Auxiliary bodhisattva ethical restraints 7-12

• When it is not appropriate to teach the Dharma
• Not giving up on people with poor ethical conduct
• In which situations to break vinaya rules
• What kind of person can do non-virtuous actions to benefit others
• Explanation of the wrong livelihoods for monastics

Gomchen Lamrim 92: Auxiliary Bodhisattva Ethical Restraints 7-12 (download)

Motivation

Let’s start with our motivation.  Since we’re going to be talking about the Bodhisattva Ethical Code and the behavior that bodhisattvas engage in and abandon, you certainly should generate bodhicitta before since that’s the motivation that makes someone a bodhisattva: when that aspiration to full awakening arises spontaneously in the mind upon seeing sentient beings.  That aspiration is very precious when you really think about it, it’s incredibly rare. 

You can tell from our own experience how difficult it is to overcome the self-centered thought and really think of the benefit of others, let alone to dedicate our lives to attaining full awakening for their benefit.  And yet when we think of the state of that mind, the ability of that mind, the training, and the holiness of a mind that cherishes others more than self and aspires to become a Buddha in order to work limitlessly for the benefit of sentient beings, we can’t help [but] admire that mind and admire the bodhisattvas who have generated it.  Even if our bodhicitta is what they call contrived or fabricated (in other words it’s made up with great effort on our part), still it’s so valuable because it’s unlike any kind of mind that sentient beings have.  Because ordinarily [with] sentient beings, we are the star of our show and we’re the center of our world and we are the limits of our world.  So, to have a mind that doesn’t center on self and goes beyond the limits of self is quite exceptional and very powerful. 

Let’s generate that as our motivation for sharing together this evening.  When we really think about it, there’s nothing else that makes much sense to do with our lives if we don’t generate bodhicitta.  Somebody could say “but I could still generate renunciation, I can still realize emptiness.  That’s beneficial.”  Yes, that is.  But if we’re doing it just for ourselves, that’s really kind of limited.  Especially when you think there’s [about], what is it? Seven billion human beings now? Well over 7 billion plus all the animals and insects.  And that’s just on this one itty bitty planet and in the whole wide universe (which if the sky is clear tonight, you’ll see a part of) there’s so many other living beings out there.  So to be just concerned about the liberation of one of them, it’s good because it’ll be one less being in samsara which is obviously good, but if we can really work for the benefit of all beings, it would certainly be much better.  Because our whole lives until now and even now, as illustrated in last night’s teaching, is focused around “me.”  And we see that this mind that just focuses on “me” causes us so much misery. 

And yet, in our world we think that focusing on ourselves is good.  In the sense of, “If I don’t take care of myself, nobody else will and everybody else will take advantage of me.”  There is a little sprinkling of paranoia in there, a little dash of not trusting sentient beings.  And so, we just fall back to thinking about “me, I, my, and mine” and in that process become really quite miserable, quite miserable. 

Venerable Thubten Chodron: You’re nodding your head.  

Audience: [Inaudible]

VTC: You’re not crying – a few hours [of] not crying?  There’s one bodhisattva called Always Crying but the reason why that bodhisattva cried and the reason why you cry are different.  There’s a bodhisattva, always thinking about the misery of sentient beings stuck in samsara under the influence of their ignorance, attachment, and anger, and out of compassion crying for the plight of sentient beings.  That’s very different than the reason we cry, isn’t it?  We cry a lot.  I’ll try not to tonight, I’m tired.  

Generating Bodhicitta

We’re still ordinary beings.  I don’t know about you but I am.  So having not generated bodhicitta and entered the bodhisattva path, my bodhicitta is fake basically.  They say contrived, fabricated, that means fake.  But fake bodhicitta is different than fake news.  

Fake bodhicitta has a really good purpose because the more we generate it, the more we plant in our mind the seed of admiration for that kind of selfless mind, the yearning to create it, the thought of one day being able to actually feel like that.  So even generating it in a contrived way again and again and again is quite good, and one day our fake bodhicitta will be real bodhicitta.  To the contrary, fake news never becomes real news.  It remains fake news forever and ever.  No matter how much you try and think it’s real, it’s still fake. 

Auxiliary bodhisattva ethical restraints

We finished the eighteen root [precepts] and we started on the 46 auxiliary.  And we did the first six of those last time.  But before we continue with that, I sent around to all the residents here, and then hopefully you will put it online.  Rebecca did this little chart which I thought was quite nifty, to reword the bodhisattva ethical restraints in a positive way, in terms of “What I will do” instead of “What I won’t do.”  And then she also said, “When we transgress that, what are the paths of non-virtue that we accumulate?”  It’s very good, what she did, and there’s some other things you can fit in there that you may think of on your own.  Other ways to phrase it, other things that we want to do, other paths of non-virtue that are committed if we transgress those precepts.  

Your homework for next week is to go through these and add, these are just for the 18 root ones, what else you think you could include in terms of writing in a positive way, and what are the things you think might be transgressed?  When it’s transgressed, negativities are created.  So that’s homework for next week.  

7.  Not giving Dharma to those who desire it.

Of the 46 auxiliary ones, the first seven are about generosity.  We’re on the seventh one which is,

Not giving the Dharma to those who desire it. 

This could be people who asked for teachings, who request us to teach, or people who ask for Dharma advice.  We could transgress it with a number of different motivations.  One could be [a] kind of rivalry or jealousy.  We don’t want to teach them or answer their questions or whatever because then they might know more than us and they might be more famous than us or whatever.  Some really rotten, stinking motivation like that is clearly the opposite of our bodhicitta intention.  Another motivation would be, “I’m so tired.  I just don’t feel like it.  Anyway, they don’t listen.  So why should I put out the effort?”  Not teaching for that reason.  Of course, if you’re sick, there’s a good reason to decline to give the teaching or decline to see somebody.  

And so I thought I would read some of the exceptions here.  This is from Chandragomin. 

One exception is that the people who are making the request aren’t really fit to receive the teaching. 

That could mean it [is] because they have bad intentions, that you can sense that they want to hear that teaching so that then they can make themselves into some precious guru and go about and pontificate to others so that they’ll be famous or get offerings or something.  Somebody has a bad intention or that they may turn around and criticize you afterwards.  In other words, somebody’s reason for asking is kind of murky. 

Another exception is,

If the person is very rude and doesn’t show proper respect. 

Not because we think, “I’m an important person and so they better treat me properly.”  Not because of that, but because if people don’t respect the Dharma, they don’t respect teachers, are they really going to have the proper mindset to learn?  If you don’t respect what you’re asking to learn or who’s teaching you, are you really going [to] learn anything? 

Of course, it’s very interesting in the West because you get all kinds of invitations worded in all kinds of different ways and much of it is because people don’t know how to word an invitation.  Some people write these really formal ones like, “I bow down to the four kayas manifesting in you.”  All this Tibetan poetry kind of thing, “You are the guru and the sky.  Please come and teach.”  Those ones I always read and think “Do they really think that? Really? Maybe right in the church by teachers, yes but do they really think that about me?”  Other people just send off an email, “Hey, you know if you can come Friday night and give us a teaching, we sure would like it, please show up by seven.” 

You get those kinds of invitations.  A lot of people in the West don’t understand how to do it.  So you have to kind of see where people are at, what they understand.  But definitely if people, even in a very conventional way, are not very polite, you can sense that it doesn’t really mean much to them whether you go or don’t go.  And if you do go, will they really learn anything? Will they even show up? In those kinds of situations, it would be okay to turn down the invitation. 

Another one is if the people lack the intelligence to really understand.  They ask for a very profound teaching, but you know that they haven’t even had the Dharma ABCs so they’re unlikely to really understand it, then it’s okay to decline.  Or if they’re asking for a teaching that is very high that they don’t have the preparation for yet.  I have a couple of stories to tell regarding that one. 

One is my teacher Tsenzhab Serkong Rinpoche when he would often get invitations from people, “please bestow Guhyasamaja initiation.”  Somebody who is the first time showing up to Dharamsala asking for the highest class tantra initiation where you take all sorts of ethical restraints, and all this stuff.  And the people have no idea what it is except they were just told it’s the highest thing, so they request it.  Serkong Rinpoche was very skillful when people did that.  He would say, “Yes, but before I do it I want to teach you this and I want you to practice this.  And then we’re going to go into this and this and this and this, and then we’ll come to what you just requested.” 

That way he could see if the people were really up to making themselves into proper vessels to receive what they just asked or if they were just innocent, hippie travelers coming through Dharamsala asking for what they heard were the highest teachings.  I thought that was very skillful of him.  He didn’t go, “You idiot, what are you asking that for?  You can’t even … that’s way too high for you.”  But he took them seriously and said, “You know, I’ll teach you that, if that’s what you want to do.” 

And then he could see where they really [were] at. 

Then my second story about that is I went [to] ask Kyabje Zong Rinpoche some questions about emptiness.  I had heard teachings from him when he was in the US, then when I went back to Dharamsala he was there, so I went to visit him.  I thought I was this really clever kind of person who knew about emptiness, but I had a few questions.  So, I asked him my question and he said, “I don’t think you’ll understand my answer.  You’re not up to understanding my answer to these questions.  But anyway, I’ll tell them to you.” 

And then he proceeded to give the answers which I don’t know if I understood. 

So apparently, he, I think, in that situation saw it wouldn’t be a total waste of his time.  That to plant some seeds in my mind, maybe there was some hope later.  I still have that notebook.  I know which notebook it’s in, I should go and open it and see if I understand it better now. 

So, if we think that the people who request the teaching won’t really pay attention, or that they may generate all sorts of doubts and wrong conceptions if we teach them what they ask, all these things are good reasons to turn down the request.  But not because “I’m too tired.”  If you’re really genuinely tired, yes.  But not, “I don’t feel like it.  You know those people, they asked but they aren’t rich people, I’m not going to get much dana out of it.”  What a disgusting motivation!  But many people think like that.  That’s not what we should have in our mind.  

So as much as possible when people want to know the Dharma to help them learn it.  

The next set of nine are about the perfection of ethical conduct.  

8.  Forsaking those who have broken their ethical conduct, not giving them advice or not relieving their guilt or their remorse. 

Number eight is,

Forsaking those who have broken their ethical conduct, not giving them advice or not relieving their guilt or their remorse. 

These people could be of two types.  One is somebody who is just behaving non-virtuously.  They could be a Dharma practitioner, most often not a practitioner, they’re just somebody who has very poor ethical conduct doing all sorts of negativities.  The other kind of person could be somebody with precepts, who is not keeping their precepts very well and being very careless and breaking precepts and acting very poorly.  

The transgression is if we forsake those people. 

We just go “You are so unethical, forget it, get out of here.  I don’t want to see you again.”  Or we scorn them, or we put them down.  You can see in some situations it would be very easy to do that.  If you had somebody living at the monastery who went and acted totally-off-the-wall-crazy, and then came back and expected just to be included as they were before; it would be really easy to get angry at that person and say, “Why are you asking to come back here after what you just did?  You broke your root precepts, and you disgrace the Sangha.  And you did this, you did that?”  Don’t you think it’d be easy?  I think it would be easy to get very angry at such a person and just say” Get out of here!” 

That would be transgressing this.  Why?  Because if somebody acts like that there’s some deep suffering going on.  Especially if someone is a Dharma practitioner and you can see they have some regret for their behavior, then of course we should forgive and we should have compassion.  We may have to speak very strongly to them to let them know their behavior is not okay.  But you’re doing it with compassion, you’re not doing it out of anger and cynicism. 

Or, on the other hand, it could be someone else.  You may have a relative who is doing all sorts of negativities.  Maybe stealing this or going out on joy rides in other people’s cars, or who knows what?  People do all sorts of things.  They’re not practitioners but they’re behaving just abominably and will probably wind up getting themselves arrested.  Again, it would be very easy to get angry at such a person and just say, “Get out of here.  I don’t want to see you.”  

So, this precept isn’t saying that forgiving and having compassion means that they got arrested and you go down and bail them out knowing that as soon as they get out, they’re going to go do the same thing again.  We’re not talking about that.  We’re talking about a mental attitude here of not getting fed up with these people.  We may still have to act very clearly; “this is appropriate, this is not appropriate,” but we’re not doing it out of a spiteful mind.  Is this clear for people? 

Audience:  So, if we have a forgiving attitude and we’re not forsaking them in our heart, we might still say,” You can’t be around here because that’s inappropriate and we can’t have that here?”

VTC: Yes, sure.  You look at what happened within the church, with priests sexually abusing children.  To know that and have the kind of “compassion” for those priests, that you let them stay in the church and be near the children and present themselves as priests, who are people who are worthy of respect, that would be totally inappropriate.  I think you don’t want to be angry, but you want to say, “No, you cannot come here and pretend to be a priest anymore because what you’re doing is damaging.  You need to go into treatment right now and don’t present yourself as a priest until you have this solved.”  That would be what would benefit that person.  

The thing here that we always come back to is anger and compassion are mental states.  They aren’t the behavior [where] one behavior can be done out of anger and the same behavior can be done out of compassion.  So, you have to see what behavior is appropriate, but to make sure that your mind is one of compassion. 

Audience: Wondering if this falls in here because it seems like to me kind of the essence of this is not so much about not giving them advice or not relieving their guilt but, in your heart, from the side of the person who has the bodhisattva precept, is basically not giving up on them. 

VTC: Yes, not giving up on them.  And if they are sincerely repentant for what they did, then listening to them, encouraging them, get them going on some purification practices.  Giving them Dharma advice on how to repair what’s happened. 

9.  Not acting in accordance with your pratimoksha precepts.

The next one is,

Not acting in accordance with your pratimoksha precepts. 

For those of us who are monastics, it means our monastic precepts, for those of you who have the five lay precepts, it means the five lay precepts, those are all considered the pratimoksha or individual liberation precepts.  

So, not acting in accordance with them.  Here it would be with the motivation of “Well, I don’t care about these precepts, I keep the bodhisattva precepts that are much more advanced.  And these pratimoksha precepts are really not so important.”  In having that attitude and not keeping your pratimoksha precepts, of course other people see you especially if you’re in robes, and they lose faith in the Dharma, they lose faith in you as a practitioner.  So, it’s harmful to others.  

Or this could be not keeping our pratimoksha precepts in order to strengthen the faith of others.  Remember, when we go through the ten reasons why the Buddha set up every precept?  Remember that there are two. One is,

To inspire faith in those who don’t have faith.

And the second,

To maintain faith in those who do.

It’s talking about without having that awareness in our mind, that our behavior influences other people and especially if we’re a spiritual practitioner, it can inspire great faith.  Many people saw the Buddha’s disciples or saw the Buddha and just by the way they walked, these people had faith in them. 

Oh, give you a good example.  When I was in Boston recently, I met with Janet Gyatso.  She’s a professor who does research about Buddhism and she’s very interested in Buddhist nuns.  She had been in Bodhgaya at the time that the Chinese nuns were there, invited by the Karmapa to give the samaneri ordination to those nineteen Tibetan women.  And I was asking her about her experience there and what she thought.  The first thing she said was, “The Chinese nuns, the way they walk, the way they carried themselves, the way they trained these other nuns, and the way they gave these precepts, I was so impressed with that.” 

Of course, it made me think of everybody’s reaction here when our Chinese bhikshunis come.  So, you have that power to really inspire faith in people who don’t have faith.  If you just kind of give that up and say, “Well, doesn’t matter if I keep my precepts or not,” it’s kind of abusing the trust of others or it’s not really taking advantage of an easy way to do something very good for others, and train yourself at the same time.  If we get quite sloppy in our behavior, “Oh, it doesn’t matter!  I’ll just sleep till whenever.  I’ll come late to teachings!”  I mean those aren’t even the pratimoksha precepts that can rattle other people, let alone transgressing our pratimoksha precepts.  Let’s see if he talks about any exceptions here.  No, I don’t see any.  

10.  Doing only limited actions to benefit sentient beings such as strictly keeping the vinaya rules in situations where not doing so would be of greater benefit to others.

Then number ten,

Doing only limited actions to benefit sentient beings such as strictly keeping the vinaya rules in situations where not doing so would be of greater benefit to others.

Here we have to kind of understand how the Buddha taught.  The first thing that he got people going on in their practice was the pratimoksha precepts that help us restrain particularly attachment.  If you look at our pratimoksha precepts, they restrain very overtly bad behavior that everybody in society agrees is bad behavior.  

In the case of the monastic precepts, they restrain us from a lot of attachment and really emphasize having simplicity, living a simple life.  Because if we really want to follow the path, if we live and we have a lot of possessions, then we have a lot of things we need to take care of.  We have a lot of things that break, then we have to buy new versions and then it’s very easy to get jealous of people who have better things than we do.  And then we have to play keep-up with the Tashis and keep-up with the Lozangs so that we have what everybody else has.  This is completely antithetical to what we need to do when we’re first getting going on the path, which is [to] simplify our life, so we have more time and more energy and less attachment.  So, getting rid of stuff.   

Then when we have that under our belt, so to speak, when you practice the Bodhisattva Path, it’s okay to have a lot of possessions because at that time you’re using your possessions for the benefit of other sentient beings.  So, at the beginning simplicity, not many possessions.  When you’re working for the benefit of others you can have a lot of things that you use to benefit others.  Now the trick is, which level of practice are we really on?

It’s very easy for us in the name of practicing the bodhisattva path to say, “Well, I’ll have a lot of possessions because I’ll use them for the benefit of sentient beings.  I just saw these great things on sale.  And I don’t want to waste the money so it’s on sale, I should definitely go out and get it, and then later I’ll give it to somebody as a bodhisattva action of generosity.”

So, we have to be careful about using bodhicitta as an excuse, as a rationalization for our mind that is basically full of afflictions.  In thinking about this precept in ancient times when you had really so much poverty, kind of universally all over the world, it really makes sense for people practicing the bodhisattva path to accumulate property and goods to give to others.  And we see in Nagarjuna’s Precious Garland, which we’ve been studying, that Nagarjuna gives the king all sorts of advice about what to do with his wealth. “Don’t just hoard it for yourself because all the ministers are going to take it and play politics with it as you’re aging and dying, but while you’re healthy give it away and create merit that will benefit you in your future life and help other people now.”

So, he’s really encouraging generosity like that.  

I think as monastics, depending on where we’re living, and depending on the situation of the lay people around us, for us to accumulate a lot of possessions because we’re on the bodhisattva path could actually be counterproductive.  Because as I always tell people, if we have things that our lay supporters do not buy for themselves and cannot afford for themselves, that’s not right.  If we have personal property; personal cars, personal golden bedspreads, whatever kind of designer shoes or we just as a community have stuff that nobody else can afford, then that is really sending out the wrong message.  

I can see now in the Tibetan community, because some of the monasteries in the south are very rich and lay people around them are very poor, the monasteries are beginning to be criticized by people for that.  If the monasteries were to share more of their stuff with the lay people, I think the criticism wouldn’t be there.  And the lay people would be very thankful and very appreciative.  So, it’s something to be very aware of.  

Having said that, we also have a monastery, we have buildings that are built large so that we can invite a lot of lay people to come here.  I think if we have things, many things and big things, but the whole premise is [to] share with our lay supporters and lay guests, that makes a whole lot of sense.  Because I know other practitioners and other traditions and their monasteries, there’s just room for the monastics.  If lay people come, they offer food, maybe they do some chanting, and they go home, but they don’t have weekend retreats and three-week programs at the monastery and so on.  Because we do that, we need a big dining room.  If it were just for us, we wouldn’t need Chenrezig Hall.  That was very clear for us.  The experience of building this building [was] we did not do for ourselves.  It was big enough so that other people would be able to come here.  Because why go through that kind of headache if it’s just for your own community?  You don’t need to, unless you really see building buildings as your bodhisattva practice that you really want to do.  For that, it makes sense.  

So, I think we need to be quite careful about that, and that’s why we only use private funds for certain things.  Who was it?  Was it Khyentse Rinpoche?  One of my teachers said the individual monastics should have very little, the monastery can have plenty because the monastery shares it with everybody.  But not exorbitant.  We’re not having marble floors in the Temple. 

Audience: One thing that I am aware of is that it’s different than it was even when we first started here because more people come, the situations are different, and we have quite a bit of responsibility to make sure people are safe.  We live very rurally, and we have a lot of snow, and we have a lot of just keeping our roads open and things like that.  I mean we (and you know) have the heat, the power go-out and we have a lot of responsibility for the people that come here.  Actually, the twelve of us or fifteen of us who live here really wouldn’t need that.  We’ve done fine without; we’ve gone without water, power, all kinds of things.  But now we have so many people coming that it’s actually quite a burden, like they just lost their water at Airway Heights.  They had to take care of 2,000 inmates and all the guards because the water is polluted right now in Airway Heights from the airbase.  It happened this week. 

VTC: How did they lose their water? 

Audience: The water?  Airway Heights as a city this week condemned their water.  The prison canceled everything for one day.  Things were closed, and they had to bring in all this water.  Could you imagine us bringing in water for 2,000 people?  I mean, we had to slip water here once when we didn’t have water.  We had people bring water and “shower before you come.”  But that’s the thing that for people who were here in the early days that see us grow and have all this stuff that we didn’t used to have, we have a huge level of responsibility for the people that come here. 

VTC: Yes.  That’s true, very true.  The idea here is just to be very careful, very mindful and even though we’re practicing the bodhisattva path, live simple lifestyles.  If you’re [a] layperson and practicing bodhicitta [and] you want to open a soup kitchen or something like that…  I guess in olden days you would accumulate the money yourself and then build the soup kitchen.  Nowadays, what anybody, whether you’re [a] lay [person] or monastic, you would start a “501c3,” that’s what you do in the US.  The best way if you’re going to do social welfare projects is to not have it [with] your own personal money but make it so that it’s tax deductible so that other people can join in and create merit.  

So it’s interesting how you interpret the meaning of the precepts again, according to the situation in society.  Because here, even if you were going to do something vast to benefit sentient beings it would be better to have a nonprofit than to have it by accumulating the wealth yourself and give it away, wouldn’t it?  You start a foundation.  Interesting to see that how things change, societies evolve.  

We’re still on ten here,

Doing only limited actions to benefit sentient beings such as strictly keeping the Vinaya rules and situations where not doing so would be of greater benefit to others.

Of course, one of the classic examples they give [speaking] to that is two monks were crossing a river and there’s a woman drowning in the river and one of the monk’s quickly picks her up, puts her on their back, swims to the other side, puts her down.  The two monks continue on their way and the one who didn’t pick up the woman turns to his friend and says, “You touched a woman!”  And the friend said, “Well, I put her down on the bank and you’re still carrying her around!” 

So, in certain situations, very clearly if somebody’s life is in danger, or if something very important is going on, we have to reach out and do what is beneficial for others.  I remember I was leading a retreat in Israel once.  There was one man who came, and he had been practicing with another group for a while, not a Tibetan group, but some other group and there was a dog who turned up at the kibbutz where our retreat was.  And the dog was clearly sick, hungry and yelping.  I said, “Let’s go to the kitchen and ask for some food and give this dog some nourishment and a bed and calm him down and everything.”  This man was in complete agreement, so he went and took care of that.  Then he told me afterwards, “In the group I usually practice with, they would ignore that kind of thing.  They would say, ‘It’s your Dharma practice, you be mindful of your own body, speech, and mind, and don’t get distracted by these things.’  I was like [disbelief expression].  But that’s what he told me.  Again, we can see for ourselves our Vinaya rituals are very precious, they’re very meaningful; but certainly, if we were about to do posadha and somebody came here and they were very ill, we wouldn’t say, “Please wait and in an hour and a half we’ll take you to ER, we’ve got to do our posadha first.”  I mean, we would do whatever is necessary.  

That’s why, in thinking about how we set things up here, we cook food.  Because one of the precepts, the way the Buddha set things up, is that monastics don’t cut vegetables and fruit, and they don’t cook food.  In the Chinese, Korean, Tibetan tradition, they don’t keep that precept literally because of the culture in the place and where they live, there’s all sorts of reasons for it.  But I thought for us, we set it up so that we eat only the food that is offered to us.  But if we were to say, “We’ll only eat the food, we’re not cooking food,” people have to bring food to us every day that’s cooked, because otherwise, “We won’t eat it unless you’re here and you put it in our hands every day.” 

Because some traditions keep precepts in that way:  that the lay people have to put it in their hands or at least in the hands of one of the monastics every day, otherwise the community won’t eat.  You can’t just leave the groceries and have them cook it or something like that.  But when I think of doing that, I think [it] would be an incredible inconvenience to the lay people.  And even if the lay people were willing to do it, it would be very bad for the environment, because we would have people making round trip visits from Spokane or Couer d’Alene or Sandpoint every day, so much petrol, so much gas would get wasted.  Whereas if the groceries are brought when people are coming here anyway and we cook ourselves, it’s much better for the environment, it’s much better for the lay people.  That for me would be a good example of how I would feel implementing this particular bodhisattva precept.  So that you’re not keeping one of the pratimoksha precepts completely literally [and] strictly, but the reason you’re doing it is out of kindness for people and for kindness to the planet that we all share. 

That’s how I look at it.  Every tradition has their own way of doing things, their own reasons for doing things that way, I’m just explaining what some of these precepts mean for me. 

11.  Not doing non-virtuous actions of body and speech with loving compassion when circumstances deem it necessary.

Then eleven,

Not doing non-virtuous actions of body and speech with loving compassion when circumstances deem it necessary in order to benefit others.

The classic example of this one is the story from the Jataka Tales when the Buddha was a bodhisattva.  He was the captain of a ship with 500 merchants on it, and he saw with his clairvoyant powers that one of these merchants had a very bad motivation.  And after they gathered all these jewels from the sea, he wanted to kill the other 499 merchants and then steal all the jewels.  So, the captain seeing this, out of compassion, not only for the 499 would be victims, but also for compassion for the would-be perpetrator, killed the perpetrator before he could kill the other people.  This is given as an example of keeping this precept.  

It’s a great example.  Whether we know how to apply it properly is another question.  Because this is one of the bodhisattva precepts that people use so often as an excuse for doing whatever they want.  You’ve heard me talk about this, but I’ll do it anyway.  

So, “I’m going back to see all my old friends because I’m visiting my parents and my old friends.  And my old friends all go out drinking and drugging in the evening.  But we’re all friends and we’re really close and I want to teach them the Dharma.  And if I don’t go out drinking and drugging with them, if I just invite them for a cup of tea, well, they’re not going [to] come for a cup of tea.  And if I go out and drink and they go to the pub and I order orange juice, they’re going [to] think I’m a prude!  And if they’re passing around a joint and I don’t take a drag, they’re not going [to] listen to Buddhism unless I do what they do!  So, for the benefit of all sentient beings, I’m going to go drinking and drugging with my old friends and teach them the Dharma while I’m at it!”

This is the precept of the big excuse.  

Dagpo Rinpoche said that he talked with his teacher Gen Nyima about this.  Gen Nyima is this wonderful Lama, who His Holiness has great reverence for.  Gen Nyima was saying, “Who is this kind of bodhisattva that this precept applies to?”

It only applies to lay bodhisattvas first of all.  Because anybody who’s a monastic who wants to do any of the seven non-virtues of body and speech, should disrobe first rather than transgress their monastic precepts.  

Or if you want to do something that is a parajika, you’re the captain of the ship, you want to kill somebody.  First you disrobe, and this is the whole idea also in tantra if somebody is going to do that very high consort practice, first you disrobe.  Monastics must be celibate so it must be a lay person.  And it’s somebody who is well trained in the six perfections and who has spontaneous bodhicitta so that they can actually exchange self and others and there’s no other alternative behavior they could use to stop the harm being done.   

So, in terms of the qualification to this bodhisattva, spontaneous bodhicitta; we know it has to be somebody who is an actual bodhisattva, who’s on one of the bodhisattva stages.  There’s somebody who has actually exchanged self with others and has good training in the six paramitas.  So we know they have to be at least [on the] path of preparation and up.  And it’s somebody who would create negative karma by doing this action if it weren’t done with compassion.  We know that it’s not somebody from the bodhisattva first bhumi on up because that person doesn’t create negative karma.  They may have afflictions arise in their mind, but the afflictions are never strong enough to create actual negative karma.  So, who’s it for? Somebody who is on the path of preparation but hasn’t yet attained the bodhisattva path of seeing or the first bhumi.  If you’re somebody who’s like that, that’s the person who this precept is meant for.  For the rest of us who haven’t reached that stage, we need to keep proper ethical conduct and not rationalize things.  

The super-knowledges…

Audience: [Inaudible] 

VTC: Yes, [it] would be definitely helpful.  It doesn’t say you have to have them.  But it would be helpful and somebody who’s not even on the bodhisattva path could have super-knowledges. 

Audience: If you were going to kill somebody, wouldn’t you have to know what was going to follow?  That’s what I think she’s thinking.  Like, when they say shoot someone, if you’re going to kill someone, you better know that, that being shouldn’t have lived out their life.  Like what we talked about for euthanasia?

VTC: Yes.  For euthanasia, that you’re not sending them to more killing.  Definitely knowing that would be better but it doesn’t specify that here.  Some of those bodhisattvas on [the] path of preparation, they could very well, most of them I would think, have some kind of super-knowledge ability.  And then the thing is that there’s no other alternative to stop the bad situation.  Sometimes people ask questions that are like a black and white question.  “A robber comes into your house and is pointing a gun at your spouse; are you going to let them kill your spouse?  Are you going to kill them?”  Those kinds of questions I don’t find very useful because how often is that going to happen?

As if it’s all going to be neatly staged out and the thief is going to be sitting there with their gun, everybody’s thinking calmly, nobody’s moving.  You know very clearly who the thief is, who your spouse is, you just happen to have a gun there that you’re holding in your hand.  You know those situations aren’t going to happen.  Also, the choice it gives you, one choice or there’s only two things, and in most situations, there are so many things you could do in that kind of situation.  What would happen if you started jumping up and down and singing happy birthday?  At the top of your voice and singing, M-I-C-K-E-Y.  I mean, the thief is going [to] be like, “What’s going on here?  Maybe I better get out of here.”  So, I don’t think we should think so narrowly.  It’s not like we’re all always going to be so calm and clear-minded in those situations anyway.  

12.  Willingly accepting things that either you or others have obtained by any of the wrong livelihoods of hypocrisy, hinting, flattery, coercion, or bribery.

Then twelve,

Willingly accepting things that either you or others have obtained by any of the wrong livelihoods of hypocrisy, hinting, flattery, coercion, or bribery.

We come across these five wrong livelihoods when we talk about making offerings to the Buddha, and not offering things that we’ve accumulated due to these five.  We come across them in the eightfold noble path, under “right livelihood”, to abandon these.  We come across them in the monastic training when we talk about how monastics get their requisites and here’s another situation that’s addressed for lay and monastics who are practicing bodhicitta or the bodhisattva path.  

Willingly accepting things that either you or others have obtained.

So you know somebody else has obtained [something] by one of the wrong livelihoods.

What are the five?  The first one is,

Hypocrisy.

We pretend to be this great, realized distinguished practitioner just when our benefactors are there, and the rest of the time were acting bananas.  That’s hypocrisy, we’re pretending to be nice, well mannered, we’re pretending to be like the Chinese nuns because other people are around and here’s the dana basket.  But more than the community dana basket, “Here’s my dana basket.  Give me!  Give me!  Give me!  Give me!”  So, acting like we’re some great practitioner only when there’s the chance to get something.  Complete hypocrisy.  Disgusting.  

Then the second,

Hinting.

“Oh, it was so nice last year you sponsored my retreat.  I had such a wonderful retreat.  It was really good.  It was so peaceful and quiet.  I’m going to go on another retreat this year to the same place.”  So, hint, hint, hint, hint.  Or “Oh, that winter jacket you got me last year, it was great, it was this fantastic maroon color, and it kept me really warm during the winter.  Last winter was really cool, wasn’t it?  So, thank you so much for that jacket.  This winter, we’re supposed to have another really cold winter and my boots are, well, they’re okay.”  So, like that.  Hinting. 

The third,

Flattery.

That’s kind of flattery too.  But flattery could be, “Oh, we have so many benefactors, but you have the purest motivation of all the people who are giving.  We’re building this new residence out here and we’re sure you have the purest motivation for generosity.  Because you’re such a good Dharma practitioner.  Did you see we consecrated the land today where we’re going to build that?  It’s going to be a beautiful place, isn’t it?  And we did put a plaque down there, they asked us to put a plaque with the organization who gave us money.  We don’t ordinarily do that for people…”  Flattery.  So, hypocrisy, hinting, flattery.

The fourth one,

Coercion.

“We are raising money for the temple and everybody at this fundraiser has given $200 and you arrived late.  How much would you like to give?”  Coercion.  They can’t get out of it.  There are other ways to coerce people too, guilt is a really good one.  “Oh, last time when we were doing fundraising for Chenrezig, we knew that you were having financial problems then and that you wanted to give a lot, but you couldn’t.  Because that was in ’08 when the market and everything was down.  But now we know that the market is doing really good, and we know you have such a generous heart, you really want to contribute to the new temple.  How much would you like to give?  It’ll be a really good example for everybody else.”  Coercion.  

Then the last one is,

Bribery.

It doesn’t mean like, “Take this, I’ll give you some blessed pills and you give us a check for 10K.”  This is not what I mean by bribery.  But it means giving a small present to get a big one not because you really appreciate what somebody’s done and the help that they’ve given you but because you want to make them feel kind of special and you give this [refers to an object by her side].  We won’t give them this, this is too nice.  What else, what else can we give?  What?

Audience:  The clock. 

VTC:  The clock’s not nice enough, they won’t give a big donation if we give the clock.  And that’s too nice.  Maybe this?  The thermos?  No, no, it has to be a Dharma item.  Dharma item.  We’ll give them the gong.  Don’t you think?  Doesn’t this look like it’s holy?  Go put the thermos in it, you guys want to give the thermos, and we’ll put the clock in it (presents the gong with the thermos and the clock inside).  Yes, that’s good.  “So, we want to express our appreciation to you for what you have done.  Here please take this.  Isn’t this beautiful?  It’s very expensive, it came from Singapore, we brought it back in our luggage.  We carried it all by ourselves.  But look, this kind of brocade.  Very nice.  And this [shows the thermos] is from Taiwan.  We brought this back in our luggage too.  

So, we give a small present with the motivation to get a bigger one.   If we give gifts because we really care and we want to appreciate people that’s fine, but when there’s a sneaky motivation that becomes the wrong livelihood. 

Audience:  Since this last one doesn’t refer specifically to monastics it could be a much bigger list actually, right?  And bribery could be somebody that’s literally accepting financial bribes and bringing you money.  Or it could be somebody has a wrong livelihood of butchering animals and then gives you donations.  How does that play in?

VTC:  Yes, that’s a little bit difficult.  I’ve seen people treat that in different ways.  I think I’ve mentioned this, because selling Dharma items for a living is considered wrong livelihood.  And Zopa Rinpoche, if somebody brings food, that’s somebody’s livelihood, he has somebody take the food out and bury it.  He will not eat it or give it to others.  Everybody has a different way of treating that one.  I’ve often wondered about that because in Burma I know the soldiers have faith, so they want to give dana.  Some people think, “Well, they’re creating so much negative karma.”  The monastics that think the soldiers are creating so much negative karma.  “I should accept whatever dana they offer because at least it gives them the ability to create some good karma.”  Other people think, “No, the money they get paid for being a soldier is wrong livelihood, and it should not be accepted at all.”  So, I’ve seen different ways of treating that one. 

Audience:  I’m thinking of Pelgyi Dorje, when he decided to kill Langdarma.  

VTC:  Right

Audience:  What’s known about what stage of the bodhisattva bhumi he was on and so forth.  Do you know about that? 

VTC:  Yes, I don’t know what stage he was at.  They always praise him for doing it.  But when it came time in eastern Tibet, he went there to take ordination, he could not act as one of the monks in the quorum.  He recused himself because he said, “I killed King Langdarma.”  So, he saw himself as having committed a parajika and no longer being a monastic. 

Audience:  You probably have heard His Holiness when he talks about Shantideva’s six paramitas and giving a gift.  He says, if you give a gift with expectations that’s no different than a business transaction. 

VTC:  Yes, it’s kind of a business deal, isn’t it?

Audience:  Venerable could you clarify about selling Dharma things?  Does that include like, thangkas, books, images of the Buddha, because you find places that do that, both shops and on the internet. 

VTC:  And within Zopa Rinpoche’s network there’s Wisdom Publications, where they print books, and they sell books.  I’m just going to speak [about] some of my ideas here.  I can see the reason for that.  It works very well in a culture that doesn’t function with an economy like ours.  Like in old Tibet where people didn’t use money so much, they had some money, but they often gave things.  If you had somebody come and paint a thangka, you gave them room, you gave them board, maybe you gave them a sack of tsampa afterwards and some butter.  So there, they didn’t charge money, the thangka was painted for you, you knew the person and you gave them a donation.  The books were printed, and people gave donations for the books.  And then the people who printed the books lived from those donations.  

So, that’s okay, to receive donations for making things, that’s fine.  But it’s the selling of them where your mind changes and you start looking at Dharma items like you look at used cars.  How much can I make out of selling that?  So instead of it being a holy object, it’s just another thing to make some dough out of.  That’s really impinging on your mind, on your mindset.  When I first started writing in Singapore the books were for free distribution.  I love that idea of just being able to write something and people gave donations, the books were printed for free distribution.  Some people took 20-30 books, I don’t know if they ever used them or gave them away, but whatever.  But then I realized that it was only people in Singapore who were getting to read the books, maybe a couple in Malaysia, maybe a couple in Thailand or Indonesia.  But nobody else even knew the books existed.  So, when I came back here, that’s when I decided to use a commercial publisher, we have some Buddhist publishers.  

The royalties that come from the book all go to the Abbey and we have it in a special account that we use for Dharma purposes.  We do not use the royalties from the books for food or clothing or life requisites, medicine, stuff like that.  We use it to buy more books, we send out a lot of books.  It funds the prison work we do.  All the letters we send out and the Dharma Dispatch Newsletter to the inmates.  

I talked to Thupten Jinpa about this one time and asked him what he did with his royalties.  And he said he sees it as not living off the money from selling Dharma books, but rather when a Dharma book is made, there’s a certain portion that goes to the author.  So, it’s not like the profit from the Dharma book.  It’s the cost of supporting the author because they did all the work to make the book.  So, he will use his royalties for his family and stuff like that.  That also makes sense, in a way.  I mean, in today’s economy you certainly can’t expect people to devote months and years of their life and not… and people who buy books at a bookstore aren’t going to send some apples to the translator.  They’re not going to send some pancake mix to the author so they can eat.  

It’s difficult.  I feel very fortunate that way and I don’t need that money to stay alive.  It can all go in a special account, get used only for Dharma purposes.  It’s nonprofit, but they still pay their people, don’t they?  They have to.  Then it’s the same kind of thing.  Like Jinpa was saying, it’s like Wisdom as a company is giving dana to their employees, of course they have a contract, and they have to pay so much.  But of course, otherwise it would be impossible to print any Dharma books.  In today’s economy [it] just doesn’t function like the old Tibet.

Contemplation points

Venerable Chodron continued giving commentary on the bodhisattva ethical code, which are the guidelines you follow when you “take the bodhisattva precepts.” Consider them one by one, in light of the commentary given. For each, consider the following.

1. In what situations have you seen yourself act this way in the past or under what conditions might it be easy to act this way in the future (it might help to consider how you’ve seen this negativity in the world)?
2. From which of the ten non-virtues is the precept helping you to restrain?
3. What are some of the exceptions to the precept and why?
4. Which of the six perfections is the precept eliminating obstacles to and how?
5. What are the antidotes that can be applied when you are tempted to act contrary to the precept?
6. Why is this precept so important to the bodhisattva path? How does breaking it harm yourself and others? How does keeping it benefit yourself and others?
7. Resolve to be mindful of the precept in your daily life.

Precepts covered this week:

To eliminate obstacles to the far-reaching practice of generosity and obstacles to the ethical conduct of gathering virtuous actions, abandon:

• Auxiliary Precept #7: Not giving the Dharma to those who desire it.

To eliminate obstacles to the far-reaching practice of ethical conduct, abandon:

• Auxiliary Precept #8: Forsaking those who have broken their ethical conduct: not giving them advice or not relieving their guilt.
• Auxiliary Precept #9: Not acting in accord with your pratimoksa precepts.
• Auxiliary Precept #10: Doing only limited actions to benefit sentient beings, such as strictly keeping the Vinaya rules in situations when not doing so would be of greater benefit to others.
• Auxiliary Precept #11: Not doing non-virtuous actions of body and speech with loving-compassion when circumstances deem it necessary in order to benefit others.
• Auxiliary Precept #12: Willingly accepting things that either you or others have obtained by any of the wrong livelihoods of hypocrisy, hinting, flattery, coercion or bribery.