Appendix: The Eight Mahayana Precepts

The benefits of keeping the eight Mahayana precepts for a day, when taken with a bodhicitta motivation, are infinite. Mahayana ordination includes these eight precepts.

Ordination means protecting the mind from negativity and from the problems or suffering that arise from the negative mind.

Taking ordination is the best way to purify the negativity that has already been created. Generally, ordination is an action that counters the eight worldly dharmas, which are the cause of suffering. Ordination causes them to not arise or helps to destroy those that exist. It protects the mind from greed, hatred and ignorance and diminishes what is already there.

Plans and actions are required in the war against suffering. Essentially, ordination means avoiding negative actions. So, it’s important to know the benefits, or else it is harder to keep precepts, and to know the shortcomings of the negative mind. These two understandings make us more interested and build the courage to keep the precepts.

THE BENEFITS OF TAKING VOWS

As the earth is the basis of this world, ordination is the basis of all the realizations of meditation, Dharma practice and so forth. Keeping the vows correctly is a quick way out of ignorance, and it’s an action with immediate benefits. This means that because we live in a discipline that avoids having a negative mind, we avoid the suffering results. That means not being born in the three lower realms.

It’s the best perfume, a natural smell that is incomparable to any chemical perfume. Ordination is the best water to cool us from the heat of suffering. A great Indian pandit said, “Keeping the eight precepts for a day gives greater benefit than one hundred years of charity.” Following the precepts correctly is a serious action, it fights the negative mind. We can do many things insincerely, such as saying prayers or reciting mantras, but without a pure motivation, that can’t become a positive action.

The benefits are greater than making offerings to the Buddha, who said in the King of Concentration Sutra,

One may, with cleansed mind,
Honor ten million buddhas with food, drink,
With parasols, banners, and rows of lamps
For as many eons as there are grains of sand in the Ganges;

But whoever, at a time when the holy Dharma is utterly destroyed,
When the Sugata’s teachings will end,
Practices a single training day and night
Will receive much greater merit.¹

Taking precepts is the cause of becoming a disciple of Maitreya in the future. He said, “Any being following the eight precepts and listening to the Dharma of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha will be reborn as one of those who surround me.” In this situation, in such a perfect human rebirth, we get the greatest chance to hear the teachings and attain enlightenment.

THE EIGHT MAHAYANA PRECEPTS

The eight Mahayana precepts are eight vows we keep for twenty-four hours. We gain so much benefit keeping these precepts for a day, so much so that in ancient times in India the kings made a law that everyone had to take these precepts. By keeping them, we can become an arhat, a bodhisattva or an enlightened being. At the very least they help us to attain another perfect human rebirth.

Keeping vows means protecting ourselves from the negative mind arising and therefore from creating negative actions. It’s one of the quickest ways to progress spiritually. It’s like the fuel of a jet plane, like the spring of a watch. Keeping these vows is the source that brings liberation and enlightenment much more quickly. With them, we can definitely be born in an upper realm where we will meet the Dharma again; it’s the quickest way to escape from samsara. We think such goals are too distant, but they can be very close. In only three or seven years, we can attain liberation or even enlightenment, or we can achieve the state of an arhat. There is no need to build a rocket or special machines; this is purely a mental activity. It all depends on our present mind and the strength of our determination.

Besides causing all these realizations and future lifetimes of happiness, keeping our vows purely also brings peace. Whenever we make a vow and are willing to keep it, because we are trying our best not to let a negative mind arise, we immediately have peace. The purpose of the vows is to overcome the negative mind. It’s our job alone to take and keep any of the vows within Buddhism and the strength of that responsibility helps hold us from creating any negativity. It stops all the suffering results of each negative action that would have to be experienced in the three lower realms.

We always experience a happy result, such as being born in the human realm again and only meeting conditions conducive to developing our mind. Besides stopping all future dangers, it also purifies all the negative karmas that have been created in past previous lives until now. This is the best purification, because just as the mind is beginningless, our past negative karmas are numberless. Just creating a few positive karmas is not enough to overcome all the negative karmas on our mindstream; they are too great. Keeping our vows, on the other hand, can really purify all our past negative karmas.

If we keep the eight Mahayana precepts all day, for that whole twenty-four-hour period we are continuously purifying our mind and ceasing our negative actions. When the cause of suffering is eliminated, we feel perfect peace. The cessation of the whole of samsara can’t happen immediately; it must come gradually, but these vows give us a taste of liberation. Without this discipline, we continually create further suffering.

This is the best way to bring peace. All the sufferings of sentient beings until now are due to not having subdued the mind. When we sincerely determine to keep the vows we have taken, we are truly practicing the Dharma in the purest way. Our mind is utterly uninvolved with the eight worldly dharmas. Our motivation is the complete opposite of the normal one of chasing samsaric pleasures and being attached to samsaric comfort. And so, this is a very powerful practice, having many benefits.

There are eight Mahayana precepts we take for twenty-four hours:

• to refrain from killing
• to refrain from stealing
• to refrain from lying
• to refrain from sexual contact
• to refrain from taking intoxicants
• to refrain from eating at an inappropriate time
• to refrain from sitting on high seats or beds
• to refrain from singing, dancing, and wearing perfumes and jewelry

Because we create so much negative karma through lack of awareness, the precepts are a discipline to make us conscious of our actions. They make the mind a spy, spying on itself.

The first vow is to refrain from killing. This means not killing not just human beings but all sentient beings with any of the three poisonous minds of greed, hatred or ignorance. For an action of killing to be complete, we need four factors: the object of the act, the one we intend to kill; the motivation to kill; the act itself of killing; and the conclusion, which for killing means the other being dies before we do.

Not killing causes us to have a longer life in the future and be without sickness. We look very strong. It also becomes the cause to receive the Buddha’s holy vajra body, which is indestructible. If we break this precept we will have a short life. For example, we may die in the womb or have many diseases.

Then, there is the vow to refrain from stealing. We don’t steal anything of value possessed by another being. Neither do we take anything with force. We don’t borrow something for a long time, hoping the owner will forget about it.

The four factors of stealing are the object, something possessed by somebody else; the motivation, we want to take it without permission; the act itself, taking the object, and the conclusion, we feel the object is ours.

Not stealing results in becoming wealthy, enjoying the happiness of future lives and not having others take our possessions. When we become enlightened, it results in the appearance of thousand-spoked wheels on our hands and long webbed fingers. If we break this precept, even in this life our own things get stolen.

The vow to refrain from lying results in not being lied to or betrayed in the future, and in our words being trusted by others. Some people’s words are so powerful that those who hear them naturally trust in what they say. Similarly, by not lying our speech is more powerful and our prayers are more successful, helping ourselves and others. On the other hand, when we lie or gossip, our speech loses all power and we are not respected.

This precept applies to lying ourselves or getting somebody else to lie for us. It can also be a physical action such as a shrug for no or avoiding answering a question and thereby lying by implication, such as if someone asks if we are out of samsara and we don’t reply, implying that we are. Another person has to hear the speech or see the action to complete the lie. The worst thing is to lie to holy beings or to our parents.

We take vows to help all sentient beings. Although this is such vital work, we can easily feel that other jobs like being a government minister are more important, because we get money for them. But generally, these jobs are not done to take care of all sentient beings, to lead them from ignorance. Such people as kings, ministers, and so forth are supposed to take care of the population of a country, but if we check up their motivation, almost always self-interest is the motivation. It’s done for reputation, only to gain worldly comfort. Ambition drives them higher and higher until they try to obtain the top job, the president or prime minister or whatever. They have no thought of helping others.

The goal of those jobs is limited. Taking vows is the highest and most beneficial job we can do, but it’s dangerous, because when we vow not to lie, we are vowing to all sentient beings and the consequences are terrible if we break that vow.

When we take vows, we become like a helper for the enlightened beings. We are not just taking care of our family, which only involves our own comfort and is so limited, but taking care of all sentient beings. In an ordinary job, only our worldly needs are fulfilled, maybe our reputation or the acquisition of wealth, which may be useful until death, but this has nothing to do with other future lives or liberation or enlightenment.

I’m not complaining. This is just how it is with a samsaric life, doing work without a Dharma motivation. With an unsubdued mind, not actively trying to overcome our delusions, we just end up continually circling around in samsara forever, one suffering body after another.

But by taking vows, we can attain perfect peace, the cessation of suffering, and we can attain enlightenment. If we only have very limited understanding, we might even feel practicing the Dharma is suffering. How we feel about the Dharma is something created by our own mind, not by other people. This job is the most important job on this earth but it’s something we must choose to do.

Refraining from sexual contact includes masturbation and so forth. The object is the other person we want to have sex with; the motivation is the wish; the act is the actual act of sexual intercourse; and the conclusion is sexual happiness, having achieved orgasm. This is what we refrain from.

The worst things are sexual intercourse in a holy place, where there are gurus or holy objects, intercourse with a female arhat, a celibate person or our mother, or oral and anal intercourse. This precept includes anything that causes loss of sperm. Nocturnal emission in dreams and so forth is not exactly the same as if it is done consciously, but we still create some negative karma.

Whereas discharging our seed causes the mind to become unclear, the senses to lose power and the body to lose color, the benefits of keeping this vow are that in many future lifetimes our body will always be beautiful with a fine complexion and body color and with perfect organs. This is the natural result of following morality and patience.

Generally, the action that is the opposite of keeping the vow brings the opposite negative result, taking us further from enlightenment and keeping us longer in samsara. Even if we are near to attaining a realization, by breaking the vow we lose that realization and continue to suffer, mostly in the three lower realms. This is the basic complete result of breaking any of the vows.

It’s the same thing for sexual intercourse. If we have taken the vow to abstain from sex for a day, breaking it takes us further from enlightenment and makes us more attached to worldly happiness. Even if we manage to be reborn in one of the upper realms, because we are still attached to worldly happiness, it gets stronger and in future lifetimes our body will be ugly, with imperfect organs.  Also, in the present lifetime, this attachment to worldly pleasure can be the greatest disturbance if we want to meditate. We may think that by doing the action a great deal we will get bored with it and we will eventually stop, but that is a big mistake. We have been doing this action for an unimaginable length of time and we only get more habituated to it.

Actually, this action is not new. There is not one sentient being that we have not had sexual intercourse with countless times—our current friends, enemies, the animals and insects we can see and so forth. It’s something with no beginning, something we should have become bored with a long time ago, but because of our limited mind, we have forgotten all this and so we think this is a new thing. It’s because of the habit, because of the attachment that arises from the fundamental ignorance, that this action has not stopped.

This is one of the greatest disturbances to meditation. With the attachment to worldly happiness, we can’t overcome the agitated mind, always distracted, seeking out thoughts of other people and places. Memories always flood the mind, causing us to have unclear visualizations, even making us forget entirely the object of our meditation. Besides this, it’s one of the greatest disturbances to opening the chakras and gaining control over the winds. It’s like pouring water into a cloth that can’t retain it. From the Mahayana tantric yoga practice point of view sexual intercourse is the worst disturbance.

The vow to refrain from taking intoxicants includes hallucinogenic plants and drugs. This doesn’t include tea, which can stimulate the mind. Keeping the vow results in clear wisdom and senses and improves our consciousness.

If we don’t abstain from taking intoxicants, unless we have a Dharma reason, we become less and less able to remember and our wisdom dulls. In future lifetimes, we easily forget things due to this cause.

There are different kinds of intoxicants. Smoking wasn’t included in the original proscription but only because there wasn’t smoking in the Buddha’s day. The story of tobacco is that about a hundred years after Guru Shakyamuni Buddha passed away, an evil female spirit dropped her monthly period on the ground and it became a plant. As it became a plant, the spirit prayed that it would be enjoyed by all people in the future and that the smoke produced would destroy hundreds of the cities of the gods above the earth and hundreds of the cities of the nagas under the earth. She also prayed that with the smoke from this plant there would always be fighting and sicknesses, famines and hells in the world. The plant spread all over the country due to her prayer.

When Padmasambhava was invited by the king of Tibet to subdue the negative minds of the evil interferers and make them protectors of the people, he put all of them under his control except one. The rest were under his order, accepting his demand that they no longer disturb other beings, knowing that if they ever tried to cause harm, terrible things would happen due to the power of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But the one spirit who had escaped secretly told them, “Brothers, don’t worry. I shall transform the tobacco in China and other places into a cigarette.”

There are all kinds of poisons that cause a person to have hallucinations but tobacco is recognized as the worst one. This evil spirit said that it would grow all over Tibet and that most people would enjoy it, and that due to that the five negative minds would arise, causing the Tibetans to practice the ten nonvirtues. As the smoke went down to the earth, it would destroy so many cities of the nagas, stopping the rains from coming and causing so much famine and sickness. As the smoke went up into the sky, it would destroy many cities of the gods, causing inauspicious stars to appear, like showers of comets, bringing very inauspicious times of fighting and disaster.

Anyone who smokes loses their pure vitality. The inability of the channels to operate properly causes the body to become weak and the chakras to remain closed. It also causes the four hundred and twenty-four sicknesses to happen. Without purification or practicing the Dharma, smoking causes us to be born in the three lower realms. Even those meditators who try to practice the Dharma for a hundred eons can’t reach enlightenment. Also, when the body has died and passes into the intermediate state, it can’t be guided. It’s also very easy for a smoker to get sick because the other spirits can easily give interference; they find an easier place to enter. Generally, it’s very difficult for the smoker’s virtuous actions to create benefit.

This also generally refers to wine and alcohol. In Tibet they have a powder like yeast they use to make beer. This creates many problems. Maybe you have seen this with drunk Tibetans in Kathmandu.

When we take the vow to refrain from eating at an inappropriate time, which for the eight Mahayana precepts means only one meal taken before noon and fasting other than that until the following sunrise, the result is always enjoying delicious and abundant food, obtained without much effort. All forty of our teeth will be very white and our sense of taste will be excellent, bringing us great happiness even if we eat kaka.

The reason for fasting is that Guru Shakyamuni Buddha’s followers existed on one meal a day in order to better practice the Dharma. Because eating more than is necessary only develops greed, fasting in this way can help stop that and decrease the negative mind. Also, eating at night makes it difficult to meditate in the evening. Having one meal a day only enhances our Dharma practice.

When we take the eight Mahayana precepts, there are certain foods that we can’t eat, such as meat, eggs, garlic, onions and radishes, which are called black foods, because they inhibit the psychic energy channels from properly functioning. Eggs easily arouse the negative mind, disturbing the mind because it’s the seed of a chicken. If we eat a lot of radish, our bodily smell becomes worse. The element is bad and causes gas in the stomach; it also affects the power of the body.

If we are only concerned about the body, it’s OK, but for a person practicing the Dharma and following the precepts, the reason is to keep the body clean without attachment. These foods destroy the power of the body and the power of the mind, making us sleepy, unconscious, and so on. If we don’t follow any vows, we probably won’t even notice this, but when we have been keeping the vows for a while and then stop, eating black foods again, it’s very noticeable. The body feels so heavy and sluggish in comparison.

White foods include curd, fruit, vegetables, wheat, rice, milk, cheese and butter. We can eat these.

Food can be taken before twelve noon but there can only be one meal, taken for the purpose of taking care of life to practice Dharma. This precept is mainly for the purpose of not letting attachment arise and not creating negative karma through attachment.

But if we are genuinely sick, we won’t be able to practice the Dharma, so we should first recover and then take the precepts. Taking food in the evening may be more beneficial depending on our inner realization, how much control we have of our mind, such as having the achievement of bodhicitta and a fully renounced mind. But at the moment, as long as we don’t have these realizations, it’s better to take precepts, although it’s not always definite. If we follow our desire to eat, it disturbs our meditation practice and there is no discipline. And if the stomach is full, it’s difficult to digest the meditation because of the food.

The next precept is to refrain from sitting on high seats or beds. The bed should be no higher than the length of the forearm plus the hand. The bed shouldn’t be expensive, such as those made of jewels and so forth, or covered with animal skins such as tiger skins, because the skins have a bad energy due to the animal’s mind—proud, angry and so on.

Keeping this precept prevents us from acquiring an expensive bed and becoming attached to it. When we sit on a high seat, there is the tendency to feel pride if we have any negative mind at all. The benefit of keeping this precept is that in future lives we will have respect and admiration. And any bed we sleep on will be comfortable.

The final precept is to refrain from singing, dancing and wearing perfumes and jewelry. Keeping this precept makes our mind and body well subdued. Because these actions are usually done with great attachment, we are kept from creating negative actions and have more time to study the Dharma. When we are enlightened, we attain the thirty-two holy signs and eighty holy exemplifications of a Buddha’s holy body.

The result of avoiding perfumes and jewelry is that our body always naturally smells good and we attain a beautiful shape in the future. This helps the minds of other people.

We should always keep in mind that we have taken the precepts for the purpose of getting ourselves and all sentient beings out of suffering. Whenever we see people, animals and insects, we should recall that we are keeping precepts for their benefit.

In general, keeping vows with the Hinayana, such as the pratimoksha vows, is a way of subduing our mind by refraining from doing anything for temporary samsaric happiness. The vows within the Mahayana, such as the eight Mahayana precepts, are stricter and are done so that we can best benefit all sentient beings. There are also tantric vows, taken within the context of a tantric initiation. These are very subtle vows and difficult to keep. Within a tantric practice, we utilize enjoyment on the path, something impossible outside of tantra. Because of that, the tantric vows are very strict. Unless we can keep the Hinayana vows, the other two levels of vows are impossible.

These eight Mahayana precepts must be taken before dawn, when there is just a little light in the sky. We take them from one dawn until the next.

TAKING THE PRECEPTS

Avoiding samsara is your decision. Be here at five a.m. Visualize Guru Shakyamuni Buddha giving the precepts, otherwise it doesn’t make sense.

Keeping the precepts for a day helps our mind become that much more holy. Purity comes from a cause, from subduing the mind. Just as we must thoroughly clean our filthy body if we have fallen into a quagmire, we must thoroughly clean our mind because it is drowning in the quagmire of negativity. The real cleanliness, from a Dharma point of view, is the pure mind. The best way of being clean is to clean the mind first and then clean the body.

For beginningless lifetimes, we have been constantly cleaning the body but not the mind. If we consider this, we will probably get quite bored with having a physical body. What good has it done us without also cleaning the mind? Since beginningless time, we have taken one body after another. Just as somebody eating the same food every day will probably get fed up with it, it’s time we got fed up with continuing this never-changing cycle of birth and death. But unless we can subdue the mind, we will forever be trapped in samsara, forever creating negative karma and experiencing suffering. We have this body. We have washed it countless times in this life and have washed all our other bodies in previous lives. As long as we fail to clean the mind, cleaning the body will have no end. For endless future lives, so many impure things will keep coming from this body because it is a samsaric body, under the control of karma and delusions.

Actually, our life consists of two contradictory things. We regularly clean the outside, the body, while we constantly make the inside, the mind, dirty. It’s a mistake doing those two things to our mind and body. Due to this, the action of cleaning the outside hasn’t yet finished. The wise person’s way of cleaning is to clean the mind, which is the main creator. By cleaning the mind, the body is cleaned. This stops the continuous arising of dirt and so stops the continual action of washing. We no longer have to keep busy at this activity and no longer incur the expense of washing the body. Furthermore, it stops old age, sickness, pain and many other problems that arise due to the physical body.

At present, from birth to death all our actions are only to take care of the body. By cleaning the mind, we clean all the external impurities that appear to our view. Those impurities are not one with the body; they are separate. That’s how the great yogis have the power to enjoy filthy things, to taste and enjoy kaka in complete safety, in the nature of infinite transcendental happiness, which only increases their realizations and brings them closer to enlightenment. That is the power of their realizations. First, they cleaned their mind so that with pure view all things appeared as pure, bringing them transcendental bliss. The same thing is definitely possible for us. If we can clean our mind, all objects would appear pure, transcendental. The term “yogi” means one who can taste everything in a pure way.

The purpose of taking and keeping the precepts is to totally clean the mind and the suffering body, to clean even the objects of the senses and stop the suffering that may arise between subject and object. This is the way we bring about enlightenment. This is how the Buddha can enjoy all offerings at the same level, no matter what it is: delicious food or dirty food. Both are enjoyed by the Buddha in the same way, in the nature of transcendental happiness. This non-dualistic feeling can only arise from the power of first cleaning the mind, and the best way to do this is through subduing the mind, which comes through taking precepts.

Some people think that reading books and gaining some intellectual knowledge is all that’s needed, but it’s not that easy. Without cleaning the mind, while the mind remains dirty, impure, there will only be suffering. Trying to enjoy the senses with an unsubdued mind still covered with dirt is a mistake; it’s a very foolish action. Unless we follow a mental discipline that cleanses the mind, we can never enjoy it in that way. That’s like standing in a market and expecting food to be given to us.

Following the precepts is the best ornament. The Buddha doesn’t need material ornaments, which only create problems. The Buddha has the greatest beauty but is completely free of possessions, and yet we depend on so many materialistic ornaments. The power of the Buddha’s beauty comes from following the precepts. Our lack of power comes from attachment to materialistic ornaments, which cause so much worry. We are terrified that others will steal them or miserable that we still don’t have enough. Precious ornaments can endanger our life—we can even be killed for them—but the precepts can never cause risk to life.

The vows are the best water, where we can keep cool and out of suffering. They are the best weapon for protection because they don’t even cause one tiny danger to us or to others. Material weapons, guns, and so forth cause so much danger to ourselves and to others. The best protection is living in the vows because it protects us from all samsaric suffering and from other living beings, too.

The person whose mind is living in this ordination is the richest person in the most absolute way. The person with numberless jewels not living in ordination is externally rich and internally poor, so there is always confusion and suffering in the mind. They are like this because their riches can never continue. They might be externally rich but from a Dharma point of view they are not recognized as rich. The really rich person has inner riches that continue. The Buddha, who is internally rich, is the richest person.

As we have taken the precepts, when we see other people and animals, we should continuously remember how most sentient beings are suffering terribly. It’s important to remember that we are keeping the precepts for each of them. We are working to follow the discipline not only for ourselves but also for numberless other sentient beings. We can always feel so pleased and at peace because we are working for all sentient beings to attain enlightenment and to release them and ourselves from suffering. This is the most worthwhile job.

In A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life Shantideva says,

[1:21–22] If even the thought to relieve
Living creatures of merely a headache
Is a beneficial intention
Endowed with infinite goodness,

Then what need is there to mention
The wish to dispel their inconceivable misery,
Wishing every single one of them
To realize boundless good qualities?

Guru Shakyamuni Buddha said, “Dying is easier than breaking precepts.” Which is more dangerous, dying or breaking our precepts? Dying doesn’t always cause us to be reborn in the worst suffering of the hell realm and experience the suffering for eons, but breaking our precepts can often cause much suffering in the hell realm. Therefore, keeping our precepts is more important than our life.

We should take care of the precepts as we do our own life, but that requires great determination, which can only come through a thorough understanding of karma. Only having a little understanding can only bring a tiny belief in the efficacy of the Dharma. If we break the precepts, we must know that even the enjoyment of this life will not occur, nor will we succeed in our worldly life. We will experience confusion with ourselves and others, as well as much sickness and troubles. It also always results in rebirth in the three lower realms, especially the hell realm.

Since we make the vow to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha, to break it is like telling a lie to Guru Shakyamuni Buddha and the infinite buddhas and bodhisattvas we visualized at the time of taking the precepts. Therefore, we have to beware of breaking our precepts, as fearful of breaking them as touching a fire.

An example of the result of breaking precepts is the king of the nagas who went to the teachings of the Buddha in another form. He was born a naga because he didn’t correctly follow the teachings of the Buddha. When Guru Shakyamuni Buddha was teaching, the naga came transformed, disguised as a very rich person having much material power, with many jewels and possessions. Guru Shakyamuni Buddha immediately recognized him, saying, “You criticized the teachings of the past buddha called the Buddha of Infinite Light, the protector of life. Would you criticize my teachings again? Take your natural form and listen to the Dharma.” So, the next day the naga came in the form of his own body, a snake, with a tree one pak tse² in length growing from his head. When the wind blew the tree moved, shaking the roots growing in his brain, causing so much suffering. His neck was in front of Guru Shakyamuni Buddha but his tail was down in the village a long way away. He was a very long snake.

The followers who were all taking the teachings were afraid of the snake and began to try to escape, but Guru Shakyamuni Buddha said, “Don’t be afraid, the one who was here yesterday in the form of a rich man is this snake.” Then he explained to them how this had happened. The naga had been a fully ordained monk in the time of the previous Buddha’s teaching. One day he was going around this tree called Eladama when he was bumped by the branch of the tree. He suddenly became very angry and broke off the branch. Since the tree belonged to the Sangha he had broken this precept, and this karma caused him to be born as a naga in the form of a snake. The tree he got angry with then grew from his head, causing him much suffering. This was his own karma as a result of getting angry and breaking the precepts. There are so many stories told by Guru Shakyamuni Buddha that explain karmas and their results. Often you can see many types of animals, strange shapes and so forth. This is all due to karma.

THE BENEFITS OF KEEPING THE PRECEPTS

Even if we can’t do a high spiritual practice or attain high realizations during our life, we can easily keep the eight Mahayana precepts for a day. They are so few compared to the thirty-six or two hundred and fifty-three vows of a monk. If we keep them purely either continuously or alternately, it’s so helpful in protecting us from suffering at the time of death or from rebirth in the three lower realms. This is due to the power of the precepts.

Just as earth is the foundation for the many people, other beings, houses, trees and so on that are situated on it, so the precepts are fundamental to all wisdom and happiness, the foundation of the practice. The precepts have the power to close the door of rebirth in the three lower realms and can bring an upper rebirth for those born in samsara. They can cause us to meet the virtuous friend again in our future life so we can receive teachings and attain realizations. Keeping the precepts creates many more benefits than creating charity and also more than making the usual offerings. Following the precepts is the best offering to the enlightened beings. Also, when we take precepts, we will be reborn as a follower of Maitreya, the future Buddha. When this eon has ended, he will appear and establish the Dharma in the next eon. He will do the same twelve deeds as Guru Shakyamuni Buddha: descend from Tushita, be born as a prince, marry, renounce his life, attain enlightenment at Bodhgaya and teach and so on.

How does taking precepts close the doors to rebirth in the three lower realms and bring rebirth in the upper three? In a previous time in the world there was a buddha called Kum Rinpoche Gingwa who traveled widely in Dharma circles and had many people as his followers. As a result of following these eight precepts, they had many upper realm rebirths—some were reborn gods, some became lower arhats, some bodhisattvas and some received enlightenment.

Eons ago, another buddha, Sangye Sheshi, also led so many other sentient beings in the eight precepts and they also achieved the same goals—the lowest ones were born in the three upper realms. After some time, when the teachings were close to degeneration, there was a Dharma king who promoted the benefits of keeping the precepts but there was no actual prayer. He invited many Sangha and brahmins and asked them to try and find the text that contained that subject recorded by Buddha. He told them if they could not find it, he would punish them. They were afraid but could not find or remember the text. However, there was an old lady who recalled that when she was a young girl, her father, who used to take the eight precepts, had put the text in a crack in an old pillar in their house. They searched the house and found it, read the text, read the benefits, and brought and offered it to the king. He was very pleased and gave them all, including the old lady, many gifts. Then he made a law that the whole population should follow the precepts on certain days of the month, the full moon day, the eighth and the fifteenth days. Due to the power of all those people keeping the precepts, even the gods were pleased because more people would go to their realm with better rebirths. There were also benefits in that country. Rain came at the right season, fighting and epidemics ceased, crops grew well and there were no famines. Those people also had the door to the three lower realms closed.

Keeping precepts now is different than in ancient times. Those times were fortunate but the times now are degenerate. We are experiencing the degeneration of living beings’ fortunes (the positive mind degenerating), of positive actions, of the teachings—there are many degenerations. In such poor times as these, with so many problems, with people unhappy, with so much fighting, so much famine, with fewer and fewer people creating positive karma, fewer people having realizations, in these times, keeping the precepts now has so many benefits, more than before, even for a day. Then, it was easier to follow precepts but now it’s getting more and more difficult.

How does keeping precepts create more benefits than making offerings to the Buddha? The benefit of keeping precepts at these times is greater than that which arises from making offerings to the number of enlightened beings equal to the grains of sand in the River Ganges. Each of these precepts also brings the result of the holy signs of his body and his great knowledge.

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Notes

¹ Taken from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, pp. 490–91. [Return to text]

² This is estimated as the distance the sound of a conch reaches. [Return to text]