Samantabhadra, Bodhisattva of the Great Practice, made ten universal vows. These seemed reasonable at the time (or at least, nobody stopped him).

He vowed to honor all Buddhas, praise all enlightened ones, make abundant offerings, rejoice in others' merits, request teachings, accommodate all beings, and four more of similar scope. For eons, this worked beautifully.

Then the farmers showed up with scrolls.

Meet Percival Dante Killjoy, literary scholar and founder of the Agency for Literal Processing of Holy Aspirations (ALPHA). His breakthrough insight: sacred vows are binding contracts. This cuts both ways.

Beings are weaponizing Samantabhadra's vows against him. "You vowed to accommodate all beings, so accommodate my desire to never be mildly inconvenienced." The requests are technically correct, spiritually absurd, and, according to Percival's framework, legally enforceable.

Practitioners struggling with their own impossible vows can now outsource fulfillment to professionals. Certified specialists rejoice in others' merit on your behalf, without the complications of actual joy. File Form BAB-7 to register your intention to benefit all beings, and consider the vow satisfied. Why struggle alone when experts can honor Buddhas for you?

ALPHA has built a complete marketplace for spiritual commodification, and Samantabhadra is drowning in it. Demands. Paperwork. The horrible sensation of being treated like a cosmic vending machine.

Worst of all, his elephant has gone on strike.

Now three bodhisattvas, wisdom's sword and swift action and immovable calm, must help Samantabhadra remember the hardest lesson in the Mahayana canon: that universal vows require particular wisdom, that accommodation does not mean enablement, and that sometimes the most compassionate response is "no."

After all, if you cannot say no, then yes means nothing.