五戒の細則
Chapter 6: Issues Concerning the Precept Against False Speech
I. The Root Cause of Committing the Grave Offense of False Speech
The Buddha's teachings on the precept against false speech were mainly directed at grave false speech—untruthful lies about extremely significant matters. Minor false speech is comparatively less serious, and the prohibition against it is lighter. Significant matters refer to the realization of various transcendent dharmas. On this issue, one absolutely must not lie and deceive people; impersonating a sage or saint is an extremely grave offense. Even impersonating a king results in beheading and public display, with one's entire clan implicated; how much graver, then, is impersonating a sage or saint who far surpasses the worldly kings of ordinary beings—such an offense is even greater, cannot be repented of, and one will certainly fall into the evil destinies. Therefore, everyone must be extremely cautious and careful with regard to significant transcendent dharmas. Without one hundred percent certainty, without conclusive evidence, one must never casually spread claims of having realized some transcendent dharma. And regardless of who has given the confirmation, if it is untrue, one will certainly undergo severe evil retribution. May all students of Buddhism be ever so careful, and not commit the grave offense of false speech; once human life is lost, it will be very hard to encounter again.
Why do so many people like to publicly proclaim that they have attained such-and-such dharma or such-and-such fruit? What psychology is this? Upon deep investigation, it is nothing more than wanting to prove oneself excellent and superior, surpassing others—that "I" am better than others, that others are all inferior to me; or wanting to gain others' reverence, admiration, and respect, wanting others to submit to me, wanting to rise above others, and so on, thereby becoming proud, narcissistic, and arrogant. All of this arises from the four marks operating in the mind—there is self and there are others; the mark of self is complete, the mark of others is complete. Such people have not eradicated the view of self and have not attained any dharma; they are still ordinary beings replete with the view of self. Those who wish to attain the dharma of the sages must deeply investigate their own minds, dig out the "I" within their hearts, and then break through it and eliminate it, not letting that "I" come out again to confuse and disturb themselves, adding afflictions, karmic delusions, and suffering to themselves.
II. The Bizarre Phenomena of Various Grave False Speech
In the Dharma-ending age, because sentient beings have deep view of self and self-grasping and shallow good roots and merit, those who commit the grave offense of false speech are relatively numerous. These people simply do not take the precepts and cause-and-effect seriously; deceiving themselves and others to satisfy their own vanity is an everyday occurrence. Because sentient beings' own afflictions are heavy, they adopt a tolerant attitude toward others' afflictions, thereby fostering a great deal of bad practice and encouraging precept-breaking behavior.
In one certain group, grave false speech about being arhats and attaining the fourth dhyāna is very common; in a certain organization, grave false speech about attaining the first fruit and seeing the mind and seeing the nature is especially severe; in a certain group, grave false speech about being emanations of Buddhas and emanations of great bodhisattvas is especially abundant; in a certain group, grave false speech about being bodhisattvas and sages reborn into this world is also very numerous and severe—even to the point that various sage identities collide with one another, contradicting themselves. Why do these phenomena occur? It is nothing more than wanting to ride on the sages' popularity, borrow the sages' halo, thereby ensnaring sentient beings and gaining many worldly benefits from it—insatiably greedy, not hesitating to harm Buddhism and victimize sentient beings; the nature of this is especially vile.
But as for grave false speech claiming that heavenly gods have descended to the human world, in several thousand years I have heard of only one instance: it was said that the Jade Emperor of heaven led a retinue of heavenly beings to come in the middle of the night to his human-world lecture hall to pay homage to the Buddha, without teaching any dharma, without any audio recording or video, just dryly bowing to the Buddha and doing nothing else. Who knows what this Jade Emperor intended—the Good Dharma Hall of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven is so magnificent, majestic, and wondrous; why would he run to this crude lecture hall in the human world? On the first and fifteenth of each month, the beings of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven come to the human world to inspect humanity's wholesome and unwholesome conduct, and every time the Jade Emperor sends some minor heavenly beings to make the inspection; yet now, for bowing to a Buddha, he personally came down—is the Buddha image enshrined in the Good Dharma Hall not majestic and wondrous enough? Truly inconceivable.
There is also the claim that five hundred earth deities and rākṣasas rode five hundred colts of the human world galloping across their terrain—equally inconceivable. Where did the superknowledges of these earth deities go, that they should ride the clumsy horses of this earth, running slower than superknowledge would carry them—what would be the point? Such grave false speech is like fairy tales told by naive children—laughable to hear, yet in reality cause for sorrow and lamentation. These people are no different from the mentally ill; who knows how they came to such a state.
III. Because of Self, Various Afflictive Karmas of False Speech Arise
In the Dharma-ending age, among the offenses of false speech, not only are those who commit grave false speech relatively numerous, but those who commit moderate and minor false speech are also quite numerous. Why do people commit the offense of false speech? Such false speech is nothing more than displaying one's abilities to others, showing oneself to be excellent and superior to others, in order to attract others' gaze, make people envious and worshipful, and thereby obtain various worldly benefits, satisfying one's various desires. All afflictions arise because there is a self in the mind; if there were no self, whence would afflictions come, whence would grave, moderate, and minor false speech come? Therefore, from the various afflictions, one can discern the depth of the view of self and each person's degree of cultivation.
Some people, having no cultivation whatsoever and lacking the merit of eradicating the view of self, proclaim that cultivation has nothing to do with afflictions, nonsense-claiming that after realizing the fruit and eradicating the view of self, having any afflictions is normal, and that after seeing the mind and seeing the nature, having any afflictions is also normal; they even say that afflictions are a matter of phenomenal appearances and unrelated to the dharma meaning—as long as the dharma meaning is correct, the phenomenal appearances do not matter. Using such wrong views to adversely condition and teach sentient beings has extremely serious consequences, leading to no one being willing to genuinely cultivate and realize, with counterfeit goods flying everywhere. By conditioning and cultivating with correct dharma meaning, practicing in accordance with reality, one can certainly subdue and eradicate afflictions and advance toward liberation; afflictions will not persist and intensify. Only when the dharma meaning is wrong and the direction of guidance is wrong will sentient beings be unable to subdue and eradicate afflictions, and may even have their afflictions intensified.
The reduction and elimination of afflictions is the result of correct cultivation; if the result is wrong, it shows that the person has not cultivated well and that the direction of guidance in the practice is mistaken. In some organizations, the result of studying Buddhism is a general intensification of greed, hatred, and delusion—this result reveals that the direction of guidance in what was learned is wrong, running counter to the Path; not only is there no liberation, but much grasping and bondage has been added. This requires re-examining the dharma one has studied and the people one has followed; if one finds that things are heading in the wrong direction, one should quickly separate and correct course, to avoid falling into an abyss in future lives from which one cannot extricate oneself.
A certain organization has always despised the Hīnayāna and arhats, has never valued the foundational cultivation of the thirty-seven factors of the path, has never cultivated meditative concentration, does not understand contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), and even less knows how to eradicate the view of self; yet after listening to a certain class for one hour, every single one attained the first fruit and everyone eradicated the view of self—counterfeit fruits flying everywhere, fake sages walking all over the place. Afterwards they launched a great revolutionary movement, throwing Buddhism into chaos and turmoil, leaving no peace anywhere. The originators of this even offered the list of these counterfeit fruits before the Buddha, brazenly deceiving the World-Honored One—in reality deceiving the faithful. How could the World-Honored One be deceived? If such an organization continued to exist for a few more years, Buddhism would be destroyed and ruined beyond repair. Fortunately, the Buddha still presides over the Sahā world, with dharma-protecting deities providing protection, timely rescuing the situation and saving Buddhism.
No-self is the merit (gong) that comes after cultivation; no afflictions is the virtue (de) that comes after cultivation. Only with a no-self mind that is empty can one possess virtue; with afflictions there is no virtue; no virtue means deficient virtue; deficient virtue must be replenished, and replenishing virtue requires cultivating the dharma of no-self and the dharma of the empty mind. A person with merit and virtue does not create grave afflictive karma, does not create unwholesome karma, does not harm sentient beings, and does not undermine Buddhism. But having blessings does not necessarily mean having virtue; with blessings but no virtue, given the opportunity one will create grave unwholesome karma—like an asura, like Pāpīyas.
IV. From What Does the Karma of Divisive Speech Arise?
Divisive speech, in common parlance, is sowing discord—saying one thing to A and another to B, with the aim of making the two misunderstand each other so one can profit as the fisherman watching the snipe and clam fight. Some people do not even intend to gain anything from it; it is simply caused by afflictive habits. Divisive speech also includes untruthful speech; whether intentional or unintentional, it is an offense. Within the Three Jewels, as long as one creates discord in the relationships among the fourfold assembly or between master and disciple, it is karma of the Avīci hell. It also involves this: if a disciple accepted by an ordained master no longer has faith in and acceptance of the master, no longer follows him to study the dharma, and instead turns to study other erroneous dharmas that cannot lead to liberation, inferior dharmas, and worldly dharmas, then at the same time one creates the offense of misleading that disciple's dharmakāya and wisdom-life; in future lives there will be an extremely entangled relationship between the two, and one must also bear the karmic retribution of this portion of the offense.
There are also cases of creating the unwholesome karma of divisive speech out of jealousy. Most people have jealousy, or rather everyone has it; the key is whether it can be subdued so that one's jealousy does not become manifest and one does not create grave unwholesome karma. When there is self, others, and people in the mind, wanting to make oneself stand out and gain some benefit, hoping that others will envy, respect, admire, and follow oneself but failing to achieve this—only then does jealousy arise. Jealousy is a manifestation of incompetence; if one were truly capable, one would obtain all the benefits oneself—why then be jealous of others?
Everyone hopes to be first or second, hopes to stand at the highest peak, above everyone's heads. If you are truly capable, your abilities, virtue, and character should be the highest and best; even wanting to be second and condescend to be below others would be impossible—you could not hide even if you hid in the crowd; you would inevitably be revealed. If you want to occupy the first position, you must weigh where your virtue ranks; virtue must match the position for one to hold that position, otherwise there will surely be calamity. Exceeding the range and degree of one's own virtue and capability is very hard to bear, and the consequences are serious. For example, if your body can only bear a burden of fifty catties or less, yet you insist on carrying a hundred catties, even your spine will not be able to endure it.
Whenever each person wants to obtain some benefit, one must first weigh one's virtue, then weigh one's ability, then also consider one's character and disposition, and finally assess whether one can bear that position and power—do not add excessive afflictions and distress to yourself; if virtue does not match the position, better not to have that position. A desire that greatly exceeds one's own capability is called ambition; ambition too great leads to madness; madness carried too far leads to extinction—life will be cut off. A practitioner of the Path should regard everything in the world with equanimity, and as much as possible be without mind, without desire, without seeking; only then will one's character become ever higher. When one's character reaches a certain degree, one will possess the disposition of a bodhisattva, enter the bodhisattva bhūmis, and become a bodhisattva-mahāsattva. The bodhisattva bhūmis are attained with a mind free of contrivance; no one has ever attained a sage's or worthy's position through struggle, jealousy, or squeezing out others.
Within any group, being first or second is not won by fighting, not gained by struggling, not obtained by self-promotion, not attracted by advertising, not elected by canvassing votes—it is drawn forth by virtuous conduct. What is drawn forth by virtuous conduct cannot be pushed away, cannot be hidden. What is obtained by scheming, once blessings and merit are exhausted and power is spent, will decline and fall; if there is also offensive karma during that time, one will fall even into the deep valley—the loss outweighs the gain. Afflictions come from the view of self and self-grasping; when self-grasping is too heavy, one will create unwholesome karma for the sake of self. Taking the self too seriously brings no benefit at all: the heavier the self, the deeper the fall; conversely, the more selfless the mind, the lighter and more soaring one becomes. Whether one rises or falls depends entirely on one's mastery of the self. In daily encounters with conditions and circumstances, constantly reflect on the self's falsity and unreality, and introspect on one's own mental conduct; the better the reflection and observation, the better one's mastery of the self will be.
