The Bodhisattva vows include extensive advice on how we should conduct our daily lives by transforming all our actions into the Bodhisattvas way of life.  By putting them into practice we shall gradually complete the Bodhisattva’s training and eventually attain the supreme bliss of Buddhahood.

Just as the refuge vows primarily function to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our Buddhist practice between now and when we attain enlightenment, and the pratimoksha vows primarily function to maintain the uninterrupted continuum of our path to liberation, so too our practice of the Bodhisattva vows creates the karma to enable us to maintain an uninterrupted continuum of our Mahayana path between now and our eventual enlightenment.  In other words, we create the causes to again and again refind a pure Mahayana path without interruption until we attain the final goal.  If we have wisdom, we realize the biggest thing we should fear it not non-virtue and delusion (though those are terribly scary), but our biggest fear should be the fear of losing the path.  If we keep refinding the path in life after life, we can gradually purify all our negativities.  But if we don’t refind the path, we will be lost for what could be incalculably long periods of time where our suffering will know no bounds.  If we genuinely fear this, we will realize just how precious our vows are, and how precious our Bodhisattva vows are in particular. 

If we incur a root downfall we actually break our Bodhisattva vows.  To incur a root downfall (except for the 9^th and 18^th) four binding factors must be present:

1. Not regarding the action as wrong
2. Not wishing to abstain from the action in the future
3. Rejoicing in the action
4. Having no sense of shame or consideration for others.

Praising ourself and scorning others. 

This downfall is complete only if someone hears and understands our words.  We incur this if we praise ourself with the motivation of deceiving others so that we might receive gifts or to enhance our reputation.  It also is incurred if we criticize others with the wish to hurt them.

This is something many of us do all the time.  In modern times, it is actually quite rare for us to physically harm others – there are too many social conventions against such behavior.  I do wonder, though, whether we have compensated for this with an increase in the amount of hurtful speech we engage in.  If our minds are just as critical and angry as they have always been (and a case can be made why in degenerate times it is actually worse), and we can conventionally no longer express this mind physically, it only stands to reason that there has been a corresponding increase in the amount of our hurtful speech.

And we see this everywhere we go.  A large number of the shows on TV these days are “reality TV shows.”  What makes for good reality TV is outrageously hurtful speech among the contestants.  Virtually all the news programming we see on TV or hear on the radio these days is one constant stream of critical and scornful speech.  In political discourse now, there is almost no discussion of the merits of the different policy options, everything is about personal attacks on the other person.  In many of our social circumstances, the price of entry into a given social group is agreeing with the dominant negative view of that group towards others.  We say hurtful things to show these people we are with them, and when we do, they then accept us into their group.  We so want to belong to other groups, that we are ready to commit all sorts of hurtful things just to feel like we belong.  This is very foolish.  It is better to be a group of one but think and say nothing bad about anybody than to belong to a group where what binds them is their mutual hatred or cynicism of another. 

Why is all this negativity so popular?  Because it reflects how our mind naturally works.  Psychologists have estimated that a negative opinion of someone or something will spread 10 times faster than a positive opinion.  In our own speech, we are constantly putting other people down in one way or another, at work, at home and in our social life.  When others around us say critical things of others and we agree, or even just nod our head, we are contributing to this storm of negativity.  When we laugh at jokes made at other people’s expense or agree with the rhetorical broadsides lodged against those around us, karmically it is the same as us using such hurtful speech ourselves.  Venerable Tharchin explains that just as rejoicing creates the causes to acquire the good qualities we rejoice in, so too being critical, scornful or judgmental of others creates the causes to acquire the bad qualities we criticize!  Seen in this way, our negative attitude is sowing the seeds for us to, quite frankly, be a horrible person.  We see a world filled with horrible people now, if we don’t change our ways, in the future we will be the sum of all horrible-ness we see.

We likewise are constantly praising ourselves.  If we check, we will see that virtually every time we put somebody else down or judge somebody else even in the slightest way, we are at the same time – even if only indirectly – affirming that we are not like what we are criticizing.  We are implying by our speech that we are somehow better than the person we are criticizing.  So even if we are not directly making boastful statements about ourselves, every time we put others down, we are indirectly doing so.  At work or at home, we quite often try to take credit for our good deeds, and even sometimes the good deeds of others.  When recounting what we do, we quite often exaggerate how hard everything was to create the impression that we have done such amazing work.  We easily feel put aside when others don’t appreciate the value of our contributions.  On Facebook, we check and see how many ‘likes’ our comments get and we compare it to others.  Even when we put ourselves down, we often exaggerate what we say in a sub-conscious effort to get the other person to say, “no, no, you are not that bad.”  If I am honest, almost everything I say is directly or indirectly saying how or why I am so much better than everyone else.  And we all do this.  How can I say this?  Because we all suffer from a terrible sense of our own self-importance.  If this is what we think, then our speech is going to reflect this one way or the other. 

Praising ourself doesn’t in any way increase our good qualities.  Most other people are not stupid and they are not fooled by our boasts, in fact they often think how pompous we are.  When we see people who think too highly of themselves and of their accomplishments, we may be polite to their face, but inside we are being quite critical and generating the wish to knock the other person down a peg or two.  A very common thing in Dharma circles is for somebody to mention somebody else in a positive light, and we will say, “yeah, that person is great,” but inside we are thinking “yeah, but…” and then our mind immediately races to something negative about the other person.  We almost never have a genuine good thought about another person.  I would say that karmically speaking praising ourself actually depletes our merit and good qualities. 

So what should we do?  In my own speech, I try live by three rules:  First, never say anything bad about anyone ever.  I don’t always succeed at this, but I do try.  My Grandmother, who lived to be 105 years old, basically never says anything bad about anybody.  The closest I have heard her say anything bad about anybody was during the first Iraq war, and she said, “Saddam Hussein, ehhhh, …”  And then she cut herself off.  Second, I try to never make any comparisons – ever.  When I make any comparisons between people, invariably I am putting somebody down.  When I make comparisons between myself and others, I invariably develop pride, competitiveness, or jealousy.  But if I never compare, then these minds don’t have as much occasion to arise.  Third, I try to never miss a chance to praise somebody for some quality I see in them.  Of course we have to be skillful with this.  Your compliments should be genuine and well grounded.  If somebody doesn’t actually have a good quality and you praise it, they usually know you are not being sincere and it just makes things worse.  Likewise, you can’t do this too much where it becomes obnoxious or uncomfortable for the other person.  But even though you might not be able to say all the compliments you would like to, mentally you can still think them. 

The bottom line is simple:  if criticizing others creates the causes for us to acquire the faults we criticize and praising others creates the causes for us to acquire the qualities we praise, it is pretty clear what we need to do.

Not to pretend to have good qualities or hide our faults without a special, pure intention.

There was a time within the tradition when it was quite common for people to pretend to be better than they actually were, especially if they were teachers or key officers in a center.  Many many people did this for what seemed like a good reason.  They allowed others to refer to them as “Buddhas,” and “having miracle powers,” etc., because they thought doing so helped the student develop faith, and with faith they would then gain more realizations.  So they allowed such views to develop among the students.  The results of this were predictably disastrous.

For the students, it tied them in all sorts of really strange knots where the teacher would be making some fairly obvious mistakes, but the student would have to try say it was actually correct because they needed to “maintain pure view.”  This caused students to repress their criticisms of their teacher, which far from increasing their faith served as a cancer gradually destroying any and all faith.  For the teachers, this was likewise terrible because they had to keep up this charade of being some holy being so they too had to repress their delusions (which just made them worse) and it deprived them of having any refuge of being able to go to their sangha friends when they had problems.  There were quite a few very high profile teachers who self-destructed due to this dynamic.  For those who were neither teachers nor regular students, this all seemed very strange and cult-like.  They were not fooled by the teacher’s pretentions so they had no faith, and seeing the slavish and strange sychophantry of the students made people think they had found some cult. 

Probably a good 20 years ago, Geshe-la tried to put an end to this bizarre dynamic.  He explained that our local teachers should be viewed as Sangha jewels, not Buddha jewels.  This was a monumental change, because up until that time it was standard practice to try view our local teachers as Buddha jewels.  He explained that when our teachers appear to make mistakes, we should go speak with them explaining our view with an open mind, and then through a healthy discussion either the teacher would realize their mistake or the student would develop a better understanding by seeing the teacher’s actions through a different lens.  There is still within the NKT some residual of this old way of doing things, but it is quickly fading away.  Now we are all practitioners doing our best and having a good laugh at ourselves and our own delusions.

This wrong view emerged from a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to maintain pure view.  Pure view does not mean we view everything as perfect on the side of the object itself, rather it means we learn how to view everything – the good, the bad and the ugly – in a perfect way.  Good, bad, and ugly are still good, bad and ugly, but no matter what is appearing it can be perfectly beneficial for our practice.  Viewing everything, even mistakes, as teachings enables us to receive perfect benefit from whatever appears.  This is viewing things in a perfect way.  So we can still call a spade a spade (say what is wrong is in fact wrong), but identifying it as wrong is not a problem for us because it teaches us something valuable.  If we view everything in a perfect way, then for us everything will be perfect, not because what is happening is perfect on the side of the object but because we know how to receive perfect benefit from whatever arises.  Pure view exists only on the side of the mind (or at least it starts there). 

Not to criticize those who have entered the Mahayana

Somebody who has entered the Mahayana is somebody who has committed themselves to becoming a Buddha for the sake of all living beings.  They are like a spiritual prince or princess destined to one day take the throne.  Just as we naturally treat with respect all those who we know will go on to become incredibly powerful, even if they are still a child now, how much more should we show respect to those who will go on to become the highest beings of all, fully enlightened Buddhas.  Ultimately, of course, we don’t know who has or who has not entered the Mahayana, so just to be safe we should assume everybody has and treat them all accordingly!

Criticism (of the negative sort) is a form of anger.  Anger is a wish to harm.  Harming an ordinary being is bad, but harming a Bodhisattva is karmically the same as harming all living beings because if you harm somebody who is trying to help everybody it is the same as indirectly harming everybody.  It is said that one moment of anger directed towards a bodhisattva creates the causes for countless lifetimes in the lower realms.

And let’s get real here:  we are criticizing the people in our centers all the time.  It is rare indeed (indeed almost unheard of) for there to not be some sort of tension or drama in a Dharma center.  There is a tremendous amount of judgment that takes place (why are they so deluded, why don’t they ever do work for the center, etc., etc., etc.).  If we check, there is usually in a Dharma center a fair amount of talking badly behind other people’s backs.  We know enough to know not to be critical of others to their faces, but then when they are gone, we share our real feelings with some people we feel we relate to.  Sometimes we are critical of our teachers and we encourage others to share our negative view.  If we were sick, we would not intentionally go sneeze in somebody’s face, so if we are sick with delusion, why do we run to go infect others with our negative views? 

This does not mean we should never say anything and pretend that everything is fine when it is not.  We should of course go speak with people when we have differences of opinion in a constructive effort to resolve them.  We all know the difference between being critical of somebody and making an honest effort to resolve differences. 

Another common transgression of this vow is when we are critical of those in other traditions, especially those that are critical of us and our tradition.  These are often people who have also entered the Mahayana, and it is just as much a transgression to criticize them as it is to criticize somebody within our own tradition.  It can be very hard to not be critical, especially when they are shunning us or saying we have joined some crazed cult or they speak to us with hurtful or divisive words.  Just because they are acting in deluded ways and not respecting their own vows does not give us license to do the same towards them.  Indeed, if we do so all we do is prove them right.  If we want to prove them wrong, then our actions need to be different.  We respond to criticism with understanding, wisdom, and respect. 

The objection may arise, but what about the protests that the NKT has done against the Dalai Lama’s policies?  We shout, “stop lying” and we lay bear all sorts of mistakes he is making.  Isn’t that a violation of this vow?  The short answer it can be if our motivation is delusion.  But if our motivation is the compassionate wish to protect him and his followers from the negative karma of criticizing us, then instead of it being a negative action it becomes a compassionate wrathful action.  This is not easy, I agree, but it is vital we get it right.  If we do not, then we will just be laying the seeds for others to criticize us again in the future.

Not to cause others to regret their virtuous actions

This can sometimes happen when somebody is particularly nice to somebody who is normally not so nice to others.  We think, “why are you being so nice to him when he is such a jerk to everyone else?  You are just encouraging him to treat others badly.” Another common form of this is when somebody is particularly generous to somebody else, especially if the person who does the giving is himself or herself not somebody who has a lot of means.  We think, “you shouldn’t give like that, you can’t afford it.”  While it is true we need to be wise with our giving and know when to practice the giving of keeping, in general we can’t afford to NOT give.  Sometimes we also transgress this when somebody goes out of their way to do a favor for somebody else, especially if their doing of a favor for somebody else somehow created some inconvenience for ourselves.  For example, they went to go pick somebody up and that made you wait for an extra 15 minutes. 

When we make people regret their virtues is harms both them and us.  It harms them because instead of being happy about their virtues, they start to think they are a sucker for being nice to others.  When they have regret for their virtues, it destroys the merit they have accumulated and makes it far less likely they will engage in virtue again in the future.  If they don’t engage in virtue, how will they ever be happy?  If we make them regret their virtues, we are condemning them to an unhappy future.  This also harms ourselves.  We all know that when we rejoice in other’s virtue, we accumulate a fraction of the virtue we rejoice in.  Through rejoicing we can accumulate a tremendous amount of virtue even if we ourselves do almost nothing.  But in exactly the same way, when we judge people as wrong for engaging in certain virtues we destroy our own merit from our own virtues.  If we criticize them, we create the causes for others to criticize us in the future when we engage in virtue, and as a result in the future we will develop regret for our virtues and become discouraged. 

A frequent, but more subtle form of transgression of this vow is to belittle others’ virtues as not being that big of a deal.  Quite often when we hear somebody being praised for something they did, internally we become jealous and start judging the other person for all that they do wrong.  We think, “yeah, what they did was great, but…” and we go on to list their faults.  Even if we just have this discussion in our own head, we still destroy our own merit and create the causes for others to judge us as well.  All this is extremely short-sighted.

Not to cheat or deceive our Preceptors or Spiritual Guides

There is nobody more kind in our life than our Spiritual Guides.  Our parents are extremely kind to us, but they are only interested in our welfare in this life alone.  Only our spiritual guide is primarily interested in helping us in all our future lives.  Since the duration of this life is highly uncertain, whereas the duration of our future lives is infinite, it is clear which is more important.  Even if others are concerned about our future lives, they don’t necessarily know the means by which we can secure happiness in our future lives.  But our Spiritual Guide does.  He has already provided us with everything we need to attain any spiritual goal we set for ourselves.  If we wish to avoid lower rebirth, he explains to us how.  If we wish to attain liberation, he explains to us how.  If we wish to attain the pure land or to attain enlightenment, he explains to us how. 

He not only explains these things to us, but he has arranged all the necessary conditions for our practice.  Without hardly any effort on our part, we have access to Dharma centers, Dharma books, sadhanas, festivals, everything.  He has laid at our feet everything we need to be a modern day bodhisattva, and all we need to do is pick it up and use it.  What Geshe-la has done with Manjushri center, we can do with our local centers.  In many ways, it is even easier for us because we are already starting with everything, whereas he had to start with nothing.

His greatest act of kindness to us is he is there to help us when we are in the greatest of need.  Later, when we are spiritually advanced, we will be able to receive teachings directly from Buddhas.  But right now, when our minds are dark and obscured, who is able to shine a light into our hearts?  Our Spiritual Guide.  He also blesses our mind, giving us the strength and wisdom we need to travel the path, joyfully and even easily.  When you think about it, it is impossible for anybody to be kinder to us than he is. 

Likewise our Dharma teachers at our local Dharma centers are just as kind.  A case can be made for why they are even kinder because we are only able to see Geshe-la very rarely, if at all, but our local teachers are with us all the time.  But any local teacher would say in reality they are doing nothing, that it is Geshe-la who works through them, so all credit goes to the Spiritual Guide.  Even if our local teacher grants us empowerments or vows, in reality it is our Spiritual Guide who is doing it through our local teacher.  Our local teacher is like a speaker connected to the spiritual stereo system of our Spiritual guide.

Why do I explain how kind our Spiritual Guide is?  To show how and why it is so terrible to cheat or deceive them.  To cheat or deceive somebody who is cruel or out to harm us is bad, but how inconceivably worse is it to cheat or deceive our Spiritual Guide who is so kind to us? 

What does it mean to cheat or deceive them?  Generally, if we are doing it, we know when it is wrong.  Any form of stealing or lying or deception would fall under this.  Ultimately, it is incredibly stupid to do.  First of all, it is impossible for him to be deceived, even if we try, because he is omniscient and so sees right through any of our deceptions.  Our local teacher we can perhaps deceive, but our Spiritual Guide (who is our real local teacher) can never be deceived.  Second, why would we want to deceive him?  He only wants to help us and he has only compassion for our shortcomings, so there is really no need to deceive him.

I think a far more common, but more subtle, form of breaking this vow is when we have pretentious pride with our Spiritual Guide.  I for one have a long history of being attached to what others think of me, especially what my spiritual teachers think of me.  For many many years (and even now, if I am honest), I try get my teachers to think I am better than I really am.  I do this because I think they will like me more if they think I am this great practitioner.  But actually, if I am so great, what need do they have to teach me?  So even if I am just trying to get them to give me more love, to pretend to be better than we really are is just counter-productive.  It is also, again, incredibly stupid to do.  Just as a doctor can only treat us effectively if we describe for them the symptoms we are actually suffering from, so too our teachers can only effectively help us if we describe for them honestly what is happening in our mind – humbly and honestly.

Another common form of deception that can take place is to exaggerate how great we supposedly think our local teacher is.  It can happen quite often that our local teachers are making all sorts of mistakes.  But because we think we are supposed to be maintaining pure view and we think it is disrespectful to talk to them about the mistakes they are making, we tell them how great they are when in reality we don’t think that at all.  This doesn’t help them.  It may coddle their ego, but how does it help them advance spiritually?  And how does it help us because we know it is not what we think.  Geshe-la says when we see our teachers making mistakes we need to approach them constructively explaining our perspective on their actions and asking them for clarification so we can better understand.  If they are wrong, they should then say, “thank you, you are right, I will try change this about me,” and if we are wrong, they should without defensiveness explain to us how our view is wrong at which point we learn something. 

Finally, in the context of this series of blog posts, it is a form of deception to pretend that we are taking our vows with the intention of practicing them, but in reality we do nothing about them and never really had any intention of doing better.  The first time we took our bodhisattva or refuge or Pratimoksha vows, for most of us it was a big deal, something we considered, something we discussed with our Sangha friends to make sure we were approaching it right.  But since then?  If others are anything like me, I have attended festival after festival, taking the vows again and again, and never really giving it a second thought.  In general, it is advisable before every festival or time when we are going to receive new vows that we make a point of examining the vows, seeing the different areas where we can do a little better next time, and then with a very specific motivation to do better, we retake the vows.  In this way, every month, every year our practice of the vows and commitments becomes a little bit more qualified.