No One May Publicize the Unwholesome Aspects of a Monk's Bodily, Verbal, and Mental Actions

Regarding the lifestyle and practice style of monastics, all laypeople and worldly persons should not, and have no right to, slander, criticize, reproach, or revile them. However, when facing a monastic who proclaims erroneous dharma meanings—teaching content that contradicts the original intent of the Buddhist sūtras and the path to liberation, presenting what is not Dharma as Dharma—what should be done in such a situation?

Dharma meanings concern the matter of sentient beings' birth and death and saṃsāra across lifetime after lifetime; this is a matter of great importance, and errors should be corrected. Apart from this, no worldly conduct of any monastic or Saṅgha community should be criticized or publicized—especially malicious publicity, publicity driven by ulterior motives, by selfish personal agendas, by the desire to achieve personal goals, or by the intent to sow discord—all aimed at destroying the image of monastics. This karmic offense is very heavy; it may even be beyond repentance, and there will also be flowering retribution (puṣpa-phala/dṛṣṭa-dharma-vedanīya-karma) in this life. The flowering retribution in this life is much lighter than the retributive result in future lives; where there is flowering retribution there must be future retributive results, and the two combined constitute a very heavy retribution.

Even monastics themselves should not publicize or deliberately and openly criticize the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of other monastics, causing laypeople to know of it and develop ridicule and disparagement, thereby creating evil karma and falling into the three evil destinies to undergo retribution as a result of such karmic actions. Any sentient being who has generated the great Mahāyāna bodhi mind should be respected and revered; those of great merit and those of virtue should all be respected. If one also gives rise to thoughts and actions of slander toward them, the offense is also very great, causing one's own merit to be rapidly exhausted, to the point that all kinds of adverse and unfavorable conditions arise. In matters that damage one's own merit, one must exercise patience and restraint and not create such karma.

Slandering the Three Jewels, slandering people of virtue, and committing all other evil deeds is like spitting at the sky—the spit ends up falling back on one's own face; it is like lifting a rock only to have it ultimately drop on one's own feet. Do not contend with others, do not contend with cause and effect, and do not contend with the tathāgatagarbha. Human calculations cannot outmatch heaven's calculations; one cannot outcalculate the law of cause and effect of the tathāgatagarbha. Conversely, all the wholesome karma and meritorious karma that a person creates also returns to that person—oneself receives the benefit. Wholesome karma is created for oneself, and oneself receives the wholesome retribution. All retribution falls upon oneself; it does not land anywhere else.