In Zen, when we make the decision to stand up in front of the world and publicly take the precepts, we change the course of our lives. The ceremony culminates with the words:
Now the universe rejoices, the earth trembles and flowers fall from the sky. Bodhisattvas from other worlds ask their Buddha why this is so, and he tells them that a new student has received the Precepts from a Master in the eighty-fifth generation of the lineage of Shakyamuni, who is the Buddha of this world. They turn and bow to you saying: If this is true, then you are the same as us. You are making the Buddhas your teacher and the Bodhisattvas your friends.
This is not myth or poetry. It indicates how we have aligned ourselves with the forces of awakening. However many times we stumble and fall, this alignment will eventually bear fruit in our liberation. Our individual human life and the boundless life of the universe, the life of Buddha are now inexorably harmonising. The earth trembles because the illusion of separation begins to crack and release. The flowers fall from the sky because our actions now take place in the field of gratitude. The universe rejoices because one more trainee has become a Boddhisattva – an awakening being.
The Bodhisattvas from other worlds represent the awakening potential that exists in every direction of time and space. When they bow to the new precept-holder, they recognize that a vow taken with sincerity transforms the whole universe. In the Buddha’s lineage, we share in one life. The same vow-power flows through all of us; the life of Buddha breathes through all things and this boundless life becomes our most intimate experience.
To take refuge in the Buddhas and to call the Bodhisattvas our friends is to entrust ourselves to this living network of wisdom and compassion. We make the Buddhas our teachers not because they are distant, but because their awakened nature and our own true nature are one. We make the Bodhisattvas our friends because we walk the same joyful path of vow and service.
Receiving the precepts is not the end of Zen training but its quickening. The ceremony has a beginning but no true end. Once we have committed, every action, every word, every thought, even every mistake can become part of this endless ceremony. To live the precepts is to let the universe continue its rejoicing—to allow the trembling earth and the falling flowers to manifest more and more clearly within the twists and turns of our individual human lives.