Keeping the Five Precepts Is Learning to Be a Person

In fact, the five precepts only involve body and speech, not mind. Regardless of what the mind is like, as long as body and speech do not transgress, it does not count as breaking the precepts. Therefore, the five precepts do not speak of restraining the mind, only of restraining body and speech; they belong to the Hīnayāna precepts. By watching over the body and guarding the mouth, if one keeps them well, one's cultivation as a person will also be good; in the next life one can continue to be a human being, and one can also eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi) and attain realization of the fruit. But if one wishes to cultivate the Mahāyāna dharma and attain enlightenment, one must receive the bodhisattva precepts and uphold the bodhisattva precepts. If one keeps the five precepts well, one has virtue and personal moral cultivation; if one cannot uphold the five precepts, one's character is incomplete, one's cultivation is not good enough, and one's human virtue is not fulfilled. If even an ordinary person's moral cultivation is not fulfilled, then it is impossible to transcend ordinary people, impossible to eradicate the view of self and become a sage.

If one dares not even receive the five precepts, and after receiving them cannot keep them well, then how can one uphold the several hundred precepts of a monastic? So many lay Buddhists always slander monastics, saying how bad they are, but what about themselves? How great is the gap between them and the monastics' mental conduct of renouncing and turning away from worldly life, and their mental capacity to accept the restraint of several hundred precepts? The gap is too great to describe in detail. The five precepts consist of only five items; they seem simple and easy, but in fact they are neither simple nor easy. Those who can fully keep the five precepts are extremely few. The precept against stealing and the precept against false speech are hard to keep; the vast majority of people do not clearly understand their meaning and scope, and quite a few people violate them.

Keeping the five precepts is simply being a good human being. If one cannot even be a proper human being, what is there to say about realization of any fruit? The next life will be in the three evil destinies. Many people, without even receiving the five precepts, hint that they have attained realization of the fruit and enlightenment. If one cannot even keep the body and speech precepts of the Hīnayāna five precepts, how can one keep the mind precepts of the Mahāyāna bodhisattva precepts? Guarding the mind is the most difficult of all; it is very hard to avoid creating unwholesome karma with every arising thought. Then the bodhisattva precepts in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra are even harder to keep. If one has not eradicated the fundamental afflictions, one should not even think about keeping these Yogācāra bodhisattva precepts; they can only be received and upheld by bhūmi bodhisattvas who have eradicated afflictions. Bodhisattvas only concern themselves with whether their arising thoughts are wholesome, compassionate, and wise, not with the superficial behavior of body and speech. As long as it can benefit sentient beings, what should be done must be done; otherwise one violates the bodhisattva precepts.

As for whether sentient beings can understand this—of course sentient beings at their level of wisdom cannot understand it—so one should try not to let sentient beings know, because the bodhisattva has already grown into an adult, while sentient beings are still little children with shallow wisdom and no experience; therefore, sometimes matters of adults cannot be let known to children. Even pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas (pūrvabhūmika bodhisattva) cannot manage such precepts, let alone ordinary sentient beings. Yet quite a few people are studying these precepts and receiving them—no one knows where such a bodhisattva precept substance can be obtained. Ignorant people just act recklessly.

Body and speech are the actions of the six consciousnesses; mind is the mental conduct of the manas. If one can control the manas, body and speech will inevitably not transgress. Conversely, even if the manas's thoughts are not upright, if the mind consciousness forcibly suppresses them and pretends purity, body and speech can still refrain from transgression; if body and speech do not transgress, the five precepts are not violated. Controlling and subduing the manas is extremely difficult; successfully cultivating and conditioning the manas, eradicating afflictions so that it is automatically and spontaneously pure without needing restraint—that is even more difficult.

If afflictions are not eradicated, mental karma will inevitably be violated. Therefore, eradicating afflictions necessarily means eradicating the afflictions of the manas; only then can one be automatically and spontaneously pure, without the mind consciousness forcibly suppressing them. If only the afflictions of the mind consciousness are eradicated, it can only be counted as suppressing afflictions, not eradicating them. When the mind consciousness is careless and negligent, the manas will suddenly manifest afflictions, and the river will burst its banks and flood.