No One Who Studies the Buddha-Dharma Is Committing Theft of the Dharma

So-called stealing means taking what has not been given. In the Buddha's Dharma, apart from the precepts—which one may not read or study unless one has received them—all the Dharma spoken by the Buddha was spoken for sentient beings; it was all taught to sentient beings, all made openly available to sentient beings. For sentient beings to study the Buddha's Dharma, therefore, there is no such thing as taking what has not been given. The Buddha taught the Dharma precisely so that sentient beings could learn it, unconditionally and without charging any fee. The Buddha's mind is selfless and without ego, wholly devoted to liberating sentient beings from the suffering and distress of birth and death; so there is fundamentally no such thing as taking what has not been given.

Even adherents of non-Buddhist paths may freely read and study the Buddha's Dharma. Although such people may be looking for loopholes in order to slander it, reading the Buddhist sutras to find faults does not constitute stealing the Dharma. The key point is that the Buddha's mind is vast, devoted entirely to sentient beings and not to personal gain. If the Buddha did not allow sentient beings to study the Dharma freely, and required certain prerequisites before learning, then learning without meeting those conditions would be stealing the Dharma. But Buddhism has no such rule; it always allows sentient beings to study and practice openly and honorably.

As for the precepts, if one has not received the corresponding precepts, one is not permitted to study them. First, it is feared that if sentient beings knew the contents, they would not dare to receive the precepts; second, if one studies them without having received the precepts, one will use the precepts to measure and judge those who have received them, and this incurs fault. Those who have received the precepts stand above those who have not; Buddhism does not permit the lower to criticize the higher—even with factual grounds this is not allowed, and there is fault in doing so. In particular, the monastic precepts must absolutely never be looked at by laypeople, still less may laypeople use the precepts to talk about how monastics are this or that. Even if a monastic has violated the precepts, laypeople are not permitted to criticize them; otherwise there is fault, or even offense, with its karmic causes and sinful karma. Criticizing a monastic even with factual grounds counts as slandering the Saṅgha—slander with basis; if one criticizes and publicizes a monastic's faults without factual grounds, it is slander without basis, and the offense is greater and the karmic consequences heavier.

There is one special case of stealing the Dharma: taking the Buddha's Dharma intact with a thieving mind and transplanting it into a non-Buddhist path, turning it into that path's own teaching. When the ownership of the Buddha's Dharma is changed, that constitutes stealing the Dharma. Taking someone else's belongings back to one's own home and claiming them as one's own—when the owner of the things is changed—constitutes theft. If the Buddha's Dharma is not renamed as a non-Buddhist teaching, it does not constitute theft. But if someone is sent by a non-Buddhist path specifically to steal the Dharma, turning the Buddha's Dharma into a non-Buddhist teaching to serve that path, then there is the offense of stealing the Dharma.