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 habitual tendencies of a bodhisattva. Not only are their afflictions extremely slight from birth, or even nonexistent, with bodily, verbal, and mental actions that are all pure—automatically and spontaneously so, without needing anyone's teaching—they also habitually and unconsciously delight in teaching sentient beings to turn toward goodness, not in order to exalt themselves, but purely 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 bodhisattva on the bhūmis who has come again can achieve this. Having already eradicated afflictions in a previous life, in this life, because of the mystery of the intervening womb, there may occasionally be very slight afflictions, which should be called afflictive habitual tendencies.

Long-cultivating bodhisattvas have realized bodhi life after life; in this life, upon encountering the Buddha-dharma, they will automatically and spontaneously cultivate according to the momentum and methods of their practice in previous lives. They can quickly develop meditative concentration (samādhi), and before long they can automatically attain the fruits and once again see the mind and attain enlightenment, without great difficulty. After attaining the fruits and seeing the mind, they can quickly connect with the realization levels of 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 will be rapid. As for teaching sentient beings, they need not learn and familiarize themselves from scratch; they naturally know how to teach sentient beings. They will not lead sentient beings toward greed, hatred, and delusion, nor will they indulge sentient beings' afflictions; quite 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 eradicated and the mind-ground is pure; only on this foundation can one uphold the markless mind-ground precepts. The mind can then be free from the constraints of the precept marks: anything that does not affect the purity of the mind-ground can be done, with the aim of saving sentient beings rather than indulging one's own greed and desire.

If a bodhisattva still has greed within, still has hatred, and delusion is also heavy, then one must strictly uphold the precepts with marks: each of the five precepts and eight precepts must be strictly observed without the slightest violation; if violated, one must with heartfelt anguish openly confess and repent. Especially the bodhisattva precepts must be strictly upheld without violation, without the slightest indulgence or accommodation of oneself. A bodhisattva who has eradicated 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 impure and every arising thought corresponds to afflictions. One must uphold the precepts with marks well, step by step using various phenomenal matters to restrain one's own mind from overstepping bounds. Only after the first dhyāna concentration arises and afflictions are eradicated can one begin tentatively to set aside marks and uphold the purity of the mind-ground.

Those who lack the above characteristics of long-cultivating bodhisattvas 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 wantonly and indulging their own afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion. Some people, because they cannot give up meat, cannot give up alcohol, cannot give up meat and pungent foods, and insist on enjoying these gustatory pleasures, find excuses, saying: "I do not take up marks or discriminate them; I uphold the mind-ground precepts; although 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 excrement? Why do you still pick and choose, changing the daily menu with new varieties, refusing to eat even a repeated dish? Eating the same thing 365 days a year should not be tiresome—one ought to know 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 would do. Why be so particular—it is not as if it goes into someone else's mouth and stomach?

Buddhist practitioners today are pitiable, lamentable, and hateful! Clearly their roots of goodness are meager, yet they style themselves long-cultivating bodhisattvas; clearly they cannot uphold the five precepts, eight precepts, or bodhisattva precepts, yet they loudly proclaim upholding the markless mind-ground precepts, with not the slightest self-knowledge. They are all empty sloganeers of grandiose posturing. If this continues, Buddhism will surely decline and perish, and no one will attain realization. The three pure, leak-free studies of precepts, concentration, and wisdom personally proclaimed by the World-Honored One—now people want to abandon the study of precepts and the study of concentration, keeping only the study of wisdom as dry wisdom. Each of them, when expounding the Buddha-dharma, speaks with a torrential flow and seemingly sound logic, but in reality has no cultivation whatsoever—lofty in ambition, low in ability. This is the chaos of today's Buddhist world, which cannot be rectified, because of sentient beings' powerful arrogant minds.