Mr. Altig’s Overview of the Wonderful Dharma of the Lotus Sutra

We all carry something ancient within us—a promise made before memory, a purpose that calls to us through the noise of daily life. “The Secret Vow” is a heavy blues meditation on the profound loss we feel when we’ve forgotten why we’re here.

Drawing from the Buddhist teaching of the Bodhisattva vow—the commitment to return to this world of conflict to benefit all beings—this song explores what happens when life’s preoccupations bury that sacred purpose so deep it becomes a secret even to ourselves. The weight we carry isn’t a burden to escape, but a key waiting to unlock our deepest calling.

Through haunting fingerpicked guitar, wailing slide, and raw vocal testimony, the song journeys from confusion and heaviness toward the breakthrough moment of remembering. It’s about waking up to the realization that we didn’t come here by accident—we came on purpose, with purpose.

For anyone who’s ever felt simultaneously lost and called, burdened by a mission they can’t quite name, preoccupied by a thousand distractions while something sacred whispers from beneath it all—this song is for you.

The secret vow was never hidden. It was sleeping in your heart. And today’s the day you start.

Lyrics
Verse 1
[Fingerpicked acoustic guitar, sparse and haunting]
I wake before the dawn breaks, with weight upon my chest
Something whispers in the silence, won’t let my spirit rest
There’s a promise in my bones, carved deeper than my name
But the preoccupations of this life have smothered out the flame
I walk these streets like shadows, familiar but alone
Each face I pass, a question mark, each moment overthrown
By bills and fears and anger, by the grinding of the day
While something sacred calls to me from ages far away

Chorus
[Full band enters: slide guitar, upright bass, brushed drums]
I made a vow, I made a vow
Before I can’t remember when
To walk into the fire, to come back here again
But the secret’s grown so heavy
That I’ve buried it from me
I made a vow to all of you
But I’ve forgotten how to see

Verse 2
[Guitar builds intensity, adding distortion on the edges]
Some nights I dream of battlefields where suffering runs deep
Of reaching out my hands to hold the ones who cannot sleep
Of stepping through the doorway into conflict and to pain
Not running from, but running toward, to help them break the chain
But morning comes with coffee, with the traffic and the news
With a thousand small distractions and a thousand small refusals
To remember why I’m here at all, what mission brought me through
The veil between the worlds I’ve known to stand here next to you

Chorus
[Heavier, with harmonica wailing between lines]
I made a vow, I made a vow
Before this flesh and bone
To benefit all beings, not to walk this path alone
But the secret’s grown so heavy
I’m a stranger to myself
I made a vow that mattered once
Now it’s gathering dust on shelves

Bridge
[Music strips down to just voice and acoustic guitar, building gradually]
Wait—
There’s a crack in the concrete
There’s a light beneath the door
There’s a reason I keep stumbling
Like I’ve been here once before
Maybe—
[Drums return, soft but insistent]
All this weight I’m carrying
Isn’t burden, it’s a key
To unlock the ancient promise
That’s been waiting inside of me
[Full band swells]
I came into this world of conflict
Not to add more to the pain
But to hold the hand of suffering
And walk with it again

Final Chorus
[Triumphant, cathartic, full-throated]
I made a vow, I MADE A VOW
And now I’m starting to recall
To come back here in service
To answer when you call
The secret wasn’t hidden
It was sleeping in my heart
I made a vow to benefit all beings
And today’s the day I start
I made a vow to benefit all beings
And today’s the day I start

Outro

[Extended instrumental fade with slide guitar and harmonica trading phrases, like a conversation between the old forgotten self and the newly awakened one. Ends on a single, sustained note of resolution]