My Dharma Vow: Being the World I Want to Live In
My Dharma Vow: Being the World I Want to Live In
A reflection on how we change the world by changing ourselves
One of the greatest shifts that takes place on this dhamma path is the moment we turn our attention from the external world to our own internal landscape — the body, the mind, and the heart. This isn't a turning away. We don't stop acknowledging what is happening out there. We simply stop expecting the outside world to be the place where suffering ends.
And right now, there is so much suffering out there. Wars. Oppression. Discrimination. Violence inflicted upon entire countries, entire groups of people, and upon individuals. The suffering of animals at human hands. These are not new wounds — they have been part of the human story since we first walked this earth. Tragic, but true.
I am not asking us to look away. I am not suggesting we become indifferent. I am only pointing to something that I think, deep down, many of us already sense: if we keep waiting for greed, hatred, and delusion to end out there before we allow ourselves to be at ease, we will be waiting forever.
If we want the world to change, the most honest and courageous place to begin is within. To turn toward our own hearts, our own minds, our own bodies and to do the patient, humble work of seeing clearly and letting go.
Do you want to live in a world that is less harmful? Be less harmful.
Do you want to live in a world that is kind? Be kind.
Do you want to live in a world that is compassionate? Be compassionate.
Would you like to live in a world that feels more balanced? Be equanimous.
Would you like to live in a world that is less self-centered? De-center yourself.
Be less harmful.
Notice that I did not say don't cause harm. The moment we take birth as humans, we begin taking from this planet. To demand of ourselves that we cause no harm at all feels both harsh and unrealistic. But can we mitigate the extent to which we participate in harm? Can we wake up more to the ways our pleasure and comfort may come at a cost to other living beings and to the earth itself?
Each morning my day begins with a recitation of the five precepts. After each one, I pause and breathe into my heart space. I soften my body, not as a performance, but as an invitation to see more clearly throughout the day how harm might show up in my choices and interactions.
The Buddha, with great compassion and practicality, offered these five precepts as guideposts. The first, I vow not to harm living beings, sets the tone, and the four that follow are each a riff on this same intention. They ask us to refrain from taking what is not freely given, from causing harm through sexual misconduct, from lying or speaking harshly, and from intoxicating or clouding the mind. Brought into our lives with intention, each of these is not only a gift to others but a gift to our own hearts as well. You can find the precepts in writing here.
If this is not already part of your daily practice, I invite you to try it for 30 days. You might even keep a journal. Each evening, take five minutes to reflect on the precepts you recited that morning. What did you notice? Where did you stumble? Where did you surprise yourself? And perhaps most importantly, what was the state of your heart and mind at the end of the day? See what you discover.
Be kind.
I grew up in the southern United States, and I don't remember hearing much about kindness. What I heard instead was, "Be sweet, Stephanie." As best I could tell, this meant making others feel good, by whatever means necessary, and regardless of your own true feelings. I watched a lot of adults be perfectly "sweet" to someone's face while being anything but kind the moment that person left the room.
It wasn't until I encountered the dhamma that I discovered kindness was something else entirely. Not a performance. Not a social grace. But a heart-mind state that could actually be cultivated and one that could coexist beautifully with silence, truth, and genuine self-care.
For me, kindness has become synonymous with lovingkindness, or metta in Pali. In Buddhism, lovingkindness is understood as the sincere wish for goodwill toward another: wishing them ease, wishing them well-being. At its simplest, it is the intention not to wish anyone ill. That may sound modest, but in practice it is quietly radical.
In the Karaniya Metta Sutta, the Buddha instructs us to radiate kindness over the entire world and for that radiance to be boundless. Boundless! How beautiful is that proposition? As I have practiced this instruction, I feel its effects in real and tangible ways: I am less judgmental, more emotionally available, more understanding. The heart, it turns out, has a much greater capacity than any of us were taught.
The Buddha gave us the gift of the teachings on lovingkindness. Let us receive that generosity with gratitude.
One of my favorite ways to bring lovingkindness into daily life is through a practice called Street Lovingkindness, coined and developed by the wonderful teacher Sharon Salzberg. On my morning walks with my dogs, rather than running through all the stressful things that might happen in the day ahead, I walk peacefully and silently offering lovingkindness to each house I pass, to the people inside, to the animals inside. May you be well. May you be at ease. May you be peaceful. It is a small practice with a surprisingly wide effect. You can learn more about it here.
If you are interested in beginning to practice with lovingkindness more formally, I have a guided meditation here for you: Lovingkindness Meditation
Be compassionate.
One of the biggest barriers to compassion, in my experience, is self-absorption. As I reflect on my own life, I can see numerous moments where I lacked compassion for a friend or family member simply because I was too caught up in wanting to be right, demanding to be seen, or needing to be understood. That kind of turning inward can close us off not only to others but to ourselves as well.
We also have a very human tendency to love our tribe and to have far less sensitivity to those outside of it. Most of us can relate to this if we're honest.
And yet, just as with lovingkindness, the Buddha taught compassion as a practice that can be cultivated. In this practice we allow ourselves to come face to face with suffering, our own or someone else's, and we practice remaining open-hearted. We let the heart meet the moment, rather than shutting down or turning away.
The Buddha himself offered us this intention: "I will abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with compassion; abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill-will."
What a profound aspiration to carry with us.
A phrase that can be helpful to bring into daily practice is: May I, may you, may all beings be free from the causes of suffering.
We say free from the causes of suffering rather than simply free from suffering because suffering has many roots. Some suffering arises from within. Until the moment of full awakening, the human mind is, to varying degrees, entangled with greed, hatred, and delusion. But much suffering in this world is also imposed from the outside, by systems of power, by violence, by the greed and hatred of others. The person born into a war zone did not choose that suffering. To wish all beings free from the causes of suffering is to hold both of these truths at once: to wish for inner liberation and for a world where no being is subjected to the cruelty of others.
If you would like to take this off the cushion and into your heart, I invite you to explore these two guided practices:
Compassion Meditation — Tonglen
Be equanimous.
Equanimity holds a powerful place in Buddhist teachings. It is the last of the four Brahmaviharas, the last of the seven factors of awakening, and the last of the ten paramis. The fact that the Buddha placed such emphasis here has led me, as a practitioner, to place great importance on the cultivation of this quality as well. Perhaps you have too?
In my own meditation practice, equanimity has evolved. What began primarily as a sense of a balanced nervous system, a kind of lessened reactivity, has deepened over time into something far more settled. I now experience equanimity as a deeply felt combination of tranquility, concentration, and relinquishment. In meditation, resting in equanimity brings a greater spaciousness, much less selfing. The heart is open. The mind is receptive to everything, just as it is. There is no pushing or pulling. No liking or disliking.
The more this state is visited on the cushion, the more it begins to weave itself into daily life. When we meet others from an equanimous place, we meet them with openness and receptivity. For me, this has been transformative in ways I am still discovering. Cultivating this quality not only allows me to experience more of life fully but also gives me a point of reference. I can feel the difference. I know what it is like to be in this state, and so I also know, quite clearly, when I am not.
The tendency to compare is part of the human brain, rooted in what neuroscience calls the default mode network. As practitioners, we become aware of this tendency so that when it arises it can be met with mindfulness. Not all comparison is unhelpful. In fact, one of the most useful comparisons we can make is this one: what does it feel like to rest in equanimity, and what does it feel like when I have lost that ground? The contrast is unmistakable. The settledness, the openness, the ease on one side and the tightness, the reactivity, the stress of liking and disliking on the other. That comparison, when made consciously, becomes a powerful teacher. It points us back toward what is possible.
And when we can not only recognize that we have lost our footing but actually find our way back, when we can pause, let go, and return to that place of balance, that is something else entirely. That is the icing on the cake.
In many ways, equanimity is a natural progression, the fruit of practice that ripens day after day, month after month, year after year. As we learn to relax the body and invite the mind to settle, equanimity is what begins to arise on its own. And yet we can also cultivate it directly.
One of my favorite phrases for working with equanimity is this: May all beings care for their own mind and heart. This of course includes myself.
After settling into meditation and allowing the mind to quiet, I bring this phrase into contemplation. I let it land, not just as words, but as an invitation to feel what it means to take genuine responsibility for one's own inner life. Something about that stirs gratitude in me, and a quiet sense of inspiration. From that place, I let the feeling radiate outward, carrying the phrase with it: May all beings care for their own mind and heart.
There is something quietly clarifying about this offering. As the phrase moves outward, it brings with it a natural sense of balance, a felt recognition of what is mine to tend to and what belongs to others. That boundary, held with warmth rather than distance, is itself a form of equanimity.
De-center yourself.
This is not mine. This I am not. This is not myself.
These words come from the Anattalakkhana Sutta, the discourse on not-self, said to be the second teaching the Buddha offered after his enlightenment. Not-self, or anatta in Pali, is one of the three characteristics of existence and one of the most critical insights to realize on the path. It is also, admittedly, one that stumps many western practitioners to the core. For the longest time I had no deep understanding of it either, until I did. Until I began to see the impermanent and vaporous nature of the five aggregates through the practice of vipassana.
Ajahn Chah is quoted as saying that if you try to understand anatta intellectually, your head will explode. So let's not try. Instead, let's look at one aspect of this teaching that we can actually grasp and work with: de-centering the self.
Take a moment and notice how many of your thoughts revolve around me, mine, and I. Probably quite a few, and you are not alone in this. If self is the center of our thinking, it will naturally be the center of our actions too. When we are contracted around this sense of self, we become less connected to the world around us, less open to its beauty, its sorrow, its needs, and its profoundly interdependent nature. And I mean everything. Not just our immediate family, or our neighbors, or the trees in our yard, but all beings, all animals, all plants, and the earth itself.
I have come to understand self and metta as existing in an inverse relationship. The more ego-selfing, the less metta. The less ego-selfing, the more metta. And it is worth remembering that neuroscience confirms we carry about three feet of energetic influence as we move through the world. It matters how we meet each person. It matters what we choose to eat, whether we notice the trees, whether we see the plants. We are not separate from any of it.
So how do we practice this? There are many ways to bring awareness to the de-centering of self. In meditation, we can set the intention to simply notice any thoughts that arise with self at the center, all about me, and those connected to me. No judgment. Nothing to fix. Just awareness. Because only with awareness can we begin, in daily life, to catch ourselves, mid-conversation with a friend, ego response already forming in our heads, and choose instead to drop it. To listen more spaciously. More attentively. To let the other person actually land.
Here are a few resources to support this exploration:
Practice with the elements. This is a beautiful meditation practice that supports seeing the body as nature itself. Susie Harrington offers a wonderful series on the elements that is well worth your time: The Elements Series — Susie Harrington
Study the teaching on the five aggregates. Doug Smith offers an accessible and illuminating entry into this important topic: Introduction to the Five Aggregates — Doug Smith
Go to the source. Read the sutta on the five aggregates, translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi: SN 22.48 — Sutta Central
Each of these five vows, to be less harmful, to be kind, to be compassionate, to be equanimous, to de-center the self, are not separate practices so much as different doorways into the same essential understanding: that the world we long for begins inside us.
This is not a small undertaking. It asks something real of us. It asks us to look honestly at our own minds and hearts, to sit with discomfort, to practice even when, especially when, it is inconvenient. And yet there is nothing burdensome about it when we touch the truth of it, because this path is also one of profound joy, connection, and freedom.
The dharma is not a set of rules handed down from above. It is an invitation, offered with great generosity by the Buddha and kept alive by countless practitioners across centuries, to see clearly and to live accordingly. To be, as best we can, the world we wish to inhabit.
So this is my vow. And I offer it to you not as a prescription but as an inspiration. Take what is useful. Leave what is not. And may your practice, whatever form it takes, be of benefit to you and to all beings everywhere.
May all beings be happy. May all beings be at ease. May all beings be free.
