Living by Vow: A Practical Introduction to Eight Essential Zen Chants and Texts

The first refuge includes the phrase “awakening the unsurpassable mind.” Unsurpassable mind (mujō-shin) is the same as bodhi-mind (bodai-shin). Both are abbreviations of the Sanskrit anuttarā-samyaksambodhi-citta. Anuttarā means “unsurpassable,” “supreme,” or “highest.” Bodhi means “awakening.” Mujō is the translation of anuttarā and bodai is the transliteration of bodhi. When we embody the Great Awakening, we awaken to the awakening mind. It’s a strange expression, but that is the reality. We awaken the awakening mind in order to wake up. We usually think we are awake except when we are asleep at night or napping, but actually we are usually asleep and dreaming. We imagine this world, our lives, and ourselves. We create dream-worlds and then believe that they are reality. And yet, they are only constructs of our mind. We create a story in which we are the hero or heroine. We think we are the center of the world, and all other people and things are resources to make a happy ending for our story. This is how we live in a dream. To awaken means to drop off body and mind, become free from dreaming and encounter reality. We try to act based on the reality that exists before we process the world through the intellect. Our intellection is based on our education and all our experiences since birth. But these experiences are a limited way of viewing the world, so we must wake up to reality.