Sojong Vows… and the Meaning Behind Sitting on Chairs

To take the vows we gather at the break of day. The chöpen has been so kind to arrange for flowers for offering. We do the recitation requesting the vow from the three jewels. Rinpoché is taking the vow with us. He performs a mandala on behalf of all of us. It’s a solemn atmosphere, a ritual with repeated bowing and kneeling, with khatas and flowers offered.

The eight sojong vows come in two categories, the five principal ones are absolutely mandatory or else it is not sojong. These principle ones are:

• not to kill,
• not to steal,
• not to lie (with special emphasis on not engaging in spiritual lies),
• to refrain from sexual misconduct,
• not to take any intoxicating substances.

The three complimentary vows are contingent on what is feasible in given space and time. These three are:

• not to eat food at the wrong time (only breakfast and lunch at around midday, no food afterwards until the next morning, one may drink. The lunch situation is tricky for us restless people: one mustn’t get up or else lunch is finished),
• not to sit on high chairs (comment following below),
• not to adorn oneself: one should not wear any jewelry, use perfume, dance or sing

Last night Rinpoché referred us to Khenpo Chödrak Rinpoché’s talks on the subject in which he gives detailed instruction on the topic. You can read a short summary of it on the KIBI resource pages: http://www.kibi-edu.org/articles/mahayana-sojong-sadhana-explanation-by-khenpo-chodrag-rinpoche/

There is also a longer talk by Khenpo Chödrak Rinpoché available in German translation https://www.bodhipath-renchen-ulm.de/de/produkt/die-praxis-des-mahayana-sojong/ In this talk the Khenpo points out we have other ways of producing ourselves or creating situations in which we can be proud. So that might be something to watch out for on this day, since we can’t expect much insight from taking the chairs literally, we are challenged to come to figure out the meaning behind it without the form.

Diary Page: Chöpen’s Diary

My chöpen’s duty really starts the night before. Since I know so little about the job I need the previous chöpen to fill me in on a lot of the details. The previous chöpens generously share their knowledge. My guess is they already know how to take care of a shrine, because they make daily offerings on their shrine at home. Someone smiles at the commotion we make with the comment: Chöpens of the past and of the future.

Our chöpens of the past day were so kind to organize enough flowers for our first event in the morning, the sojong vow. We help them take the water down going from right to left and are reminded to put it up from left to right in the morning. We replace the burned out candles with fresh ones. They are meant to burn all night. During the three-year retreat, we are told, there are candles burning through the entire period of time, night and day.

We take down one of the mandalas, since we are going to need it for the vow taking ritual, we set it aside, clean the mandala set. Since some friends were interested I felt it was a good idea to have two chöyos and I sure am glad to have them in the team. The responsibility, though, is with me, the drupön made that quite clear.

So my chöyo no.1 starts at 5 and is actually nearly done with the offerings in the morning when I come to join her at 5:30. I have tried to distribute the possibility to earn merit evenly, with chöyo no.1 taking care of the shrine and the Mahakala offering, chöyo no.2 in charge of the gong and the smoke offering and only the Mandala offering left for me and being in charge of everything, so I feel that is fair enough a portion. The only person who is not visibly nervous about our first time on the job is my chöyo no.2, because he so knows what he is doing in terms of getting the fire going (and without chemical fire starters!) and we have gone over the process and really it is not so complicated to light a fire and put some cypress twigs on it and a handful of this one mixture and two or three spoonfuls of this powder with mendrub (the traditional medicine) in it, sprinkle some fresh water (or water from the bumpa if you have one) on top and it’s all good. But of course we have it easy because the mixtures are already prepared. It is the variety that counts, trying to offer really everything good. The mendrub alone has at least 200+ ingredients…

My job with the mandala is made much easier than I thought because Rinpoché takes the vows with us and offers the mandala on our behalf, so all I have to do is hold the rice bowl. Since he is right-handed I stand to his right and a wee little bit behind him, so the bowl is next to the tray with the mandala or just so he can easily reach for the rice. I am motivated to finally learn the recitation by heart in case I can do it again sometime. But even with just the fragments of text on my lips I am very happy to be allowed to do this service to the community and to be assisting Rinpoché.

Chöyo no.1 is doing the most amazing job bringing the offering for Mahakala in. Was she ever scared to do it before the puja started! But she serves it with such mindfulness that she doesn’t spill anything and that’s not so easy, because the cup is filled to the brim.

For the afternoon Rinpoché has planned to take us on a chöpen walk through the forest to collect some material for the smoke offering of what will be our last day of düntsam. One of the many friends joining us on the tour is a holistic health practitioner. She points out one flower in particular, the thimble (Fingerhut digitalis)with its pink bell-shaped blossoms, which is very pretty, but not fit for offerings to the shrine, because it is poisonous.

The joint effort is wonderful, people help picking herbs, chöyo no.2 brought his impressive bush knife to deal with the fallen trees. Some curious looking bark attracts my attention. But at a closer look it is full of insects that appreciate the moisture inside. I lay it back and trust that the men will bring a big haul of wood that will more than make up for the bark I couldn’t chose. Our naturopath friend shows us the most aromatic and healthy plants.

What a great place the forest is if we open our eyes to its treasures! Someone says they’re bumming with all those beautiful wild raspberries and we can’t have any. I wouldn’t have thought of eating at that moment. But I was also not really giving the vows I have taken this morning much thought. But she’s right. It is still our sojongday. Interesting to see how little it bugs one not to eat when one is busy doing something meaningful!

We come home with arms full of healing herbs and wood from fir trees that will smell great in our big fire tomorrow. We spread it out on a table in the sunshine to dry a little. Most of our chöpen duties are fulfilled today, the mandala for the sojong vow, helping people put their khatas on the shrine, stowing them away again later, today’s smoke puja, the Mahakala offering and now this wonderful outing.

After Rinpoché’s talk that night we look after the candles again and take down the water. Meticulously we clean the shrine from petals that have fallen off. And it feels so right to be doing it as best as we can. We dispose of everything that was offered in the outdoors on the meadow behind the house, dedicating it. Much as ‚all sentient beings‘ is something that my mind can’t grasp, in the spaciousness of the back garden it is easy to come to an intuitive understanding that we share the merit of today’s effort for the benefit of something that is much wider than ourselves.