What Is Guarding the Mind Precept

Guarding the precepts of the mind means not letting the mind give rise to thoughts and mental activity, not allowing afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion to arise. This is very difficult; one must eliminate afflictions to accomplish it. Even suppressing afflictions is not easy, and there are often times when one cannot hold them down. In today's world, even the precepts of body and speech are hard to keep—there are many opportunities to break them, and one breaks the precepts of body and speech the moment one loses a bit of self-control.

Why do people break the precepts of body and speech? Because of the mind. When the mind has afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion, it will drive the body and speech to create karma. If one can guard the mind well, the body and speech will not break the precepts and create evil karma. If the mind does not break the precepts, then no matter what the body and speech do, it is not a breach of the precepts, because there are no mental activities of greed, hatred, and delusion. All precepts take the presence or absence of mind as the measuring standard. However, ordinary people find it very difficult to see clearly into another person's mind, so they take that person's body and speech as the standard instead; naturally, there are many occasions when this measurement is mistaken.

The practice of the Hinayana precepts takes the karmic actions of body and speech as the criterion: as long as body and speech do not break the precepts, it is fine, regardless of what the mental activities are. Mahayana bodhisattvas take the precepts of the mind-ground as the standard: as long as every thought and mental activity is not for oneself, that is good. The true Mahayana precepts are very hard to keep. For example, the bodhisattva precepts in the Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra were established for bhūmi bodhisattvas of the first ground and above. Pre-bhūmi bodhisattvas (pūrvabhūmika bodhisattva) have not eliminated the afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion and are unable to keep them; for them, any breach of the precepts by body or speech counts as breaking the precepts. Post-bhūmi bodhisattvas (bhūmi-pratiṣṭhita-bodhisattva) take mental activity as the standard: as long as the mind is for sentient beings, there is no breach of the precepts.