Ango Vow Program

An Intensified Period of Practice

Have you been practicing regularly with Bright Way Zen for at least 6 months?

Have you established a zazen practice?

Are you a member of Bright Way Zen?

If you can answer “yes” to these questions, please consider joining the Ango Vow Program!

The Ango Vow Program is designed to help you intensify practice for a specific period of time, and to create stronger sangha connections. Angos are 3-4 months long, honoring a traditional period of practice during which monks gathered in monasteries to train intensively.

Committing to an ango provides a clear beginning and end to a period when Zen practice and involvement at Bright Way take a higher priority in your life. Because you are not making an indefinite commitment, and because you are joining others in the ango, the chances of following through on your intention to intensify practice can be greatly improved. Your intentions are stated and tied together with a Vow of Practice for the ango.

A Formal Ango Vow of Practice consists of four elements: 

♦ Your own daily practice at home and/or work
♦ Regular involvement at Bright Way
♦ The two Ango Vow Program retreats (beginning and ending)
♦ Check-in by email or Zoom with other ango students throughout the ango (Note: Occasionally student are able to arrange some meetings by Zoom during the ango, but it can be difficult to coordinate people’s schedules, so this shouldn’t be expected.)

You may want to tie your vows together with an overall theme or statement of purpose, but this is optional.

In your vows, include a description of your basic daily practice. This includes things like your daily zazen, any service you do, verses you incorporate in daily life, reading and study. Flexibility is encouraged, with a “bottom line” description, i.e. “I will try to do morning zazen five days a week, but will always do it at least two days a week.” The idea is to make a vow that will cause you to stretch, but is doable over the whole period of time.

Then list the weekly, monthly or other special events you plan to attend: things like Bright Way Zen practice on Sundays, Tuesdays, or Saturdays, participation at other sanghas, or any sesshin/retreats you will do. Out of all these events, the only ones that are required are the Initial and Ending Ango Vow Program retreats, although any other retreats during the ango are highly encouraged.

Your vows might all be concrete and practical, like what is described above, or you may want to add something more aspirational, such as, “I want to work on self-acceptance,” or “I want to focus on the precept ‘do not indulge anger’.”

Formal Ango Student Initial Retreat

One major purpose of the Ango Vow Program is to create a venue in which a group of lay people can go through a practice period together. Because we are not a monastery, it can be difficult to meet each other in the intimate way that develops when people live in close proximity for an extended period of time. To help with this, much of the first retreat each ango is spent connecting with each other.

In preparation for the initial retreat, people are asked to take the time to reflect on their life and write out three personal outlines:

• A chronological outline of your life events.
• A “karmic outline.” This is a list of events or circumstances that have marked you in significant ways, and have contributed in making you who you are. These can be specific things like alcoholic parents, or more general ones, like growing up in the country, or near a lake.
• A “spiritual outline.” Think specifically about things that have formed your spiritual point of view, including an past (or current) spiritual paths other than Zen.

What you write can be for your own use only, or you may give it to the teacher if you wish. This exercise is to prepare you to make a 10-15 minute presentation at the initial retreat. The idea is for each person to say something about who they are and what has brought them to this practice. After each person speaks, the others will ask questions.

During the initial retreat, students also read their vows aloud to one another during a formal ceremony. Sharing our vows at this time permits the group to witness each person’s commitment, and we also have the opportunity to share something of what it is that brings us together to practice.

Formal Ango Student Ending Retreat

The ending retreat will involve similar kinds of exercises, interactions and sharing in order to bring closure to the ango and check back in with one another. We usually draw “mandalas” to represent our experience of the ango (mandalas are pictures of a whole composed of many parts) and then present them to the group, and then take questions. At the end of the retreat we are released from our vows.
—
Deep and intimate Sangha connections are vitally important in helping us bring the Dharma to fruition in a real way. That is what we hope to accomplish in the Ango Vow Program.

Acknowledgements: This program (formerly called Term Student) was created by Kyogen and Gyokuko Carlson at Dharma Rain Zen Center.