What is the relationship among bodily karma, verbal karma, and mental karma?

Which kind of karma is easy to guard against, and which kind is the hardest to guard against? Which kind of karma is coarse and easy to sever, and which kind is subtle and hard to sever? Which kind of karma should be severed first?

Of the three kinds of karma—bodily, verbal, and mental—all are governed and directed by the manas. Bodily karma is the actions and deeds of the six consciousnesses; verbal karma is the actions and deeds of the six consciousnesses; mental karma is divided into the mental actions and mental factors (caittas) of the mind consciousness and the mental actions and mental factors of the manas.

Bodily and verbal actions are governed by the mind; without the mind, bodily and verbal karma cannot be created. Bodily and verbal karma are created by the six consciousnesses, and the six consciousnesses are directed by the manas. However, when the mind consciousness understands the principles, it can suppress the manas and forcibly prevent the creation of bodily and verbal karma. Therefore, bodily karma is the easiest to sever, verbal karma comes next; what is hard to sever is the mental actions of the mind consciousness, and what is hardest to sever is the mental actions of the manas.

The manas is extremely difficult to subdue and tame; therefore, the mental karma of the manas certainly involves unceasing greed, anger, and delusion. It is only that the mind consciousness, understanding the principles and knowing cause and effect, will subdue and suppress the body and speech so as not to create evil karma. If the manas has heavy afflictions, even the body and speech cannot be suppressed, and evil karma will certainly be created.

Therefore, it is relatively easy for the body not to commit killing, stealing, or sexual misconduct; it is also somewhat easier for the mouth not to commit divisive speech, false speech, frivolous speech, or harsh speech; the hardest is the manas—thoughts of greed, anger, and delusion cannot be tamed or suppressed, and are even harder to eradicate.

Some people, seeing that keeping precepts with the body is rather difficult and keeping precepts with the mouth is also rather difficult, then find an excuse, saying that it is enough for them to guard their mental karma, that as long as the mind is pure and mental karma is not violated, then no matter what the body and mouth do, it does not count as breaking the precepts. This is an inverted way of thinking and acting. If one cannot even control the actions of the body, one certainly cannot control the afflicted thoughts of the manas; if one cannot even stop the creation of verbal karma, one certainly cannot stop the afflicted thoughts of the manas.

If the afflicted thoughts of the manas can be stopped, that is something only noble ones of the third fruit (anāgāmin) and above can accomplish. How could an ordinary being directly guard the mental karma of the manas, making the manas pure and free from breaking the precepts?

The five precepts, the eight precepts of the fasting day (aṣṭāṅga-upavāsa), and the monastic precepts of bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs of the Small Vehicle (Hīnayāna), generally speaking, mainly take guarding against evil bodily and verbal karma as their focus; as long as the body and mouth do not violate them, wrong thoughts and wrong imaginings in the mind do not count as breaking the precepts. The precepts of the Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna), such as the Brahmajāla Bodhisattva Precepts, mainly regulate the mind-ground and cultivate the mind-ground, and also regulate the body and speech along the way. The bodhisattva precepts in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra are the mind-ground precepts that should be observed by bhūmi bodhisattvas who have already eradicated afflictions; everything takes the benefit of sentient beings as foremost and most important. As long as sentient beings can be benefited, the body and speech may be inconsistent with Small Vehicle precept conduct, as long as they are consistent with the pure mind-ground of the manas, and as long as the manas does not violate the Small Vehicle precepts. In this way, mental actions wholly for the sake of sentient beings are the mental actions of a Great Vehicle bodhisattva, conforming to the standards of the Great Vehicle bodhisattva precepts. If ordinary beings and bodhisattvas at the stage of faith/virtue (śaikṣa-pṛthagjana and bhadra-stage) whose greed, anger, and delusion afflictions have not been eradicated, they cannot receive and observe the bodhisattva precepts in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra, because they have selfish motives and afflictions.