Bodhisattva ethical restraints: Vows 12-14

• For the winter retreatants, a reminder of the preciousness of the opportunity to do retreat
• Vows 12-14 are to avoid:
  • 12. Causing those who have entered the Mahayana to turn away from working for the full awakening of Buddhahood and encouraging them to work merely for their own liberation from suffering.
  • 13. Causing others to abandon completely their precepts of self-liberation and embrace the Mahayana.
  • 14. Holding and causing others to hold the view that the Fundamental Vehicle does not abandon attachment and other delusions.
    

Bodhisattva ethical restraints: Vows 12-14 (download)

Mid-Retreat Pep Talk

Does the weather today remind you of your mind? The sun is shining then two minutes later it’s snowing. Then, it shines again, and there’s wind. Now there’s more snow, and it keeps changing as quickly as you can snap your fingers. So, to grab onto any state of the weather or any mental state is really useless, isn’t it? They are in the process of changing and disintegrating in every moment. The gross change happens because of the subtle disintegration. Then, we have some new weather, and some new mental state. It’s like that, isn’t it? It’s just like that. 

I wanted to just talk about some things about retreat before we get into the bodhisattva ethical conduct.  Because we’re kind of in the middle of the retreat and, sometimes in the middle, people go, “Oh, hmm, another day of this…” You kind of lose your enthusiasm. I think there are a few things going on.  

One is that people start taking the retreat opportunity for granted. Because you have such a long period, it’s like, “Well, if I waste some time here, I miss some sessions there, I space out here, it doesn’t matter because tomorrow is going to be exactly the same.” So, we really take the opportunity for granted. That is a terrible loss, because it is a very precious opportunity. That attitude is operating from the assumption that we’re going to be alive at the end of the retreat. And we don’t really know that, do we? We have no idea if we’re still going to be alive at the end of the retreat. And if we die before the retreat ends, what kind of mental state do we want to die in?  

Wouldn’t it be more useful to really make use of this retreat opportunity while we have it, instead of just assuming, “Well, yes, I’ll be here until the end of the retreat. Next year I can do the same thing. And, the year after that, and, oh, well…” Let’s really appreciate the opportunity and take advantage and not take it for granted. I think that’s really important. If you really want to get the most out of the retreat, then have that exuberant, appreciative attitude. Let that attitude motivate you so that every time you come to a session, you feel so happy: “Oh, I can come to session!” 

Because there comes a tendency, sometime in the middle, of feeling like “I really don’t feel like going today. I’m sick.” You know? Our definition of sick starts to change. It becomes any time I feel the littlest bit tired, or a little something, then automatically I’m sick. So, here’s what I think a good standard is: if you were working at a job where you are getting paid, and you only have a certain number of sick days a year, is how you’re feeling now sick enough that you would take a sick day at your job? Use that as something that would help you. Because somehow, we’re tired, but we find a way to go to work, and we work on many days just because we know we only have a few sick days, and we want to save them for when we’re really sick.

We can have that kind of mind—that if I’m well enough to go to work, then I’m well enough to go to a session. If I’m sick enough to not go to work, then I’d better stay in bed. It’s not just, “I’m tired or my last session was just so awful. I really don’t want to go in. Or my knees hurt. Or I need a break; I really need a break. I’m sitting in this meditation hall with the same people, eating lunch with the same people. I need a break.” I mean, it’s amazing. Look at the break you have right now! Look at the break. Think about it. Most of the people who did the first month retreat with us, they’re back working 8-to-5 or 9-to-5 right now.  And we need a break? You can think about the people who were here before. They all have all their jobs and their families, their bills and the family problems, and the health problems, and this and that, and the other thing. And we just don’t feel like going to a session because “whatever?” 

Really think about it and appreciate your opportunity. When we don’t appreciate our opportunity, we’re actually in some way creating the cause not to have this opportunity again. How do we create the cause to have a retreat opportunity in the future? It’s by really appreciating our retreat and creating a lot of good karma now. But if we are missing sessions then we aren’t creating the cause, are we? Even in this lifetime, we’re losing the opportunity to do a retreat if we get stuck in that kind of mental state of “Oh, well, what a drag.” So, really think about your fortune. Think about what your friends are doing right now—even what our other Dharma friends are doing right now. And remember that when we’re doing retreat, we’re doing it for everybody’s benefit.  

When we’ve taken the bodhisattva vows, we’ve given our life to sentient beings. Of course, we take care of our body. I’m not saying max yourself out until you fall over. That’s ridiculous. But we’ve given our life already to the welfare of sentient beings. So, let’s remember that and approach our opportunity in a very joyful way. Because who wants to live life without joy? We have a choice. We can be joyful, or we can be miserable. And it’s our choice! It’s not the external world. We can’t control the situations we encounter, but we can control how we react to them.  

I remember Kyentse Rinpoche, when we went to Airway Heights Correctional Center. I think some of you were there. He went on and on to these guys who were in prison about what an incredible opportunity they have to do retreat. He was talking about Tibet and what it was like after the communist invasion. They would take the practitioners and just lock them up. In fact, I knew one monk whose family had a nice house, so it got turned into a prison. He was incarcerated in what used to be his family’s house, which was then turned into a prison. And he managed to do retreat. He couldn’t move his lips because if you were caught moving your lips saying mantra you got beaten. And of course he couldn’t have a mala. He would just sit there all day.

He could calculate according to where the sun was, how many mantras he said, and he just did a lot of meditation, a lot of retreats, that way. Kyentse Rinpoche was going on and on about how “This place is clean. You have food. You don’t have to work. You have a bed, and it’s warm and comfortable. You have so much time. You guys are so fortunate.” Can you imagine what Kyentse Rinpoche would say to us, and we’re not even imprisoned? That’s the kind of fortune and opportunity we have. It’s very important to remember this, very important. And when you do, then your mind becomes quite happy. 

That was one thing I wanted to talk about. Another thing was how in your meditation you’re probably recognizing certain emotional habit patterns. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

Venerable Thubten Chodron (VTC): We might have a habit pattern of attachment or a habit pattern of anger, we’ve talked a lot about those.  

But then some people have an emotional habit pattern of anxiety. I think they are so used to being anxious and worrying, that they don’t even realize that they’re anxious. They’re so used to it that that’s just their M. O. Every situation is approached with “Uh-oh, what’s going to happen?”  Or “How am I going to perform?”  Or “Am I going to cut the grade?”  Or “Are people going to like me?”  Or “Am I going to fail?”  Or “What’s going to happen?”  Or “Will I get what I want?”  Or “Am I going to wind up in a ditch?”  Or “Am I going to die?” We all may have different things that we get anxious about, but for some of us, it’s like a push-button response to any kind of thing that happens. It’s “uh-oh,” and then anxiety.  

Anxiety is a weird kind of thing. It’s not quite like fear, because fear is usually regarding a specific thing. There’s something specific, and fear is usually regarding a physical threat, a specific kind of incident. But anxiety can just be free-floating, and we can get anxious about you name it. What’s really tricky about it is we don’t even realize that we’re anxious, because we’re so used to thinking like this, and having that undercurrent going on in our mind, however your anxiety may appear. Anxiety, in one way, is this loose amorphous thing. In another way, everything gets very narrow because anxiety is all about me. Isn’t it? It’s all about me—even if we’re anxious about the state of the world. 

“What’s going to happen to the world?” really means “What’s going to happen to me? If all these things in the world happen, what’s going to happen to me?” Anxiety is like single-pointed-concentration, a very narrow kind of thing. You can look, all of our afflictions are very narrow like that. You know, attachment: “What I want.”  Anger: “What they did to me.” It’s very narrow. It just stays there, and we get hooked and become quite miserable. We see the whole world through this framework of anxiety about, “What’s going to happen to me?” And then everything becomes so big, like “Oh, why is she giving this talk on anxiety? Maybe she’s talking to me personally because I’m doing something wrong. Uh-oh.” 

Audience: Now you made us think that. 

(VTC): Are you all thinking that? 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): Everything is like, “Oh, am I going to be able to eat the food?”  And “Oh, my little toe hurts today. I think I must have gout, or I must have leprosy, or my leg is going to fall off. I have some headache—oh, my head is going to fall off; it’s going to break. Everything is going to go wrong.” Everything becomes so big, just filled with worry about every small thing. It’s like, “Oh, she talked, and gave this pep talk about retreat, but I don’t really feel that way.” And “Oh, no. What am I going to do? How am I going to do this?” And “I’ve got to make it until the end of the retreat.” And then, the mind just goes crazy with all these proliferating thoughts that are about nothing, except me. 

So, if you see that your mind is going in that direction of anxiety, retreat is the perfect opportunity that you have to really start working with that mental habit. It’s like the perfect opportunity because you have so few distractions here. You can see the anxiety very clearly. And when you notice it, you can start tracing it back. What was it that happened? Was there something in the external environment? Was it some thought that came into my mind? Was it some memory? Was it something that I smelled that reminded me of something that happened before? This is the perfect opportunity to really look and see, “Okay, where did the anxiety come from? What sparked it?” And then also we can really investigate it when you’re in the midst of it: what are the characteristics of anxiety? In other words: “I say I’m anxious. How do I know that? What are the characteristics? How does it feel in my body? What’s the flavor or the taste or the mood in my mind?”  In other words, what’s the basis of designation of anxiety? How do I know I’m anxious? What are the things that are going on inside me that I call ‘anxiety,’ or ‘anxious’ or whatever it is.  

And then, watch the anxiety. Because you can’t hang onto it forever. You do get distracted from your anxiety occasionally. So, where did it go? When the anxious thought is no longer there, where did it go? Where does it go? How does it feel in my body and in my mind at this moment, not to have anxiety?  

And then, what are antidotes to anxiety? One thing that I do for anxiety is, I just say, “This is an adventure. I have no idea what’s going to happen. I can’t control anything. This is my adventure, and this is my playfield for practicing the Dharma. So, let’s get on with it. I don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s no use getting anxious over it; this is an adventure.”  We can do that instead of thinking, “My little toe hurts. My little finger hurts. Oh, I have a pimple here, that must mean that I have some horrible disease and I’m going to die within the next ten days.” The mind just goes on and on.  

And, just to say, “Well, okay, that’s an adventure.”  So, “I have some horrible disease”  or “I’m just going to fall to bits” or “I’m not going to be able to pay my rent” becomes “Well, that’s the latest adventure in this thing that we call life.”  Whatever happens, it’s just an adventure; that’s it. And it’s something to practice the Dharma with. So, relax and go with it. When we have refuge in the Three Jewels, we have something to call on, to work with our mind, no matter what happens. We can’t control what happens to our body. We know we’re going to die some time. We can work with our mind. We have refuge, and we’ve learned the Dharma tools, so aren’t we fortunate? Instead of worrying about what’s going to happen, let’s develop these Dharma tools inside of ourselves, and then practice them when different things come up.  

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): You’re asking, “Are stress and anxiety something new that people didn’t have so much in the past?” I think that we all have the same minds, no matter how many thousands of years ago. I think people probably got anxious before. I think that the way our modern life is structured can lead to that. I think that often what we do is we look at the people around us and they’re stressed, so we think, “I should be stressed. They’re anxious, so I should be anxious.” We look at other family members when we’re little kids, and if they’re worried and anxious, then we figure, “Well, that’s the way you are and the way you should live your life.” And if they’re stressed-out from too much to do, then we pile too many things on ourselves and get stressed-out because we think, “Well, that’s the way people did it.” We’re kind of monkey-see, monkey-do.  

It can be very helpful to ask, “What patterns did I see around the people that I grew up with—family members or neighbors, or even my friends? How did I learn?” Because we learn so much of this. You watch, when little kids fall down, they look at their parents to figure out if they’re supposed to cry or not.  If the parents go, “Ooooohh!” then the kid knows “I’m supposed to cry.” And if the parent ignores it, the kid just often goes on—unless they’re really hurt, then they cry. So much, too, we noticed how the people in our environment reacted to things, and we thought, “Well, that’s how it’s done.” 

This is the nice thing about being an adult, the nice thing about practicing Dharma. We can look at these patterns and habits and say, “You know, that isn’t a necessity. That isn’t a done deal. That is the only way to react to a situation. That is just the way these people reacted. I can react differently. I want to do it differently.” 

Then you go, “Retreat is just so precious to be able to work with these kinds of mental habits,” and you get anxious. “Maybe somebody is mad at me. They don’t like me.” When you say, “That’s okay,” you’re not saying, “Oh, it’s okay that I hurt somebody’s feelings.” Because you’re not worried about did you hurt somebody’s feelings. You’re worried about if they dislike you. So, what if you said, “Oh, they dislike me. That’s okay” instead? Really, what’s so bad? Somebody dislikes us. It could actually be good. You might become a little bit humbler and a little bit nicer. Instead of going, “Oh no. They dislike me. What did I do wrong?” it’s like, “Well, that’s good.” Anyway, we can’t control what they feel, can we? If we’re sincerely sorry because we were rude and obnoxious, that’s something else that we want to make amends for. But if we’re just anxious because we’re afraid of what people think about us then at lunch every day, you can go, “Okay, what does everybody think about me?” Ask everybody to write a note about what they think about you that day. And then, every day, of course, what they think about you, changes.  

There are so many things that we can get anxious about. The Dharma is real protection for us. We also need to be practical about things in our life. If you don’t have enough money to buy food, you don’t say, “Oh, well, Dharma is going to protect me.” Of course, that’s a different situation for monastics. Then, you become responsible. You go out and get a job. You earn money. You get food. I’m not saying letting go of anxiety means that you don’t care about what happens in your life, and that you aren’t responsible for yourself. Dharma actually should make us more responsible. Because when you take the bodhisattva vow, you’ve made yourself responsible for the benefit of all sentient beings. So, we’ve got to start with ourselves first. How are we going to work for the benefit of all sentient beings if we can’t take care of ourselves? We have to be responsible in our life. But we can be responsible without being anxious.  

12.  Diverting from consummate enlightenment someone committed to Buddhahood. 

We’re on number 12.  Shantideva says:

The twelfth transgression is causing someone to abandon the Mahayana. The object is anyone who strives to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings. It may be somebody who has genuine bodhicitta, or someone, like ourselves perhaps, who has generated a form of bodhicitta, be it artificial, in other words, contrived or fabricated, and on that basis has taken bodhisattva vows. We are not to understand the expression ‘committed to Buddhahood’ in the usual sense as referring to a person who has necessarily realized spontaneous bodhicitta and who is therefore a true bodhisattva; however, the object of the transgression must have the bodhisattva vows.

So, we’re diverting somebody who is interested, who has the bodhisattva vows, away from consummate, ultimate enlightenment. As we go through this, we might think, “Well, if this person hasn’t taken the bodhisattva vows, it’s okay if I divert them?” No. Even if somebody who hasn’t taken the bodhisattva vows, if it’s somebody who is inclined towards the Mahayana, we should always encourage them.  

Next, we consider the action. We make the transgression by telling someone who is striving to attain enlightenment, ‘You had better give up. You’re incapable of practicing the perfections. You will never achieve enlightenment. It’s far too difficult. There are too many living beings, and most of them will never listen to you anyway. You would be better off seeking your own happiness in individual liberation by practicing the hearer vehicle.

It can be by making that person lose confidence in themselves and their own ability. It can be by making them think that the path is too difficult. They can’t do it because the path is too hard. It can be by telling him that the result is too high. So, it is just unattainable, unrealistic. You have a basis, path, and result here by discouraging somebody in any of those ways.  

The action consists of speaking to followers of the Mahayana in a similar manner, and thereby discouraging them to the extent that they give up their aspiration to highest enlightenment.

You can see that this is really something that’s damaging. It’s harmful not only to that particular person, making them abandon the Mahayana and abandon seeking Buddhahood. But also, it’s harmful to all the people that are capable of benefiting others while they’re on the path, and after they attain enlightenment. It’s not just damaging one person; it’s damaging all the people who can benefit from that one person.  

The Great Way, Lama Tsongkhapa’s text, raises the question of whether the transgression is complete the moment we say discouraging words to Mahayana practitioners or whether, in addition, as a result of what we say, they must actually abandon their aspiration. Based on an important commentary to The Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, by an Indian master whose name translates into Tibetan as Sherap Jungne, he concluded that the people must not only give up the aspiration to supreme enlightenment; they must henceforth put their hopes in the trainee vehicles.

In other words, they must put their hopes in the hearer and solitary realizer vehicles. So, we say words to somebody who has the bodhisattva vows, discouraging them, and then they turn away from the Mahayana and adopt the hearer or solitary realizer vehicle. I wonder what happens if they just give up the Dharma altogether? That would be even worse.  

Although we are not likely to commit this misdeed, if we are not careful, we might come close to it. For example, we might be tempted to tell people who plan to attend a teaching on the lamrim that the instruction is far too elaborate and that they would be better off meditating on a deity and reciting mantras.

Somebody who says that has no understanding of tantra. But this often is people’s idea: “Oh, this ‘understanding emptiness,’ is too hard. Let’s just chant some mantra.” 

With this kind of ill-considered remark, we could easily induce people who aim to achieve full enlightenment for the sake of all living beings to abandon their intention to study and practice the lamrim.

Actually, whenever possible, we should encourage people in the Mahayana. When you do something in the Mahayana, if you’re able to progress along the path to enlightenment because of the virtue that you accumulate and the realizations you gain, one person’s life becomes incredibly valuable and incredibly beneficial for so many sentient beings. We certainly don’t want to discourage anybody. Anybody we can possibly encourage, let’s do that. Now, of course, you don’t want to push people and make them uncomfortable and stuff like that, but you encourage.  

I remember when I went to Thailand in ’05. I was staying in a Thai monastery and some of the younger monks would want to come talk to me. They had lots of questions. They would ask about bodhicitta and so on—things like that. I felt like, “Ooh, this is subterfuge…” But actually, I don’t think their master was averse to it. He had great faith in Quan Yin. I think he had some admiration for the bodhisattva vehicle. I just tried to talk in favor of that. Of course, there were some people that just didn’t want to hear it, and said this is just unrealistic and impossible, and tried to discourage me. But I wasn’t going to fall for it. I just felt like, “If I can plant some seeds here, they might ripen in another lifetime for these people.” 

13.  Causing someone to completely give up the vows for individual liberation and enter the Mahayana. 

The previous restraint was causing somebody in the Mahayana to either lose the Dharma or practice hearer and solitary realizer. Here you’re telling somebody that practicing, having the individual liberation precepts—like being a monastic or having the five precepts—is useless, and it’s better to enter the Mahayana and just practice the Mahayana. This, again, comes from people’s ignorance who think that Mahayana is something totally divorced from vinaya practice, which it’s not. It’s based on vinaya practice. But there’s a number of people who think, “Vinaya is just for all those people who want self-liberation. We are Mahayana practitioners. Everything’s empty. We don’t need these rules.” A lot of people think like that.  

This transgression consists of urging people to abandon their precepts for individual liberation. The object is a person who holds any category of vows for individual liberation, either the vows of ordination or lay person’s vows, and who observes them well.

In the pratimoksha, there are eight types of vows, or eight sets of ethical restraints. Five of them are for monastics, and three of them are for lay people. The ones for lay people are the five lay precepts for men and five lay precepts for women. And somebody becomes an upāsikā or an upāsaka, and also the eight one-day vows. And then the five for monastics are male and female novice, the shikshamana for the women, and then male and female full ordination—bhikshu and bhikshuni.  So, it’s somebody who has any of those. 

The action consists of saying something to the effect of the following: ‘What’s the use of practicing the vinaya? A far more effective way to purify yourself of the physical, verbal, and mental misdeeds that you have committed under the influence of your afflictions is to simply generate bodhicitta and read Mahayana scriptures.’

In other words, it’s saying, “Bodhicitta is so powerful to purify negativities, you don’t need these individual liberation precepts.” 

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): If you’re just saying the bodhisattva precepts are more important or more difficult to keep or more advanced than the vinaya, that’s true. And that’s not discouraging somebody from keeping the vinaya, is it?  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): If somebody says it like, “It’s more important to do the bodhisattva, you don’t need the vinaya” then they’re turning you away from that. That would certainly fall under here. But if they are just in general saying the bodhisattva vows are very important, that’s not necessarily turning you away.  

I should forewarn you. In the West, especially in the U. S. where it’s a Protestant country, people don’t have much notion of monks and nuns—even the people who grew up Catholic. The church is getting so much bad press these days, unfortunately. It’s quite sad. I’ve had people say to me, “Most monastics are just avoiding sexual intimacy because they have problems.” I’ve heard people who are Dharma teachers say that kind of thing. Somebody told me that some Dharma teachers have told them that “We don’t need monastics nowadays; it’s just old-fashioned.” That was for the time of the Buddha. We don’t need that now. You find people saying all sorts of things. As people who are monastics, just don’t listen to them. They’re speaking out of their own ignorance.  

Definitely, we shouldn’t be somebody who talks like that and says that kind of thing to other people. Because there’s so much virtue from keeping the monastic vows or keeping the five precepts or the one-day precepts. There’s so much virtue that comes from that. And that forms a basis upon which to take the bodhisattva precepts and the tantric precepts. It’s really getting things all upside down to say, “You don’t need the vinaya precepts and the Pratimoksha. Just forget it all and practice the Mahayana.” That’s really incorrect. If you’re a monastic, just be aware that people say these kinds of things. People say what people say, and let it go.  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): When people say, “Oh, we don’t need monastics; we don’t need vinaya,” what’s going on in their minds? I can’t say. It’s better that you ask them. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): I know in America there are a lot of lay people who feel that “monasticism is just about hierarchy, and it’s patriarchal. We want to get rid of hierarchy. We want to get rid of patriarchy. So, get rid of the vinaya, because then we’re all equal.” I think that could be something going on in people’s minds. It’s better that you ask them, actually. Or does anybody else have some ideas? 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): It’s extreme, yes. They feel that monasticism is too extreme. It’s like thinking, “What’s wrong with a little bit of wine, what’s wrong with this, that, and the other thing? Yes, it’s just too extreme.”  

Audience: And also, in their system they don’t believe in rebirth—that you’re in the human realm going down to the animal realm. 

(VTC): So, it’s not really having an awareness that ethical conduct is the cause of a good rebirth.  

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): But I think even if people aren’t following a specific path, they just look at the monastic lifestyle and say it’s too extreme.  

Audience: One thing people may say about monastics is that there’s a possibility that monastics can’t really relate to other people. They don’t have children. They won’t have the same kind of perspective. 

(VTC): Yes. Another reason for people saying that is because they feel that monastic life means you can’t relate to people if you’re a monastic. You don’t have the same experiences as them. You don’t have a spouse. You don’t have a career, a mortgage, and children. If you really want to benefit sentient beings, then you should be like everybody else so that you really understand their problems.  

Or sometimes you hear monastics saying, “Well, I can’t relate to people when I wear robes. I can’t relate to people.” Somebody might say to a monastic something, like “You can’t relate to people when you’re in robes. It’s like people don’t know who you are. They can’t talk to you. They can’t relate to you. You can’t relate to them, because you haven’t had their experience.” When actually, I find that wearing robes gives me the opportunity to meet so many people I would never normally meet when I’m out and about. So many people come up to you and they say, “Oh, what are you? What do you believe?” Then you have an open door to talk about kindness, and love, and compassion, and forgiveness, and everything like that.  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): That is also a very good point. Traditionally, to have a lot of Dharma instruction and opportunity to do retreat and so on, you usually had to be a monastic. Whereas nowadays, lay people, especially in the West, are very interested in the Dharma. They are so eager. They are very good practitioners. There’s no need to become a monastic in order to receive those teachings. “You just take time off work to do retreat, so you don’t need that kind of lifestyle to have the opportunity to practice in a serious way”: many people could think that way, 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): You knew somebody who was a psychologist who was ordained. He was initially very hesitant to go to his workplace because he was wearing robes. He was afraid that all the patients would run away from him. But actually, the exact opposite happened. He was getting all this good feedback. More and more people actually wanted to come talk to him. I think that’s because again, it depends on the culture and the place, but people do have some kind of respect for people who are trying to live a religious life and trying to explore their minds. 

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): You’re saying that when you ordained, you found that some of your Dharma friends who were old-time Dharma students with you felt very threatened by it. It’s kind of like “Well, she’s gone way off the deep end, and why can’t she just live a normal life? Why can’t she just be normal? You have all the opportunity to practice. Why do you need to do something extreme like this?” Because it was in a way asking them, “Oh, if she’s doing that, why aren’t I doing that?”

I think another thing could be that some people have issues with organized religion, which I can well understand. They identify monastics with organized religion. I, for example, don’t identify myself with organized religion at all. I’m just a practitioner because I see that there’s value for my spiritual practice in keeping the precepts, and because I want to live an ethical life. I don’t have the precepts because I consider myself now part of an institution. But then some people, as soon as they see you in robes, they say, “Oh, organized religion, institution, dogma, patriarchy, hierarchy, exclusion”—whatever it is—“Corruption.” So, they go to that, and that’s understandable. I don’t want to be part of some dogmatic religious institution.  

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): Yes, we don’t really live in a culture nowadays that treasures ethical conduct.  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): Yes, the people who respect monastics have that value of ethical conduct. But for a lot of people, it’s just “do whatever you can as long as you don’t get caught.” I find it so interesting to watch the whole political thing. All these people’s ethical indiscretions are just all over the newspaper. Voters are like, “Fine.”

If I can just go off on a tangent here for a moment. Newt Gingrich cheated on his first wife to marry his second wife and cheated on his second wife to marry his third wife. He’s the favorite of the social conservatives in South Carolina. They voted for him. It’s so mind-blowing. The way he’s lived his life in terms of marriage is the opposite of what they believe in, but they just went for it. It’s very strange.  

Audience: Maybe it’s the idea of “Why do you have to be a monastic if you want to help people? If you want to help people, just get to work and live with them, talk to them.” 

(VTC): Yes, that’s another one that many people might think: “If you really are committed to benefitting people, if you really want to practice bodhicitta, then go and do something in society to help people. Why are you going off there and watching your belly button? Go do something.” Yes, many people could think that and think monastic life is useless. 

Audience: With politics, that’s another side of that. Disillusionment with the process is at an all-time high. There are also a lot of people who are working at canvassing. And ethics? Most people don’t vote anyway. Part of that is disillusionment in the process. So, people in power represent the majority of the people who vote, not the majority of the people in the country. 

(VTC): Yes, right. I didn’t repeat that because I didn’t want to go into politics too much. But this is very good, so you can see why people might have that feeling. You’re going to hear all sorts of things as you go through your life. You just have to be very clear in your own mind about what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it. Our purpose isn’t for people to like us. Our purpose is to benefit them.  

Audience: [Inaudible] 

(VTC): Yes. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what monastic life means—very much, very much. People might also think, “Oh, you’re so lonely.” I remember when I was in India, when I went to get the material for my robes, one Indian man in the cloth shop said, “Oh, it’s such a pity you’re ordaining. You know, you’re very attractive. Some man would like to marry you.” I was like, “Oh, leave me alone.” Yes, but people really think “Oh, that’s kind of a waste” if you’re young and attractive—what a waste to go off and be a monastic.  

Audience: I had some feedback from some of my friends, telling me that I’m going to be miserable. It’s very confusing to them that I’m happier. They don’t know what to do with that. 

(VTC): Yes. Some of your old friends were very concerned for you that you’re going to be miserable because you’re giving up all these things, and yet you’re happier and they don’t understand it. 

Audience: When I said I was going to come for three months, they said, “Why can’t you go to a spa? Silent for three months? Go to a spa.”

(VTC): Yes, okay. If you want to relax, go to a spa.  

The Great Way explains that merely uttering such words is not enough to complete the transgression.  Someone must follow our advice, actually give up observing vows for individual liberation and start reading Mahayana sutras instead.  If no one heeds our words, the fault is a secondary misdeed and not a major transgression. We must not confuse this misdeed with telling people that keeping the vows for individual liberation is insufficient and that they should generate [the bodhicitta] and meditate on the Mahayana teachings as well, because this is perfectly accurate.

It is insufficient to keep the Vinaya vows; we also need to learn the Mahayana and meditate on that. But that’s different from encouraging somebody to give up their Pratimoksha precepts.

The transgression lies in asserting that observing the precepts for individual liberation is pointless and unnecessary, and that generating bodhicitta and reading Mahayana sutras is largely adequate. 

14.  Maintaining that the trainee vehicles do not allow the rejection of attachment and so forth and inducing others to believe it as well. 

Number 14 says:

Maintaining that the trainee vehicles, that refers to the hearer and solitary realizer vehicles, do not allow the rejection of attachment and so forth, and inducing others to believe that as well. The fourteenth major transgression is belittling either the hearer vehicle or the solitary realizer vehicle or both combined under the denomination of ‘trainee vehicles.’ The object is therefore the teaching as realization of either or both of these vehicles.

Much of this is having all sorts of wrong views about other peoples’ practices and encouraging people to abandon their practice.  

The action consists of truly believing and asserting that no matter how long we may train in either the hearer or solitary realizer vehicles or both, we cannot eradicate all the afflictions. The view could be couched in these terms: ‘Don’t heed the hearer vehicle teaching; don’t instruct others in it; just destroy it and put your faith in the great vehicle!’

“Mahayana is so wonderful.” You’re talking to somebody who wants to become an arhat: “If you practice hearer, solitary realizer vehicle, you’re never going to get anywhere. You can’t even get to liberation. You can’t abandon all your craving and attachment by practicing that. Mahayana is the one and the only. Everybody’s got to become a Mahayanist.” 

Sometimes you meet these people. They’re kind of like ‘born-again’ Mahayanists. “Oh, those people—hearers, solitary realizers—they’re so selfish. They’re just doing their own trip. Everybody should practice the Mahayana, or they’re not going to get anywhere.” I’ve met people like that.

In the process, we may induce others to believe what we say, in which case if they also have the bodhisattva vows, they commit the same transgression.

So, we’re influencing other people to have a bad view of the hearer and solitary realizer vehicle.  

Although Shantideva’s lines include the phrase ‘and inducing others to believe it as well,’ for the transgression to be effective it is not necessary to have someone share our opinion.

So, it’s just thinking like that yourself.  

How does this misdeed differ from the sixth transgression—rejecting the sacred Dharma? The present misdeed concerns the teachings as spiritual realization whereas the previous one was the teachings as scriptural.

So, it’s the realizational Dharma versus the scriptural or transmitted Dharma.

With the present one, we deny that the practices of these paths allow us to rid ourselves of the afflictions.

We’re saying that the realizations, the realizational Dharma, doesn’t work for those vehicles.

In the case of the sixth transgression, we deny the teachings in the form of scriptures by refusing to admit that the Buddha taught the scriptures of the trainee vehicles, for example.

The sixth one is saying, “Oh, Buddha didn’t teach that.” This one is saying, “Maybe Buddha taught it, but it doesn’t work.” 

Here we do not deny the scriptures as such, but the realizations that they allow us to achieve. We reject the idea that by practicing these teachings we are able to eradicate all of our afflictions.  

So, this is referring to somebody being so enamored with the Mahayana that they disparage the Śrāvaka and Pratyekabuddha, hearer and solitary realizer paths. We have to realize that the Buddha taught all these different paths, all these different vehicles, because people have different inclinations, different aptitudes, different interests. He taught different things so that people could find something that’s going to be suitable for them. These people, it’s good if they go and attain arhatship, that’s fantastic. If they have that kind of inclination, then fantastic. Arhatship is something to really be respected. And then, because we believe in one final vehicle, we say eventually they’ll enter the Mahayana, but it’s great if they practice the arhat vehicle. Encourage people, rather than telling them, “Oh, it’s not necessary to practice, and just give that up because it doesn’t work.” That’s not right. 

There are a lot of different views here. You can see there must have been people who had these different kinds of views, otherwise there wouldn’t be precepts regarding it. There must have been people holding these kinds of wrong views and influencing others to practice in the wrong way. 

Audience: [Inaudible]

(VTC): He was saying the eleventh and the twelfth were ones to be particularly careful about. Good.