Precepts with Marks and Precepts without Marks

Question: In the Dharma-ending age, how should we uphold the precepts? Is it that beginners in Buddhism should uphold the five precepts and the eight precepts, while long-cultivating bodhisattvas no longer need to uphold the precepts with marks, and can abandon marks, not discriminate marks, and directly uphold the markless mind-ground precepts of the Mahāyāna bodhisattva?

Answer: First we need to clarify the conceptual meaning of "beginner bodhisattva" and "long cultivator"—at what stage a person counts as a beginner, at what stage a person counts as a long cultivator, what the characteristics of each are, and what their mental states are like.

Long-cultivating bodhisattvas, having been bodhisattvas for many lives and many kalpas, have the habits of a bodhisattva. Not only are their afflictions extremely slight from birth, or even absent, and their bodily, verbal, and mental actions very pure—automatically and spontaneously so, without needing anyone's teaching—but they also, unconsciously and habitually, delight in teaching sentient beings to turn toward goodness, not in order to exalt themselves, but entirely out of the hope that sentient beings will abandon evil and take up good. Since such a bodhisattva is born with slight or no afflictions, only a bhūmi-level bodhisattva who has returned again could achieve this. The afflictions were already eliminated in previous lives; in this life, because of the mystery of the intervening womb, there may occasionally be very slight afflictions, which should be called afflictive habits.

Long-cultivating bodhisattvas have realized bodhi life after life. In this life, upon encountering the Buddha's teaching, they will automatically and spontaneously cultivate according to the momentum and methods of their practice in previous lives. They can quickly give rise to meditative concentration (samādhi), and before long they can automatically attain realization of the fruits and once again see their true mind and become enlightened, without great difficulty. After attaining the fruit and seeing the true mind, they can quickly connect with the realization attained in previous lives: the fruit is still the fruit of previous lives, the meditative concentration is still the concentration of previous lives, and if they continue cultivating, their progress on the path is rapid. As for teaching sentient beings, they need not learn and familiarize themselves from scratch; they naturally know how to teach and transform sentient beings. They will not lead sentient beings toward greed, hatred, and delusion, nor will they indulge sentient beings' afflictions. Very naturally they become a strict teacher, holding disciples to high standards and demanding requirements.

Only such long cultivation can effectively uphold the Mahāyāna bodhisattva mind-ground precepts, because the mind-ground is already pure and one will not violate the precepts with marks established by the Buddha. For example, the five precepts and eight precepts need not be deliberately observed—one naturally does not violate them, and bodily, verbal, and mental actions are all pure. Because one possesses meditative concentration of the first dhyāna or above, afflictions have been eliminated and the mind-ground is pure. Only on this foundation can one uphold the markless mind-ground precepts; the mind need not be bound by the forms of the precepts, and one may do anything that does not affect the purity of the mind-ground—the purpose being to save sentient beings, not to indulge one's own greed and desire.

If a bodhisattva still has greed and desire in the mind, still has hatred and resentment, and ignorance is also heavy, then he must strictly uphold the precepts with marks. Each of the five precepts and eight precepts must be strictly observed without any violation; if violated, one must with anguished remorse openly repent. Especially the bodhisattva precepts must be strictly upheld without violation, without the slightest indulgence or accommodation of oneself. A bodhisattva who has eliminated not even one of the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion—especially one who does not even possess the most basic preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi)—is not yet qualified to uphold the markless precepts, and fundamentally cannot uphold them, because the mind-ground is not pure and every arising thought corresponds to afflictions. One must uphold the precepts with marks well, step by step using various phenomena to restrain one's own mind from overstepping bounds. Only after the first dhyāna concentration arises and afflictions are eliminated can one begin tentatively to set aside marks and uphold the purity of the mind-ground.

Those who lack the above characteristics of a long-cultivating bodhisattva all count as beginner bodhisattvas and should all strictly cultivate the precepts with marks. They must not abandon the restraints on bodily and verbal actions, acting recklessly and indulging their own afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. Some people, because they cannot abstain from meat, cannot abstain from alcohol, cannot abstain from meat and pungent foods, insisting on enjoying these gustatory pleasures, find an excuse, saying: "I do not take up marks and discriminate them; I uphold the mind-ground precepts. Though I eat meat and pungent foods, my mind does not attach to the marks of meat and pungent foods." If that is so, then why don't you eat feces? Why do you still pick and choose, changing the daily menu with new varieties, refusing to eat even a repetition? Eating the same thing 365 days a year should not be tiresome—one ought to be well acquainted with contentment and sufficiency. One set of clothes for each of the four seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, would suffice; when thirsty, just drinking water is enough. Why so particular? It is not as if it goes into someone else's mouth and stomach.

Buddhists today are pitiable, lamentable, and hateful! Clearly their roots of goodness are scant, yet they style themselves long-cultivating bodhisattvas; clearly they cannot uphold the five precepts, eight precepts, and bodhisattva precepts, yet they loudly proclaim upholding the markless mind-ground precepts, having not the slightest self-knowledge. They are all empty slogan-shouters of grandiosity. If this continues, Buddhism will surely decline and perish, and no one will attain accomplishment. The three pure studies of precepts, concentration, and wisdom—personally proclaimed by the World-Honored One—are now to have the study of precepts and the study of concentration discarded, keeping only the study of wisdom as dry wisdom. Each of them, when expounding the Buddha-dharma, speaks eloquently and fluently, but in reality has no cultivation whatsoever—ambitious in aspiration, inept in practice. This is the current chaos in the Buddhist world, and it cannot be rectified, because of sentient beings' powerful arrogant minds.