Tilopa wrote:Individual wrote:
When it comes to using a tool, you can't fault the tool for not working how you want it to (like taking a vow, breaking the vow, then blaming the vow for your actions). However, when you hand a tool to others, you can't fault them for being skillful, if such skill falls outside their natural abilities (talking about such vows, sharing them with others, commenting on how they kept or broke it).
This is incomprehensible gibberish to me but I admit I'm not particularly intelligent.
You seem at least as intelligent as me, if not more so, and I can elaborate. It's just a matter of looking at it from different perspectives.
Firstly, vows are just a tool for liberation. We agree, right? So if you break a vow, you can't blame the vow for not working. If you make the bodhisattva vow and don't become a bodhisattva, you can't blame the bodhisattva vow for not making you a bodhisattva. You already understand this part because you emphasized the important of effort, practice, and keeping the vow. This is the point you were trying to make and I agree.
However, from a larger perspective, outside perspective, a community perspective, from a teacher's perspective -- do you really expect worldlings to take vows and become bodhisattvas? How could it be possible for most of them? They are worldlings. Some few of them will succeed, but most won't because you can't realistically expect anything from them. It's the same in competitive educational, athletic, and military programs. And when one does not succeed, that does not make them a "bad person." For others to say that or for them to think that would only be a burden; a burden which would be an obstacle they would have to overcome to even have the opportunity to make the bodhisattva vow in the future, and strive on diligently.