in a previous lifetime, we don’t break them just because we transgressed the bodhisattva vow in this next lifetime. That is, unless we took it again in our next lifetime, in which case we did break the vows.
So although not strictly necessary to retake the vows (since you carry them with you), it’s recommended that you retake the bodhisattva vows in each subsequent lifetime, as a ‘refresher’ and to build on the momentum of the vows you took in your previous lifetime, as an accumulation of merit to propel you in your practice.