The ceremony in which the vow is taken varies considerably across the Mahayana traditions that share the underlying commitment. In many East Asian traditions it is administered together with, or shortly after, the bodhisattva precepts, a set of ethical vows distinct from the monastic vinaya and open to laypeople as well as monastics, so that taking the bodhisattva vow can mark a formal deepening of lay practice rather than only a monastic milestone.
In Tibetan Buddhism the vow is commonly taken as a preliminary to tantric initiation, understood as establishing the motivation, bodhicitta, without which the more advanced practices that follow would be considered spiritually hazardous rather than beneficial, and it is frequently retaken and renewed throughout a practitioner's life at teachings and retreats rather than administered once for good.
A short liturgical formula, invoking the Buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions as witnesses and reciting the intention to free all beings, recurs across these formats in broadly similar shape even where the surrounding ceremony differs, and many Mahayana centres worldwide now offer the vow to lay students as a standard entry point into formal practice, treated less as a rare monastic threshold than as an accessible and frequently renewed commitment open to any sincere student.