The Scope of the Precept Against Stealing Among the Five Precepts

Stealing means taking what is not given—taking what is not one's own and appropriating it as one's own. Whenever one obtains something that does not belong to oneself, it counts as stealing. What is the scope of this?

For example, in a group, person A is the best, yet person B claims to be the best. B takes the reputation of being the best for himself, thereby appropriating A's reputation of being the best. Does B's conduct constitute stealing A's reputation?

Suppose a certain piece of work was clearly done by A, but B claims he did it himself. Has B stolen A's work achievement? Suppose in a group A holds a certain authority, but B unconsciously exercises that authority. Has B stolen A's power? This kind of stealing can also be called false speech. One bodily, verbal, or mental action can touch upon two precepts, violating two precepts at the same time.

In fact, the five precepts involve only body and speech, not mind. No matter what the mind is like, as long as body and speech do not violate the precepts, there is no breach. Therefore, the five precepts do not restrain the mind; they restrain only body and speech, belonging to the Hīnayāna precepts. If one watches over the body and guards the speech well, one's cultivation as a human being will be good; in the next life one can continue to be a human being, and one can also eliminate self-view and realize the fruits. But if one wishes to attain enlightenment, one must further receive the bodhisattva precepts and keep the bodhisattva precepts.

If one keeps the five precepts well, one has virtue and moral character; if one cannot keep 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 being's moral cultivation is not fulfilled, it is impossible to eliminate self-view and become a sage, transcending the human realm.

If one cannot even keep the five precepts and dares not receive them, then how could one keep 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, after all, is the gap between them and the monastics' mental conduct of renouncing and turning away from worldly life, and their capacity to accept the restraint of several hundred precepts?

The five precepts are only five rules; they seem simple and easy, but in fact they are neither simple nor easy. Those who can fully keep the five precepts are exceedingly few. The precept against stealing and the precept against false speech are hard to keep, and the vast majority of people do not clearly understand their content and scope.

Keeping the five precepts is simply being a proper human being. If one cannot even be a proper human being, what is there to say about realizing fruits or not? In the next life, one will fall into the three lower realms. Many people, without even receiving the five precepts, hint to themselves that they have realized the fruits and attained enlightenment. If one cannot even keep the body and speech 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—keeping one's thoughts from creating unwholesome karma is very hard to achieve. The bodhisattva precepts in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra are even harder to keep. Without eliminating afflictions, do not even think about it—those precepts are received and kept by bhūmi bodhisattvas who have eliminated afflictions. They concern only the arising of thoughts, not bodily and verbal conduct: as long as it can benefit sentient beings, whatever should be done must be done; otherwise one violates the bodhisattva precepts. Such precepts cannot be kept even by pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas (pūrvabhūmika bodhisattva), let alone ordinary sentient beings. Yet quite a few people study these precepts and receive them, not knowing from where such a bodhisattva precept substance could be obtained.

Body and speech are the actions of the six consciousnesses; mind refers to the mental conduct of the manas. If one can control the manas, body and speech will inevitably not violate the precepts. Conversely, even if the manas's thoughts are not upright, if the mind consciousness forcibly suppresses them and feigns purity, body and speech can still refrain from violation; if body and speech do not violate, the five precepts are not violated. Controlling and subduing the manas is extremely difficult; successfully conditioning the manas so that afflictions are eliminated and it acts automatically and spontaneously without needing control is even more difficult.

If afflictions are not eliminated, mental karma will inevitably be violated. Therefore, eliminating afflictions necessarily means eliminating the afflictions of the manas, so that one becomes automatically and spontaneously wholesome, without needing the mind consciousness to forcibly suppress them. If one eliminates only the afflictions of the mind consciousness, it can only be counted as suppressing afflictions, not eliminating them. When the mind consciousness becomes careless and negligent, the manas will suddenly manifest afflictions, and the river will burst its banks and flood.