Samaya: the vows of the tantrika
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Commitments, or samaya, are sacred pledges taken by practitioners of the Vajrayana. They vow to they persevere, through body, speech and mind, to maintain the appropriate levels of renunciation and attainment.
The basic distinction between vows and commitments is that vows depend on individual mental control whereas commitments are secured by maintaining the buddha-body, speech and mind without degeneration. It is said that the correct observance of commitments brings certain benefits when they are guarded, whereas their infringement brings certain retributions.
Each class of tantra has its own categorization of basic and ancillary commitments, which complement the aforementioned vows. Commitments therefore may entail the observation of specific precepts which are common to a whole class of tantra or individual precepts, which must be observed in relation to a particular meditational deity. When such commitments are broken they must be restored through appropriate Vajrayana ritual practices, for their degeneration may cause serious hindrances to progress on the path.
The observance of vows and commitments is intimately connected with the view and meditation upheld at each stage of development. See “Vajrayana Commitments” for a more in-depth description.
Longchen Rabjampa (klong chen rab ’byam pa) writes that the vows of renunciation adopted by pious attendants should be guarded by a practitioner who desires peace and happiness for herself alone, for the duration of her life. The bodhisattva vows bind the mind with moral discipline which has a dual purpose – they cause the practitioner to attain realization and extraordinary enlightened attributes through the accumulation of virtue, and they benefit others by actions undertaken on behalf of sentient beings. The samaya vows bring a great wave of benefit for others and transform dissonant mental states into pristine cognition. He further explains how the monastic vows of renunciation, the bodhisattva vows and the tantric commitments, can all be maintained without contradiction.
Those who have successfully guarded their commitments are said to accomplish all their purposes, provisional and conclusive. Conversely, retribution is exacted when commitments have been violated. On the question of the repairing or restoration of broken commitments, Longchen Rabjampa adds that whereas there are no means of restoring the broken vows of the pious attendants, the tantras do possess the means capable of repairing violations of the commitments. Purification is said to occur through rites of fulfillment and confession, attempting to realign one's ordinary body, speech and mind with the foremost commitments of buddha-body, speech and mind, which have been violated and broken.