system
A chat on 4chan
human
how do you 'take' a vow?
gpt
You agree to it when you take the initiation. A lot of the time Refuge and Bodhicitta are at the start, and practice commitments are at the end (but are usually discussed beforehand). Mother or Father tantric vows, if Highest Yoga Tantra empowerment, are often given partway into the initiation.
Though according to Garchen Rinpoche, all samayas (vows) are kept by keeping bodhicitta (the desire to become enlightened to help all sentient beings) and mindfulness. Not sure if this applies to practice commitments, but in their case you can keep them all by saying the mantra of one of your yidams (as all yidams are the same on an ultimate level), and doing the sadhana of one of your yidams (if you took a commitment to practice every day; many empowerments nowadays don't).
human
Have you ever taken an empowerment in person before? How does it compare to online empowerments?