Bodhisattva ethical restraints: Auxiliary vow 46

• Auxiliary vows 35-46 are to eliminate obstacles to the morality of benefiting others. Abandon:
• 46. Not using miraculous powers, if you possess this ability, in order to stop others from doing destructive actions.

Think of three specific instances in your life where your self-centered thought has caused you suffering and then contemplate the effects of that suffering in this life and future lives. Think of three specific instances. Then, seeing the faults of the self-centeredness make a strong resolution to oppose it and think of ways in those three particular situations where if they happened again, you would oppose that self-centered thought. Think of how you would do that.

46. Not Repressing Wrongdoers by Paranormal Powers

We have one very last precept of the bodhisattva precepts. This falls under the category of “Not Repressing those who are disgusted with the Dharma” and so forth. So, it’s not doing something about them to help them. It’s precept number forty-six and it says “Not Repressing Wrongdoers by Paranormal Powers.” Repressing may not be the best word; it might be subduing. 

The misdeed concerns those who have paranormal powers or unusual faculties, such as the ability to do miracles.

This is one bodhisattva precept I don’t break. [laughter] 

If we have the opportunity to display these powers and it would serve to subdue people by frightening them or by instilling faith and aspiration in them and thereby reduce their afflictions, not using them is a misdeed dissociated from afflictions. 

Generally, in the pratimoksha precepts you’re not allowed to use your extraordinary powers, especially to show off or to get more offerings, to get honor, fame or something like that. One is always encouraged to keep those kind of powers secret. But here it’s saying that if somebody is misbehaving and you have the opportunity through using those powers to either frighten them so they don’t misbehave or to do something that instills faith within them and you don’t do it, then you’re transgressing the precept.

I had one friend who would ask me repeatedly, “Well, surely there are some people who have clairvoyant powers now and they’re alive. Why don’t they show us these powers, because that would instill faith?” This person was saying, “It would really make me believe if I could see somebody do these kind of powers.” And I said to that person, “Well, I’m not so sure if people would have faith and believe and therefore take the teachings more seriously, or if people would have faith and believe and then just worship.” Because that’s what people tend to do: “Somebody has some special powers, I’ll just worship them. And if I worship them something good will happen to me.” 

Most people don’t take it as an example for how to improve themselves; they’re content to just worship. That’s something that the Buddha didn’t want from his disciples, to get stuck in doing the “Oo-goo-ga-gaa groupie-kind-of ‘Aaahhh, you’re wonderful’ thing.” He didn’t want people to get stuck in worship; he wanted people to really practice. I think that was one of the main reasons why he forbid his disciples, many of whom at that time had these powers, to show those powers. Instead he wanted people to keep precepts, practice meditation, be generous and so forth. Here it’s a little bit different situation than what’s usual.

To take an example, some people accept offerings from the faithful based on their status as monks or nuns when in fact they do not have the vows of ordination.

You might find that rather amazing, but somebody could be posing to be a monastic and accept offerings. They don’t have the precepts but accept the offerings. This happens in Asia. In Singapore they have people who will come from Thailand who are not Buddhist monks, but they will wear robes because you can go in a monk’s shop in Thailand and get robes. They come to Singapore; they’ll stand in the subway with their alms bowl begging for money, which is completely opposite from what you’re supposed to do. But many people don’t know that or they think, “Oh, here’s a monk who is stuck here; he needs money for his ticket.” So, they give money because they have faith in monastics. This person creates abominable karma by doing that.

And you have it in different situations. I remember when His Holiness was teaching in Central Park a few years ago, and the monastics got to sit out front. Somebody told me afterwards that they borrowed a friend’s robes and wore them so that they can go sit in front. Some American told me that. People do this kind of thing and accept offerings or whatever, and it’s quite negative. Or somebody may have actually broken their precepts and instead of disrobing they continue to live as a monastic and collect offerings. One woman told me about a monk she knew who had broken his root precept about celibacy, but he continued to wear the robes, and people continued to treat him as a monk, to give him things, take care of him, respect him and so on. It’s absolutely horrible karma when somebody does this. So, this is talking about a situation where somebody is doing this kind of thing. 

In such a situation if we have exceptional powers we must use them to show the wrongdoers the very serious consequences of this kind of deception and incite them to give up their very negative behavior.

I’m not sure what you exactly would do, but you can maybe appear as their teacher who scolds them or give them some kind of vision of the hell realms so that they get frightened, or who knows what? I’ll leave that to the people who have these powers.

This misdeed obviously concerns only those who possess such faculties. When the people who could potentially benefit from such a demonstration of these powers are extremely opinionated and hold false views, we may abstain without committing a fault. An exception is also made when they are non Buddhists who despise the use of powers.

So, if it’s somebody who is cynical, who holds a lot of wrong views, then not taming them through not using your powers is not a break. Also, this refers to if they’re not a Buddhist, and they don’t have any kind of respect for these powers.

Then you may wonder, one of the big Buddhist holy days is the full moon of the first month. That’s called the day of miracles, and that’s because at the time of the Buddha there were some matted-hair ascetics who had some kinds of powers and kept challenging the Buddha to a show of these kinds of powers. The Buddha kept refusing and refusing. But they kept pestering him to do it, so finally he did. Of course, his miracle powers were far superior to theirs, and that subdued their minds, and they all became buddhist disciples. So, in that kind of situation, I think he knew what he was doing, and he did it for that particular reason. It certainly wasn’t to show off. 

This concludes a brief explanation of the eighteen major and forty-six secondary precepts of the bodhisattva ethical restraints. A more detailed presentation would have been possible but perhaps this is sufficient for now. I sincerely hope that you will study the bodhisattva precepts thoroughly for regardless of whether you have taken them or not, the precepts provide excellent practical advice for living in harmony with others.

That’s very true. And whereas in order to know the pratimoksha precepts and the tantric precepts you have to take them first, the bodhisattva’s are the one level of precepts that you don’t have to take before you learn them. It’s fine to learn themm and they really can give you a lot of good guidelines in your life.

So abide by them and your personal happiness and that of those around you is assured.

The important thing here is to remember that the bodhisattva precepts are particularly designed to oppose the self-centered thought; that is what their goal is. While the pratimoksha precepts, the precepts of individual liberation, can only be broken by body and speech, the bodhisattva precepts, some of them, not all, can be broken simply by the way you think without having to say or do something. So, they’re much more difficult to keep, much more subtle.