Bill!,
I take it that this is a carryover from original Buddhism.
There, the various dharmas refer to the various worlds.
I think "The Dharma" only became singular in later times, as a way of referring
to the body of the historical Buddha's teaching, taking it as a whole, even
despite his three separate and distinct teaching periods and teaching styles
(if in fact these epochs are historically accurate, or true; nonetheless, they
are Canonical).
"Dharmas" comes from Hinduism, which of course Shakyamuni practiced.
It's for us to understand for ourselves what may have been meant by the
dharmas, plural. But I recall worlds being described which consisted --
separately -- of humans, animals, hungry-ghosts, spirits, gods, demons, plants,
rocks, well, you name it. Stars and galaxies and clusters of galaxies, too, I
suppose, if we extend the inanimate population forward in time to include other
entities which our senses have discovered through technologies that amplify
them (I'm thinking of telescopes, radio-telescopes, microscopes, and
atom-smashers, etc.).
Now, if our Four Great Vows refer to THESE dharmas, what can it mean for us?,
and what are we "vowing" with regard to them?
We vow to master the Buddhadharma -- surely one of the dharmas -- as well as
all the other realities in all the other dharmas. In other words, we vow to
become compleate experts about all of life, even non-biological life, like
stones, and the iron core of the earth. How can we ever do this? Indeed.
That's what we vow to do, though. Another impossible task! But an
impossibility that we trust THIS MIND can encompass, penetrate, and master.
How can it not? This mind is empty like space, and has no boundaries. Thus,
it is already done, and accomplished. We must just realize it! ...by waking up.
Tibetans talk much more about the various dharmas than Zennists do.
--Joe
> "Bill!" <BillSmart@...> wrote:
> I don't know why this term is plural here, but it is. Maybe it was just
> translated as such because the preceding two vows referred to plurals and
> ended in '...them.' It might have been down just to preserve that form as in
> a poetic sense instead of a logical sense. If you'd prefer you could
> translate is as 'The dharma is boundless, I vow to master it"
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