ACI 7 «Обеты бодхисаттвы», занятие 2

Class Two – Types and Features of Morality
August 1995



[cut]

Je Tsongkapa, it’s part of a poem that he made at an ancient monastery in Tibet in 1402.
[student: a part of what?] An ancient of poem, a poem that he wrote. It’s a part of a request
he made…he was making request in front of an ancient statue of a great master and he went
into a one month LSD trip [laughter] he, he went into this hallucinations for a whole month.
Seeing all the lineage lamas blessing him to do some great work and then he came out of it
and he wrote the Lam Rim Chenmo, which is the greatest book ever written in Tibet. So this
is, this is, this is from the Source of All My Good, which some of you have. And this
describes what you should do in order to take the Bodhisattva vow. He’s describing what
you should do. The verse before it describe how to get the motivation to take the Bodhisattva
vow; how to get the motivation of wanting to reach enlightenment to help other people.
And then it goes in to what you should do after that, which is where we’ve reached. Next,
next class we’ll start the actual Bodhisattva vow, describing them, looking at what they are;
looking at what they’re not. But tonight it’s, it’s sort of…what’s the whole structure of the
Bodhisattva vows. How does the…how do they fit in to your whole Buddhist career, in your
life, okay. And Je Tsongkapa says, please repeat okay. {sem sam [unclear] tsultrim namsum
la} [repeat] {sem sam} {semke} means bodhicitta, the wish to help all living beings okay.
{[unclear]} means just that. By the way, it won’t be a sentence till we reach the end, so don’t
worry. {kyang} means but. {tsultrim} means morality. {nam sum la} means the three types.
So what does it mean [unclear] it doesn’t mean anything, right? {sem sam ….} you may be
able to get the emotion in your heart that you’d like to help all living beings; you may be
able to get to the point where you have that emotion.. {sem sam [unclear]} but {tsultrim
namsum la}… say {gomba} [repeat] {mena} [repeat] {jangchu} [repeat] {men du pa} [repeat]
{gomba mean} means but if you don’t get very good, if you don’t get very good at the three
types of morality {namsum la} okay, if you don’t get very, very…if you don’t become a great
master of these three types of morality {namsum la}. {jangchu men du pa} means you will not
become a Buddha; you will not reach enlightenment. So he says, you may get this wish to
become a Buddha for all sentient beings, you may reach that point where you actually feel
that emotion but if you don’t go out and become very good at those three moralities you’re
not gonna to reach Buddhahood. You cannot. We’ll talk about what the three moralities are.
That’s the whole point of tonight’s class okay.

Now say, {lekpa} [repeat] {tung nye} [repeat] {gyalsa} [repeat] {dung ba la} [repeat]
{lekpa tung nye} means realize…you must realize this. {lekpa tung nye} means you must
realize this. You must realize that you can’t become enlightened if you don’t become very
good at the three types of morality even though you may want to be a Buddha to help all
living beings. {lekpa tung nye gyalsa dung ba la} {gyalsa} means bodhisattva, {gyalsa}. {dung
ba l} means the vow, vows of a bodhisattva, bodhisattva vow {dung ba la}.
Now say, {tsam ba} [repeat] {lopa} [repeat] now this is wimpy, come on. {tsam ba} [repeat]
{lopa} [repeat] [dokpa} [repeat] {jingkye lob} [repeat] okay.
{tsam ba [unclear]} means fierce efforts, okay. Fierce effort, mighty efforts. We don’t know
about what yet. {lopa} means train yourself, train yourself. {lopa} means train yourself.
{jingke lob} means he’s asking his own lamas, please bless me, please bless me. So what it
means….by the way, Tibetan is backwards compared to English, okay. the sentence is
always backwards. So Je Tsongkapa is saying he’s in this vision and he’s got hundreds of
lamas in front of him and he’s saying, “please bless me to be able to go train myself with
fierce efforts in the vows of the bodhisattvas”. So what it means is he’s advising us also, it’s
sort of advice also, you much realize that you can’t become enlightened if you don’t practice
the three kinds of morality even though you may have this golden intention. Therefore we
ask our lamas to bless us that we can train ourselves with, with great…with mighty efforts in
the Bodhisattva vows. And that’s…and that’s a fact. You know, you study the Bodhisattva
vows, those people here who studied the proof of past lives and future lives and people who
have gone to the Karma course and people who have gone to the emptiness course, you
realize that you must do some kind of powerful good deeds to reach enlightenment. And
you understand that, the process very clearly. Buddhahood is empty; karma projects onto it;
karma is collected in your mind which is endless and beginningless – we proved all that, we
went through all that. And what kind of deed do you have to get to project the right things
to this empty thing. What kind of good deeds do you have to do? Three moralities. Three
moralities. We’re going to go through the three moralities right now. It’s not as boring as
morality sounds in English, okay. You could say its spiritual code or something like that. It’s
not like not having a good time or something like that, all right. It’s more fun than that.
Say{nyechu dompay tsultrim} [repeat] First kind of morality okay.

{tsultrim} means morality. We always start from the back, okay. {tsultim} means morality.
By the say you don’t have to know the Tibetan on your homework and stuff like that. it’s just
that if you hear that enough you’ll start to turn on to it and then you can start to study it. I
think everyone in the Tibetan course, it’s about twenty people there, started just like this.
They didn’t have any intention to learn Tibetan [laughter] and some of them are translating
now….they’re really doing well. So if you hear it often enough and start to be…start to
understand it and then you start wanting to do it. {dompay} means to restrain. {dompay}
means to restrain. {nyechu} means bad deeds, bad deeds. So the first kind of morality is the
kind of morality that you think of when I say morality in English, okay. it’s the morality of
holding yourself back, controlling yourself and not doing bad deeds. There’s more or less of
definitions of a bad deed in Buddhism what do you think it is? Do you remember from
Karma? [student: [unclear]] For? For? [student: you] For you [laughs] Yeah the definition of
bad karma is any deed which you do which brings you suffering. That’s the definition of bad
karma. {Tibetan} Bad karma in Buddhism is defined as any deed which you do which
ultimately brings you suffering, through a karmic ripening. That’s the definition of bad, bad
deed. There’s another definition which is {Tibetan} which means basically bad karma is
anything that hurts other people. and those are the same…those are two qualities of bad
karma – you hurt other people and yourself, make you unhappy; that brings you suffering.
That’s interesting definition of a bad deed. It’s not that God is unhappy with you or you
offend some tradition or it’s against the rules and we don’t know why. It’s just that it will
bring you suffering. That’s the definition of bad karma. So the first kind of morality is to
avoid those things. You can basically divide those into two categories. What’s the most
basic division of Buddhist morality, of the type of avoiding bad deeds? Roughly. I mean
there’s eighty four thousand bad deeds you can do and in the Abhidharmakosha it says, lets
make it simple, we’ll put the top ten. We’ll get it down to the top ten. Three in your body,
three that you do with your body. Four that you do with your mouth. And then three that
you do in your mind.

What are the three in body? Killing, I’ll make it short. Killing meaning taking the life of any
living being, not just murder of human but taking life of any human…any living being.
Okay number two [student: stealing] Stealing. Generally the limit is ten cents. [student:
what? Come on] [laughter] [student: there’s a limit to it?] Anything over ten cents that
you…because of you somebody is put out by more than ten cents you’ve broken the second
vow. [laugher] so you can make a nine cent phone call worth, it’s okay. [John S: is that
indexed for inflation from the Buddha’s time?] [laughter] [John: I said, did you adjust that for
inflation from the Buddha’s time?] Ah yeah no.

Third one? [student: sexual misconduct] For everyone is adultery. There’s other kinds of
sexual misconduct like having sex in front of Buddha image or some…things like that.
Having sex with your mother or your sister, things like that. For a monk any kind of sex,
like that, depends on what your…your level is.
Okay number four….those are the three of speech…of, of body. [unclear] for speech what
are they? [students: lying] Lying – number one. To lie. Technically defined as giving
anyone a false impression, just about puts me out of business, my other business. [laughs,
laughter] okay.

Number five. [student: idle talk, harsh words] Oh boy, divisive talk, divisive talk. We
don’t have good word English but it’s where by hinting or directly you try to separate two
other people. “did you hear what she said about you the other day?” Can be a lie or it can
be the truth, either one. Even if it’s the truth. It doesn’t apply to try to protect people. You
say, look uh I happen to know that he’s plotting to murder you tomorrow at three o’clock.
That’s okay. that’s not divisive talk. Divisive talk is like trying to alienate other, other people
who are friends or if they’re enemies you try to split them further, okay. Any kind of
separation of other people. That’s divisive talk.

Number six. [student: harsh] Harsh words. Harsh words can be very soft nice words that are
meant to hurt someone deeply. Some times you can say a very harsh thing that to your
friend and they know you mean in good…in happy way and it’s not hard speech, okay.
Harsh speech is when you say something with the intention that it cuts somebody, whether
it’s gentle or, or harsh. [student: what about, what about if your intention is not to hurt the
person but it hurts] Uh…you collect part of a bad deed. Like, like when I joke you mean?
Number seven – idle talk, wasting time talking, wasted talk. Then the three of…those are four
done with your speech. These three are done with your body. How about the three of your
mind which are the most powerful.

First one? [student: covetous] Craving, okay, coveting. Coveting is….by the way if there’s
eighty four thousand of these and these are the top ten, we must be doing it all the day…all
day long. These made you know…if there’s eighty three thousand nine hundred ninety that
didn’t make it, we’re probably doing this all the time. So coveting means you know, it can
be another person’s position at work; it could be another person’s wife or husband; it could
be another person’s good look or intelligence; it could be their money; it could be anything
that they have that you wish that you had, in a bad way, you know. If you see a lama and
you admire a good quality and you wish you were like that, that’s not coveting. Coveting is
where…basically jealousy. It’s very related to jealousy. Now that you have this class you
can’t have it any more because you’re bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas swear to live so that other
people can have even the slightest pleasures. Any time someone else gets something good
from now on you have to be happy even if you don’t like them at work, you know. Okay.
Number nine [student: [unclear]] Uh? [student: [unclear]] Ah…no, ill will. What do you
call it? We’ll call it ill will, okay, but what it means is being happy when someone else gets
hurt, okay, basically. Taking some kind of pleasure out of other people’s misfortunes. If you
watch yourself you see that you have it all the time. You know someone you don’t like at
work gets yell at by the boss and you kind of like….uh sorry. [laugher] [laughs] We do it all
the time. We do it all the time. I had it today [laughter]

Wrong view. There’s, there’s basically two or three important ones. One would be for
example to believe that you cannot reach perfection in this life; you cannot reach paradise in
this life. To really in your back of your heart believe that, that before you die you cannot
reach a stage of total perfection, is a very serious wrong view. You can and that’s the
purpose of studying. You need just to move your rear end and do it, okay. But the other
classic one is that karma is not true which means I understand that if I do a bad deed in front
of somebody who respects me or I’ll get a bad reputation or I understand that if I cheat on
my taxes, I’m not very clever about it, they are going to catch and I’ll get some bad result.
But if I could do a bad deed in the privacy of my own room or on the street where no one…
none of my Buddhist friends are around me or basically if I could do a karma that I could get
away with it, it will be all right; I would not get a karmic result. Everything would be all
right. I can have a bad…I can think bad thoughts as long as I don’t show it to other people.
That’s all a very bad wrong view, why is it the most serious wrong view? I mean the most
serious of the ten. [student:[unclear]] It’s a good reason to do the other nine, when you get a
good opportunity, [laughs] when no one is around. It’s the very worst of all of it, okay,
because it will allow you do all the other nine. It’s a misperception. How is karma
collected? You just talked about it. [student: bad action [unclear]] {tsempa}mainly….
[student: by your perception and your mind] When you see yourself do a bad deed; when
you’re aware of yourself thinking a bad thought, karma is collected thereby. That’s the
process by which karma is planted. That is the process by which karma is stored. So you’re
in trouble okay [laughs] It doesn’t matter who’s watching or who knows. If you know it’s
collected. Karma is planted by your perception of karma. You can’t escape you have to be
good, okay. So those are the… that’s the first big division of, of this kind of….yeah?
[student:[unclear]] They get less by not knowing what they’re doing but they do have a
perception of themselves hurting other beings. That’s what I mean. Doesn’t necessary be an
understanding of the [unclear]. Some people say, does that mean Hitler’s karma was not so
bad because he truly [unclear] that he was doing a good thing, maybe. It is much less than if
he had…he hadn’t had that delusion, okay. interesting, okay.

The second kind of {nyechu dompay tsultrim} is what we call….say {sotar kye} [repeat]
{dompa} [repeat] {sotar} in Sanskrit is pratimoksha. Pratimoksha means vowed morality
where you take a vow to keep your morality. {dompa} means vow. So {sotar kye dompa}
means the vows of morality: the Buddhist vows of morality. There’re eight types. There’re
eight kinds – a full monk; fully ordained monk, gyelong, bikshu. Two hundred and fifty
three vows. Full nun – three hundred and sixty four vows. [student: why are there more for
a nun] [laughter] I don’t know why, they’re much different. I mean, they’re, they’re vows
are much different. I mean there’s a lot of things related to being a woman that you know,
woman body’s stuff like that, you know, [laughter] it’s a lot like that. There’s a vow called a
intermediate nun {gyelong ma} [student: how many vows [unclear]] I’m afraid you’ll ask me
that. I don’t want to say. let me check it. I believe it’s twelve on top of the thirty six. These
two ordinations don’t exist anymore in the Tibetan tradition, they were broken. So we don’t
even you know, it’s a long story. We’ll do the full nun and intermediate nun – those two…
there were not enough nuns at a certain point in Tibetan history to ordain new nuns and it
broke. You cannot make a new nun in a Tibetan tradition, [unclear] full nun.

All the nuns you meet are novice nuns, okay. novice monk, novice nuns – thirty something
vows, thirty six. These are ordained people, these are people who’ve sworn the give up the
family life. They have to wear robes. They have to live in a monastery normally. These are
people who’ve become ordained. The other three are, are for lay people. These are normally
five vows each, be nice you can take them some times. And then there’s a one day vow for
men or women. Similar to the one day bodhisattva vow we some times take, a little bit
different. Basically you, you try to live like an ordained person for one day. You don’t eat
after noon. You don’t have any sexual relation for that day; you don’t eat meat if you take
the bodhisattva one and things like that. You don’t sing or dance the whole day; you don’t
wear jewelry, things like that. There’s a, there’s a….for one day you try to act as if you were
a monk. In other countries like Thailand, in the Far East there are variations of these vows.
These are….you know, Thailand you can become a monk for two months or three months.
The king did it for example. It’s not in the vinaya.

It’s not really one of the vows, in the classical, original Buddhism. Those are like local
variations that sprung out. They would not recognized in the Vinaya as vows. Theses are all
there are. Some times like on your homework, name the seven vows of the {sotar} of the
Pratimoksha, that’s because when you’re talking of the bodhisattva vows normally you have
to have one of the first seven vows here, okay. It’s best if you can take your bodhisattva
vows after you have taken one of the first seven vows. It’s not necessary that you have of
one of those vows; it’s best if you do but it’s not necessary. You can take the bodhisattva
vows if you’re just keeping these ten pretty well. If you intend to keep these ten pretty well
you can take the bodhisattva vows. It’s best if you have one of the first seven vows over
there. [student: what’s the difference between a lay man…] Oh it just means a man who
swears to keep those five for his whole life and this is a woman who swears to keep those
five her whole life. Same vows. The vows are the same. They count them differently. They
count them…they count them separately men and women. Yeah? [student: [unclear] you
said you act like …as if you are a nun or as if you’re a monk, you don’t dance, you don’t
sing, you don’t [unclear] why not? What’s [unclear]] We have to study Vinaya for that and
we can some time if you want.

We will, we will study some Vinaya but in general if you…in general a monk in a monastery
or nun are suppose to live a contemplative life, quiet, meditational life and, and that would
tend to make you a little bit…if you ever like meditated for a month or two and then you…
you wouldn’t be…you wouldn’t dance. You know, it’s just that your mind is at a certain
calm level where you wouldn’t…even music would disturb it very much. Just to hear a
song, it disturbs your meditation very much. So it’s just that it would lead to you…might
lead you to be a little careless with your other vows. You have to dance with somebody…
things like that. That’s a long story. [laughter]. The Vinaya text, there’re sixteen volumes,
sixteen thousand pages, we’ll get into it okay. There’s a good reason for all of them. They’re
very, very beautiful. They’re not meant to be restrictive or repressive or…they actually
liberate you but you have to be in the mood to study it. [student: [unclear]] Yeah it’s a good
question. Here you have vow for your life, to keep those vows. All these vows are lifetime
except for the one day vow. Can’t give it up in this life. You could…if you take it, any of
these vows, not intending to keep it until the day you die, they don’t even form in your
mental stream. You can walk around with the robes on for twenty years but if in your heart
when you took them you didn’t intend to keep them until you die, they don’t form. And
there’s other details like that. [student: what do you mean they don’t form?] You don’t have
the vows.

They actually don’t form in your being, you know, if you take, if you take your monks vows
and your reason for taking them is something like uh looking good or, escaping a debt that
you have or things like that, they don’t even form in your being; you don’t have the vows;
you never did. It’s very…if you, if you take the monks vows and don’t intend to keep all of
them, just or two that you have a problem with, and you don’t really believe in them they
don’t form. Very interesting. It’s a bit detail, we’ll get into it someday. [student: [unclear]
bad karma [unclear]] Excuse me? [student: do they form bad karma [unclear] because you’re
practically…to take the vow you’re practically lying [unclear]] Ah, partly…if you intend to
break them before you die, if you intend to give them up before you die, you’ve lied.
During the ceremony you have to swear that you intend to keep them. These you don’t.
These ten are just…everyone has to keep them, doesn’t matter if you’re Buddhist or not,
[laughs] okay. So that’s {nyechu dompay tsultrim} [student: so A is kind of… things to
watch out…] they call it general Buddhist morality, everyone has to keep them. [student:
general Buddhist morality] these are vowed morality. And we’ll get into the advantages of
vowing to do something rather than just doing it.

Say {geway chud kyi tsultrim} [repeat] {tsultrim} means morality, again. {geway chud kyi}
means the morality of collecting goodness, morality of collecting goodness. That again is
two different kinds. Two different divisions. What are the six perfections of a bodhisattva?
[student] Giving, okay. I like to use giving rather than generosity. For example, teaching
someone equanimity is one of the highest acts of giving of the first perfection. It’s not kind of
generosity I would think, you know. Doesn’t mean being easy with your money. [student:
equanimity?] Yeah, yeah, teaching someone that is, is one of the highest forms of giving. It’s
right in this category. That’s why I don’t like the word generosity. Prefer giving. Okay.
number two [student: morality] Morality. Number three [student: not getting angry] Yeah
number three we don’t have.. Fran did it a nice way. We don’t have a good word in
English. It means not getting angry when you should angry. It means when the poop hits
the fan and you’re just about to get angry you back of. That’s the third perfection. I don’t
know we have good word in English. Patience is okay; patience is [unclear]. Some people
say forebearance. [student: or self restraint] Self restraint could be not killing people.
[student: keeping your cool] [student: tolerance] you can say tolerance in a way. [student:]
what’s that? [student: watchfulness] You have to watchful to keep it [laughs] comes before
that. We’ll say patience but you know what I mean; we’ll say not getting angry. [student:
not getting angry but what?] any kind of not getting angry. If you stubbed you toe and get
angry you broke it. It can be…it can be aimed at inanimate and animate. If you get all hot
while waiting for bus which is late, you broke [unclear] seriously [laughter] you broke it.
Why? The bus is late because you did bad karma in the past. Seriously. Being angry at it it’s
going to make the next bus late for you. That’s a long story [laughter, laughs]

We’ll skip to number five, what’s that? Concentration or you can say meditation. The ability
to meditate. Then number six? Wisdom. What happened to number four? [student: you left
it out] Huh? [student: joyful effort] Yeah, joyful effort. It means effort. It goes on both
sides. [what are the two sides again?] Ah…we didn’t get to that yet. Effort doesn’t mean
working hard at work. Effort is defined as {Tibetan} which means enjoy doing good deeds.
You get high of doing nice things. That’s the definition of effort. {sum kang…} Shantideva’s
definition. So these are two great divisions of this kind of morality. It’s called the morality of
collecting goodness because if you collected to gather all these things, if you’re able to do
them and collect together the energy you get for them they make you a Buddha. They turn
you into a Buddha. They give you the two parts of a Buddha. This is called….these are the
category; these happen to incidentally give you the physical body of a Buddha, okay…
mainly. This create the physical body of a Buddha. It could look like Tara, could look Green
Tara; could look like the Dalai Lama, you know; depends one what you like to look at.
Anything you want, okay. and the wisdom said is…what would you guess? [student: the
mind?] Yeah - these are the causes to make you omniscient, to be able to see every object in
the universe in the…at the same instant. You know what’s going on at Mars; you know
what’s going on, on planet earth; you know what’s going ten thousand years from now in so
and so’s mind, all at the same moment. That’s a mind of a Buddha. Those are the [unclear].

So it’s interesting. This doesn’t have much to do with morality, does it? In the sense of what
you think of morality. This is really just doing good things to collect together some kind of
great energy so that you yourself can become a Buddha. That’s the second kind of morality.
There’s nothing to do with morality except for you know this little one here. But it’s not
what you would think of as a kind of morality meaning not to do bad things. It’s really just
collecting together huge karmic energies in order to change yourself into an enlightened
being. That’s the second kind of morality. Third kind of morality then we’ll take a break
[student: what would you call it, Michael?] I call it the morality of collecting goodness. So
that’s what they call it but it’s really just the…it’s really just the actions that you have to do to
turn yourself into an enlightened being.

Say {semchen dunje kyi tsultrim} [repeat] {tsultrim} means morality again. Third kind of
morality. {semchen dunje} means working for the good of other beings. It’s the morality of
working for the good of other beings; working for others; the morality of working of all
living beings. It’s the same thing as the first two moralities so why bother to make the third?
[student: [unclear]] Yeah, precisely, precisely. It has to do why, why you’re keeping those
morality. In the third kind of morality you’re doing this… you’re doing the other two
moralities but you’re doing it for the sake of other beings. It’s the difference in motivation.
It’s exactly the same action. It’s avoiding bad deeds and it’s collecting good energy, karmic
energy but, but in the third case you’re doing it for the sake of other people. you’re doing it
to help other people. Exactly the same kind of morality as the other two. I’ll cheat and I’ll
give you one more point. [student:[unclear]] promised you a break. The morality of
working for others. The morality of working for all other…all living beings, how’s that.
We…we can put here as an example the three types of vows and I don’t want you to get
confuse between the three types of morality and the three types of vows.

Now we’re going to talk about the three types of vow. We covered the three types of
morality. Here’s one example of those three kinds of morality, okay. What’s the first type of
vows? [student: lay man vows] [student: vinaya] Those praticmoksha. Those, those eight
types of vows that I put up those lifetimes vow, that’s the first kind. So you can say…
basically those eight types of vows that I already put up – vowing that till the end of your life
you’ll keep these vows except in the eighth case which is a one day vow. That’s the first
level of vow, Buddhist vow. What’s the second level of Buddhist of vow? [student:
Bodhisattva] Bodhisattva vow. [student: Michael does this come under the morality of
working for the good for the others?] It’s, it’s included in there but it’s not exhaustive.
There’s other kinds of morality….it is…this covers all, all vowed morality of a Buddha.
Anything you can take a vow about it is in one of those three, these are the Bodhisattva….
The flavor of these vows is much, much different, you know, the flavor of the first kind of
vowed morality is very much I will not hurt other people. And you know that from those
ten. But the flavor of the Bodhisattva vow is – I will not be selfish, I will take care of others.
That’s the whole flavor of the Bodhisattva vow, I will watch out for other people and I will
not be selfish; I will be considerate of others; I will live my whole life being considerate of
others and not be selfish. That’s the main flavor of the Bodhisattva vows.

What’s the third kind? [student: secret] Tantric vow. I can’t tell you the secret vows. But I
can tell you the flavor of it and that’s that uh….there are certain kinds of attitudes and
activities, behavior that if you keep it very carefully you can become enlightened within this
life; you can reach the highest level of bless and paradise in this very life if you keep those
things. And if you mess up in any of those very, very karmically nuclear bomb categories it
will harm you immensely. The tantric vows all, all center around that thing. There’re certain
objects, certain activities, certain attitudes that if you study them carefully and keep them
carefully, you can become enlightened in this life, before you die. You can a Buddha’s body
and mind in this life and if you, if you take them on and break them you can have equally
horrible result. That’s the flavor of the secret vow, it’s very powerful and very important.
Each one of these is built on the last and we’ll talk about that after the break – not killing
people and not killing people and keeping your vows to not kill people. There’s a difference
between vowing to do something and just doing it ‘cos you’re in a good mood or something
like that, okay. And we’re going to explain the advantage of taking a vow to do something –
vowed morality rather than just keeping your morality ‘cos you enjoy it or you think it’s a
right thing to do or, or something like that. It’s suppose to be much more powerful to take a
vow not to do certain thing or to take a vow to do certain thing. And then not do them or
do them then it’s just to avoid doing ‘cos you feel like it or you’re think it’s a nice idea or
something like that; in other words taking a vow has four distinct advantages and we’re
going to talk about the advantage of taking a vow rather than just doing it. I mean lot of
people you might meet they say, “oh those are nice; the Bodhisattva vows are nice but I do
most of the stuff already’. It’s much more powerful and much…much more…it’s some kind
of distinction if you vow, if you take the vow. And I repeat that you’re in this class you do
not have to take those vows. Just learning what they are. If you never take them it’s okay.
Be very beautiful if you can, be much more powerful. Why? Here’s the first reason. Taken
from somebody else. What this means is….and we’ll cover this next class. When you take
the Bodhisattva vow you have to take them from a person who has certain qualities. One of
the qualities is that for example they should be keeping the Bodhisattva vows very well
themselves.

They should know them very well. And then there’re other qualities that we will cover next
class. The great advantage of taking it from someone else is the mental function, one of the
fifty something mental function in Buddhism call {Tibetan} uh sorry {Tibetan} [student:
someone who knows them well and keeps them or…?] Yeap. Not enough if the guy is
smart and knows all of them, you know, know all the scriptures but he doesn’t keep them…
you shouldn’t take the vows from him or her. We’ll get into that next week. Say {cher yer}
[repeat] {cher yer} is one of the mental functions, is defined as and you can name it what you
want…we’ll talk about it; define as…when you’re close to committing a bad deed you pull
back and you stop yourself because you’re embarrass about what other people might think.
Open the floor for suggestion on the translation. Some people say considerate. Some people
say shame but shame…I use shame in the reading okay. [student: restrained] It’s restrain
because you’re adversed if someone else might see you. [student: it’s based on other’s
reaction …] It’s based on another’s reaction rather than yours. [student: [unclear] morality]
Yeah, yeah, self image morality; reputation morality. And taking the, taking the vow has that
advantage – because you went to some person, some great lama, like the Dalai Lama or Khen
Rinpoche and you said, “I beg you to give me these vow.” He says, “ can you keep them?”
and you say, “I swear I’ll keep them.” “Okay I’ll give it to you.” He gives them to vow,
you know, and this is my situation. I live with him. I can’t break those vows, he’s around
me all the time [laughter] and that’s the whole point. You’d be very embarrass particularly if
the person who gave you those vows learn that you have broken them. So taking them from
somebody else…the act of going to someone and taking a vow helps you keep that morality.
That’s one advantage of a vow. You have to take a vow from somebody else and you’d be
very embarrass to break that vow and this holy lama would find out about it. Khen
Rinpoche would find out that you broke your Bodhisattva vow. [student: [unclear]] Not at
all. No, it happens to one of the kinds of armor, one of the kind of protection for your
morality. Maybe it’s not such a normal intention…I think it was some kind of….what’s
the…Plato or somebody, he saw a boy and the boy did something wrong and the boy
blushed and he said that blush is sign of your morality, you know, great sign, it’s a great
sign, it’s a great deed that you just did by blushing. Means you’re embarrass to do something
wrong. You don’t want to do something wrong in front of somebody else particularly if
you went and beg them for these vows, you know, and then they find out that you broke
them. And that’s happened to me, you know, I made personal commitment to tell Rinpoche
[unclear] broke certain thing, that I had trouble with. And then it was very hard to break it
‘cos I knew I had to go and tell it. [laughter] [unclear] severe Tibetan lama and it’s very
embarrassing to sit there and…you know, you try to beat around the bush and finally he
figures out what he’s trying to say him, “you did that?” and you say, yeah. [laughter] He
doesn’t even want to see you, you know. It’s very bad. So it’s very…it works, it really
works. It works. Take it from somebody else. What’s the other one? By the way this is not
a translation of this. Just that because you took the vows from somebody else you have this
capacity for being embarrass or shamed which protects your vows. [student: is that one of
the…] It’s called the four benefits of the vows. It’s one of the fifty something mental
functions depending which school you’re in. Abdhidharma School has forty something and
Sautantrika school has fifty something. Pure motivation. Pure motivation means when you
take your vows, on the day that you take your Bodhisattva vows and you’re kneeling in front
of the lama and he goes through all the preliminaries and he says, “okay you’re just about to
get your vows. When I snap your finger….my fingers you have the vows. The vows enter
your mind stream.” Then he…you repeat a certain thing three times then he says, snaps his
finger then you’re suppose to get {tob lo}. {tob lo} means I got it. The realization that you’ve
got the vows. That they have now entered your mind stream. Bodhisattva vows never go
away. Pratimoksha vows when you…they go away when you die or when you give them
up okay. Like a monk’s vows, the moment you die you lose those vows. Bodhisattva vows
are not like that. They stay with you forever unless you consciously do something to give
them up. They…they’re not destroyed by death. They stay in your mental stream. So here’s
this person you’re kneeling before him or her and they give you your vows. At that moment
you’re suppose to have this motivation. It’s not…and we’ll study it next class but a typical
bad motivation is, “oh all the other students are taking Bodhisattva vows, I guess I should
take Bodhisattva vows”. Very common and very bad. you’re not suppose to do for that
reason. The other bad reason would be, “oh I don’t like that guy and he took…I want to
look to be just as great a Buddhist as he is and he took them so I, I’m going to take them, so
everybody knows I took them” In other words all these bad reasons. Oh I’m going to die, I
want to die with Bodhisattva vows. Those are lower motivation. The real high motivation is,
I want to take these vows ‘cos if I keep them I really can become enlightened and then I
really be able to help other people. That has to be the motivation. There’s lot of discussion in
the text, seems to be the position if you don’t have that motivation as you take them they
don’t even form, within you. You don’t get them even if you’re the only one who knows it.
In your own mind you’re not doing it for the good of other people they don’t really form,
anyway. So that’s the motivation you have. That’s protects you; that…if you don’t take a
vow to keep this rules, if you don’t take a vow, you don’t have this special kind of thought in
your mind. You know that something you could do that would hurt the person in the eyes
of the boss or in somebody else’s eye and you’re just about to say that thing in front of
everybody and they then you pull back because you say, “I stood…I knelt before that lama
and I, in my mind I swore that I would [unclear] good of every living being and I’m about to
hurt this person, you know, that will make me the biggest liar in the world. You know I
swore I would take on these vows and I swore that I would now start to live a kind of life all
I want is that other people be happy even at my own expense. And then you just about to
hurt them and you stop because you remember the motivation you’re suppose to have.
That’s called {ngok sa}. {ngok sa} is where you pull back from a bad deed….from your
own…what did we call it? I don’t remember. [student: for reasons relating to yourself] For
reasons…for your own self esteem. Nobody else knows what you’re thinking at that
moment. It’s not for the purpose of other people’s opinion of you. It’s for your opinion of
yourself. You avoid doing that thing in order to keep your own self image, in our own life.
That’s not a worthy thing for me to do. I swore in front of that lama. I, I, I mentally
committed to helping all sentient beings and here I’m about to hurt someone just because
they irritated me. And if you pull back…this is all taking place in your mind, nobody else
knows what’s going on. That’s….that’s {ngok sa}. And it takes place because of the
motivation. [student: [unclear]] {ngok sa} means….in when you’re debating and you make a
bad answer they go …I mean aren’t you ashamed of yourself [laughs laughter] [unclear]
your face burning. {ngok sa} means face burning. It means to be ashamed I guess or…uh…
or conscience; because of your own conscience. Yeah. Go ahead [student: yeah what
would you suppose…what would you say will be a proper attitude [unclear] like you walk
into work and somebody comes [unclear] you have to defend yourself..] there’s a point at
which you uh…[student: in a way that you don’t want to hurt the person or in a way that
you would want] there’s a point in Buddhist practice where you must stop somebody; you’re
required to stop somebody. There’s a point Buddhist practice where you can…you may have
to use violence means but you’re never allowed to hate the person; you’re never allowed to
dislike the person. You know you can do very strong means to stop a person and that’s
allowed at a certain level; you’re never allowed to dislike a person, you know. [student:
right] So that’s very subtle. You know what a lama would say is…you know if you’re
capable of doing it and not hating the person but if all your motivation is like…there’s a very
famous case, King Udayana which Michael knows, he was a arhat, he had already achieved
nirvana. His own son sent people to murder him. He, he could read their minds. They met
him on the road; they were trying to look nonchalant you know, and [laughter] he said,
“you’re here to murder me, right? [laughs] [unclear] yeah. He says, “give me a moment to
meditate, right” then he would do [unclear]. So he went of the [unclear] and out of
compassion for them and out of compassion for …there’re many ways to stop a conflict
without hurting anybody. You have to get very good at it. Okay. Pure motivation.
Third one [student: Michael you said these were four ..?] Four qualities of morality [student:
four benefits of the vows?] they’re like four benefits of Vowed Morality. [student: so how is
pure motivation a benefit?] By remembering the pure motivation you had as you took the
vows, you’re embarrass to yourself to do something wrong. That’s, that’s one of the benefits.
By remembering the…yeah you sat there and said it, for the good of every living being.
Then somebody at work gets a very minor pleasure and you get jealous of it [laughs]
Okay number three – fixable, the vows are fixable. If you break them you can fix them.
That’s a great…that’s a great benefit of vow all right. It’s a whole process. You will break
your vow. You have to learn how to restore them. And that, and that quality is one of the
great qualities of the vow. It’s a vow…it’s a way of life you will fail at times; you have…you
can never get back the original strength of the vows unless you take them all over again.
But…so they’re damage but you can restore them to a certain level and that’s a…and that’s
the good quality about …of these vows, this kind of morality. [student: there’s no karma for
breaking the vow] Oh there’s lots…very bad karma. We’ll go over them [student: then
what’s there to fix?] But you can restore the vow. You can and you can work on the karma
of doing…of having broken them. That’s a sep…those are two separate things. You can
purify the karma. You have to try. I could say in the first place, okay. [student: did you say
they weren’t fully restorable?] Umm you can restore them but …it depends on which of the
vows and we’ll go over it. The root vow, you can take them over again. That’s why it’s
good to go retreat every summer [laughs] Don’t break the vow in the first break. It’s the
fourth quality of morality; fourth quality of Vowed Morality. If these two elements are
strong enough you won’t break the vow in the first place. Now that’s not exactly a benefit of
Vowed Morality but that’s one of the qualities of Vowed Morality is that if you’re careful you
won’t break it in the first place. If you have these two things very strong, one of the qualities
of your personal morality will be you won’t break it in the first place. Those are the four…
those are from Asanga. Those are from Maitreya. Those are mentioned in the Bodhisattva
[unclear]. Those are four qualities of….four nice qualities. [student: where are they
mentioned] In uh….Levels of the Bodhisattva is a work by Maitreya. It’s a work that
Asanga…where Asanga summarize what he learnt from Maitreya about morality and other
Bodhisattva vows. Summarized it in about three volumes [laughs] It’s huge.
Lets see if I missed anything. That’s what I just said, it’s not a very…we should say a good
quality. I mean it’s not really an advantage…you know, in normal sense as you think of it.
It’s called a {yuntan…} good quality. If you keep the first two of the four you will gain the
fourth advantage. How’s that? Like in the debate ground sometimes we have…go around
okay.
Say {tsa tung}…we’re gonna cover now the two…and I think that’s the last thing we have do
to. These are the two kinds of Bodhisattva vows. I mentioned them briefly last class but all
the Bodhisattva vows fall into one of two categories. They’re the root vow which are called
{tsa tung}. {tsa} means root or primary. {tsa} means root or primary. {tung} literally means to
fall down into… off a cliff for example, [laughs] into a canyon. I call it downfall sometimes.
You can say root downfall. It means a major slip up. How’s that, okay? That’s a {tsa tung}.
How many, do you remember? [student: eighteen] Eighteen. There’re eighteen major vows.
These are the most heavy karmically. Don’t want to break them. [student: are you saying
that they’re eighteen downfalls or eighteen vows?] They…the way they say main vow in
Tibetan is major downfall. And actually it’s the breaking of the vow, right but that’s how
they name them. It’s a good point. Say {nye je} [repeat] {je} means did, past tense DID. {nye}
means bad. Did something bad. That’s a secondary vow. Not as heavy karmcially. How
many? [student: forty six] Forty six. In the monk’s vows for example there’re five different
categories of vows. In the secret vows, there’re basically two categories and a third sub
category. In the Bodhisattva vows there’s only two categories. All the vows go into here or
here, all of them. It’s typical with vows of morality that there’re certain categories like…if I
do a….if I break a root vow, like the first Bodhisattva vow – praising myself and putting
down other people. If I do that but now with a full kind of screwed up motivation, all right
but if I do it somehow with…under some extenuating circumstances, it doesn’t qualify as a
root vow any more. It actually becomes a secondary breaking of the vow. It has the power
of one of these. It’s still in this category. For example if, if I go out of control…lets say I’m
crazy, lets say if I lose my sanity and I praise myself and put down somebody else it’s not…I
do not break a root vow. It’s not the power of breaking a root vow. It’s a power of
breaking a secondary vow…that’s an example. There’re some kind of…we’ll talk about it. It
has to be four conditions present for me to really break a root vow. You have to have a
heavy, heavy bad thinking to break a root vow. If, if, somehow that bad thinking is not all
there the power…these are the secondary vow. And although the deed is in the root vow,
you know, the action that you did, the karma of it is really a secondary vow karma…much
lighter. Much lighter. So when you’re discussing the Boddhisattva vows, you go through
the root vows and then after that you say by the say if you don’t have really screwed state of
mind when you do it it’s just the power of the secondary vow. All the text say that. Now
why is that a big deal? Why bring them up? Is to prove that there’s only two categories of
vows. So if on the homework somebody says [laughter] prove that there’s only two
categories of Bodhissatva vows. If you break one of these without the proper messed up
motivation, the karma is only of the secondary vow. Why is that a big deal? Because after
the vows were set down by the ancient Indian masters a lot of people later started to make up
different categories of vows. They’re not valid. There’s no authentic source for them and Je
Tsongkapa goes through this long explanation of why. And, and this is…you should know
it. The text only states two kinds of vow and if you commit this but without the right
motivation it becomes this one, so there’s no other ones between. [student: basically this is
[unclear] something that no longer exist?] They still exist in some Tibetan schools [student:
[unclear]] and you can still see people making up things in Buddhism. And you have to be
very, very careful to stick you… I mean one purpose to have this class is that and one thing
about Buddhism is…the Buddha was omniscient, two and a half thousand years ago, He
knew we’d have this class. He knew who would be in this class. He knew every thought
that you’d have during this class and every other thought you’d have during your whole life.
You don’t need to adjust what He thought. He taught what He taught to fit people in this
room two and half thousand years later, perfectly. And it does fit us perfectly. We don’t
need in our life time to modify it, to keep up with the new age you know, it’s totally perfect
and it’s just right for us. And the whole purpose…one of the reasons of having a class is to
make that we pass it on to the next generation in its pure form. And we don’t go messing
round with it. So that’s one reason to talk about [unclear]. [student: we had example last
week about that [unclear] examples we had [unclear] secondary vow?] Yeah they’re all in the
Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. [student: all of them?] Yeah but all spread out. All right one
more point…yes Sir? [student: if you [unclear]] secondary vow[unclear]] Yeah, ah no that’s
karma. There’s only two categories. That’s another reason why there’s only two categories.
All right last point. The last point you’ll get from your reading. It’s the last thing in your
reading but Je Tsongkapa spends a long time in the reading talking about in his day and in
our day also people teaching, they have a big course, they give big initiation to a bunch of
naïve Americans, although Americans are becoming less naïve and it’s harder to do this
nowadays and they say, “I just gave you a big tantric initiation. You’re now tantric followers
and we’re going to have good time after. We’re having party and we’re gonna do some
weird things [laughter, laughs] and this is going to be tantric practice okay. And you don’t
have to worry about those old moralities. Now you’re above all those. We now have tantric
initiation and you don’t have worry about monk’s morality or those ten moralities or
Bodhisattva morality. We’re above all that now. Now we’re on a higher level. Come to
my place afterwards [laughter] especially the pretty girls” [laughter, laughs] This is eh…I
mean it was very popular for awhile and then the Americans….now you go to Russia or
other countries where Buddhism just reaching you know, that gang all moved over there ‘cos
now the Americans understand too much about Buddhism. They go for that. And, and Je
Tsongkapa goes into a long explanation why don’t fall into this very big mistake, he says,
you know, the Bodhisattva vows are based on your other morality. You’re a fool if you say,
“ I’m going to keep Bodhisattva vows and I don’t need that normal morality any more. And
you’re a double fool if you think you can keep your secret vow. And you think you don’t
need your Bodhisattva vows any more or your other…or your monk’s vows or your
laymen’s vows.” He says, it is a crazy that…it’s so beautiful, he goes into a beautiful page
when he compares that idea to hailstorm. If you’ve ever been in a… Kansas or Iowa where
there’s corn all over and a real good hailstorm comes…. I was in one about two weeks ago,
it hurts. I mean, it’s big stones and they fall…they fall down and they wipe off the whole
field. The whole field is just shattered pieces of stock all over the ground, nothing standing
any more. You know like one or two in the whole field left. He says that concept that you
take some kind of higher vows and you could throw away your lower vows, is like a
hailstorm that destroys the happiness of all…of all people. If you wanted to screw up the
happiness of the people around you, teach them that idea. If you want to assure that they’re
miserable for many, many years and that they never reach any kind of happiness, teach them
that idea. Then they’ll just mess up their lives. He gives, gives a very beautiful…so it’s in
there. And you should read that, it’s in your homework okay. What’s Je Tsongkapa’s
reaction to this idea. It’s very strong. To not take the Bodhisattva vow [cut[

Side B

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Course 7 – The Bodhisattva Vows