Bear Gokan Bonebakker, Senior Monastic

Zen Center of New York City, 12/29/2019

In the spirit of the New Year, senior monastic Gokan encourages us to be inspired by Zen teacher Okumura Roshi’s definition of a bodhisattva as a person who lives by vow instead of karma. Our karma is the habit energy of our conditioning, but a true vow—whether public or personal—is a compass that helps us turn in the right direction. In living our lives based on vow we can continuously shift the direction of our karma towards the Buddha Way.