Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 26-minute session, Tenzin Chogkyi lays the foundational framework for understanding Bodhisattva vows within the broader Buddhist path. She begins with ethical discipline as the first of the six perfections, distinguishing between restraint from the ten non-virtues and the positive accumulation of merit or spiritual momentum. She then situates the eighteen root vows and forty-six secondary Bodhisattva vows within the two collections of method and wisdom that generate a Buddha’s enlightened form and omniscient mind. Chogkyi traces the scriptural sources of these vows through Indian masters—Asaṇga, Śāntideva, and Chandragomin—and explains how they reached Tibet via Lama Atisha. She notes the Tibetan tradition uses the same vows for lay and ordained practitioners, contrasting this with the Chinese Mahāyāna lineage. The talk is the opening session of a five-week course and is dense with doctrinal context; the following sessions will focus on practical application and the specifics of each vow.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2012 08 15 Bodhisattva Vows.mp3
UUID: 8287ac4c-5855-4cd7-ace5-0e45e44d6716
Teacher: Tenzin Chogkyi
Collection: Bodhisattva Vows (Tenzin Chogkyi)
Date: 2012-08-15
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~3,435
Ethics. Now, we have what some of you may be familiar with the six perfections. Have you heard about the six perfections? We’ve got the perfection of ethics, morality, ethical discipline, and there’s three levels or three kinds of ethical discipline. And the first one is what we usually think of when we think of ethical discipline, restraining from non virtue or refraining from non virtue.
So refraining from engaging in actions that harm yourself and harm others. And that’s usually what we think of when we think think of morality, isn’t it? Not doing negative deeds. And an example would be the ten non virtues, which we have. That’s sort of the essence of Buddhist morality is avoiding the ten non virtues.
Who can think of what some of the some of the ten non virtues are? What do we mean when we talk about the ten non virtues? Killing? Sexual misconduct? Okay.
So there’s three that relate to the physical or the body. Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. Okay. There’s four that relate to speech. Who can remember?
Gossiping, idle speech is one. Yeah. Lying, Divisive speech. Harsh speech. Okay.
Those are the four that relate to speech and then we’ve got three mental ones. Anybody remember any of the mental? Okay. Maliciousness. Yep.
Yeah. Maliciousness, covetousness or, you know, wanting to have things that belong to others and wrong view, especially the wrong view that says there is no such thing as the law of cause and effect. Either everything’s random or God decides. Right? That would be a wrong view according to Buddhism.
Okay? Okay. Good. Great. The gods have been studying.
So, restraining ourselves from those ten non virtuous actions and then also many of the other vows, the monastic vows, the lay vows lay people can take five vows, bodhisattva vows, tantric vows. A lot of these relate to restraining from non virtue. Now, when we talk about in the context of the Bodhisattva vows, we have eighteen root vows and forty six secondary vows. The root vows mostly relate to this. Okay?
Avoiding non virtue as we shall see when we start getting into the details. Okay? We also have also under ethical discipline, another branch discipline is called accumulating merit. Now, merit is a word that’s translated in different ways. One of my friends translates it as positive potential.
One of my friends, I like this one a lot, translates the word as spiritual momentum. I really like that because it gives kind of the idea of what’s happening is energy, the spiritual momentum accumulating that, right, which is a big cause of our realizations in every other aspect of the path as we’re developing. Okay? So positive potential, spiritual momentum. We talk about the two collections of method and wisdom.
Sometimes we call it the two vast accumulations or the two collections, you’ll hear these words. And this is where we really get into the details of remember we said before, we need to create the cause for the enlightened body and mind of a Buddha. How do we do that? Through the six perfections. And generally, different commentators divide up the six perfections in different ways.
Generally, the method side is seen as the first four perfections. We have the perfection of giving, the perfection of morality, patience and enthusiasm, sometimes translated as joyous effort, these go towards creating the enlightened bodies of a Buddha. Remember, Sandra had the question of how many Buddhas are there? And I said, as many as it takes. Right?
These emanation bodies, that’s one of the qualities of a Buddha. We say a Buddha has two physical forms, this very subtle energetic body that the Sanskrit word is Sambhogakāya, sometimes translated as complete enjoyment body. And that’s like these guys. Right? Somebody saw one of those.
Somebody saw Tārā, Sambhogakāya, drew a picture. Right? That’s these forms. And then, the emanation bodies is another kind of body that the Buddha has and that takes whatever form is necessary, even inanimate objects if it will be helpful. So we have to be paranoid not just about other people anymore.
Master Śāntideva said, a Buddha can manifest even as a dog or a bridge or an inanimate object, anything that will benefit beings. So, what creates the cause for that? Because remember, it’s not just enough to wish. It’s not the secret thing. We need to engage in the practices of giving, morality, patience, and enthusiasm, joyous effort to create the bodies of a Buddha and then to create that omniscient mind that we were talking about, the mind that knows everything about the karma, the past lives, the propensities of the beings that were meant to help.
We engage in the fifth and sixth of the six perfections, concentration and wisdom. Okay? So that’s accumulating these two vast collections of spiritual momentum. Right? Of karmic causes that create the result of a Buddha.
Okay? So that’s really important to keep in mind. It’s not enough to just have bodhicitta. We need to engage in the six perfections, to create the karmic causes. And then the last oh, so the six perfections as we shall see, we’ve got forty six secondary bodhisattva vows.
The first thirty five are divided in terms of the six perfections. So, it’s very cool. The bodhisattva, the secondary bodhisattva vows are specifically teaching us how to apply the six perfections to our life. So, it’s cool. It’s not just about, Oh, be generous.
It’s like, Be generous this way, this way, this way, this way. So, it’s teaching us the specifics and we’ll see as we go through because we’ve got these groupings of secondary vows grouped under the six perfections and then we’ve got the morality of working for the benefit of sentient beings. The last eleven of the secondary Bodhis Bodhisattva vows relate to this one. Okay? So once again, the context in terms of morality, we see how all the Bodhisattva vows fit.
Now, there’s overlap, you know, in our life accumulating merit, obviously, if we’re giving, we’re benefiting beings. So it’s not like there’s these cut and dried delineations. But in general, in terms of the Bodhisattva vows, that’s how we are dividing things up. Okay? Now, are you on total overwhelm?
Can you deal with a little bit more? We’re we’re almost reaching flat line level. Keep going. Okay. You can handle like ten more minutes.
Alright. Cool. You guys are troopers. The first night, it’s always hard because it’s lots and lots of details. The next four nights, we’re just going to be talking about application.
You know, how do we apply these vows in our lives? When do they apply? When don’t they apply? You know, we’ll talk about real application. But again, this is just about really setting the context.
Let’s do one more piece, one more flip chart page and then I will will dedicate the merit and I’ll release you for the moment. And then we’ll start talking about the specifics. So I think I’m gonna I’m gonna skip. What I’m gonna do next time is start by talking about the vows that apply for aspiring Bodhicitta. So we have aspiring Bodhicitta precepts.
Those we can go over quite quickly and then we’ll get into the sixty-four engaging bodhisattva vows. But first, let’s talk about I promised to let you know this the scriptural sources of the vows. So one more thing we’ll talk about tonight to show where these vows can be found in the teachings of the Buddha. Buddha. Okay.
So there’s a sūtra spoken by Lord Buddha called the Ākāśagarbha Sūtra, the Sūtra of the Essence of Space. I’ve never read it, but it sounds really nice, doesn’t it? Sūtra of the Essence of Space, that sūtra contains thirteen of the root vows. vows five through seventeen of the eighteen root vows are found in that sūtra, the sūtra of the essence of space. That’s the scriptural source.
There’s another sūtra called the sūtra of skillful means that contains root vow number eighteen. Okay? Now, there is a text where a lot of the details of bodhisattva activity were really kind of compiled and written down by Master Asaṇga who lived around three fifty A. And he based his the teachings on the bodhisattva vows in this text called the bodhisattva levels on the Agatamsaka Sūtra. Okay?
So use that sūtra and in the Bodhisattva levels, in the second chapter are the first four root vows. So the original source is the Avatamsaka Sūtra. He delineated these four root vows in the Bodhisattva levels. So those first three sources contain all eighteen of the root vows coming directly from the scriptures of Lord Buddha. Okay?
Now, what master Asaṇga did in this text called the Bodhisattva Levels in the second chapter, he delineated the first four Bodhisattva vows and then he said, You know, you guys, look through the rest of the sutras and you’ll be able to find the other ones. Easy for him to say. So, we’re really lucky because Master Śāntideva did that. Okay, Master Śāntideva followed Asaṇga’s advice because he could look through all of the sutras and then in his compendium of advice, Shiksha Samucchaya, he delineated the eighteen root vows and told where they came from. Now, what’s the other really important text that Master Śāntideva, who lived six ninety five to seven forty three AD?
What’s the other, even more famous text that we study of master Shantidevas? Yeah. The Bodhisattva’s way of life. Right? His Holiness teaches it every fifteen minutes.
You know, every time I think people invite His Holiness, the Dalai Lama to teach. And he says, what do you want me to teach on? And they say, oh, Your Holiness. You know, you decide. Oh, gee.
What about the Bodhisattva’s way of life? Because he teaches it all the time and that’s the really well known text by Master Śāntideva. Some people don’t even know that there’s another text available translated into English. It’s kind of stilted, old fashioned English that uses the word sin and things, but it’s fascinating. And in fact, this compendium of Shiksha Samucchaya, Master Śāntideva gives the scriptural sources for all the information he put into the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life.
Now, that doesn’t have a lot of quotes from Sūtra. This one does. Right? And it has a whole section where Master Śāntideva, thank goodness, you know, followed Master Asaṇga’s advice, went back to the original sutras and pulled out the eighteen root vows. Now, there’s another text by another Indian.
By the way, this is an Indian master, Master Asaṇga, Śāntideva and Chandragomin, all Indian masters. Right? So Master Chandragomin has a text called The Twenty Verses on vows, and this is our main source for the forty six secondary vows. Master Asaṇga in the Bodhisattva levels talks about the secondary vows but in a very narrative way. He doesn’t really give a list.
He’s just kind of talking about it in an inspiring narrative way. So again, Master Chandragomin took the Bodhisattva levels and then delineated in verse form the forty six secondary vows. So these are our scriptural sources for the vows. Okay? So it’s kind of cool to know where they come from.
Now, this is specific to the Tibetan tradition and this lineage of Bodhisattva vows was brought to Tibet. Remember, I mentioned Lama AAtisha before who is the originator of the lam rim genre of teachings. Right? He wrote that text, Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment. Some of you may have heard the story of his great bodhicitta master, Suvarnadvipi, is what is we usually call him, who was a master from Sumatra.
And so, Lama AAtisha went this perilous thirteen month sea voyage to Sumatra to learn all about bodhicitta. He stayed there for twelve years and then that’s where the lineage of Bodhisattva vows comes from, through Lama AAtisha all the way down to us who was brought to Tibet. There’s another lineage of bodhisattva vows practiced in the Chinese Mahāyāna tradition with different scriptural sources, Very, very similar, the scriptural sources of those vows is a sūtra called the Brahman Net Sūtra. And the reason I’m mentioning this is because nowadays in the West, we’re in kind of a unique situation in terms of the Buddhadharma. You know, traditionally, in Asian cultures, you’d have, you know, one, two, at most maybe three sort of streams or lineages of Buddhism coexisting in any given country.
In most big western cities these days, you’ve got Tibetan centers of all the four main traditions, and then you’ve got the Zen Center down the street. Oh, the Japanese Zen Center, and then the Korean Zen Center, Center and then the Chinese Mahāyāna three blocks away, and then the Vipassana guys are sitting down the street. So there’s all these different streams converging. And I think and a lot of times, we go to these different places. So I think it’s important.
I think it’s incredibly enriching and wonderful. And for me, I’ve really benefited from this abundance. I think it’s important though to know that there are differences. Right? So if you study in the Chinese Mahāyāna tradition and you get a list of the Bodhisattva vows, don’t say, hey, the FPMT booklet’s wrong.
They got it wrong because it’s a different lineage. It’s a different transition. Now, I’ve read that list really briefly. I’d like to study it in more detail because as you can imagine, there’s a tremendous amount of overlap because it’s just another sūtra taught by Lord Buddha. Now, in that tradition, interestingly enough, there’s a big difference between the bodhisattva vows taken by the lay people and by the ordained people.
In the Tibetan tradition, it’s the same. We all get the same vows whether you’re ordained or whether you’re a lay person. In the Chinese Mahāyāna tradition, when you get ordained as a monk or a nun, part of the ceremony is taking vows and the lay people have six bodhisattva vows, the ordained people have ten root and forty three, I believe it is, secondary vows And you take it as part of your ordination ceremony. Now we when we get ordained as monks and nuns in the Tibetan tradition, we don’t take bodhisattva vows at that ceremony. We take them with everybody else with His Holiness if we’re lucky or whoever.
Right? So there’s no difference. So just wanted to mention that because like I said, you know, a lot of us study in different traditions just so you won’t be confused because there is a difference there. Now, the source for the material of this course is two Tibetan commentaries. So these are all the original sources of the vows.
There’s a text by Lama Tsongkhapa, who’s the founder of the Gelugpa tradition, one of the four Tibetan traditions that Buddha House is you know, belongs to that lineage. And it’s called the Highway for Bodhisattvas. That’s the short name. Let me give you the official full name. An explanation of Bodhisattvas ethical discipline, the main path to enlightenment.
That’s the long name known as the highway for Bodhisattvas for short. So Lama Tsongkhapa, who lived from thirteen fifty seven to fourteen nineteen, wrote this excellent commentary on the Bodhisattva vows, which unfortunately hasn’t been translated into English yet, But this is the ones that our Tibetan lamas use to teach us the bodhisattva vows. And another main source in the Gelugpa tradition is a text called The String of Shining Jewels by Geshe Ngawang Samdrub who lived in the nineteenth century, and he was a tutor of the tenth Dalai Lama. Okay. So sometimes he’s known as Senchab Ngawang Samdrub.
Senchab means tutor or debate partner. So this is another commentary that we use a lot. There’s others. In the Sakya tradition, Saka Pandita, one of the great Sakya masters, wrote a commentary on the bodhisattva vows that studied in the Sakya tradition. Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche in the Kagyu tradition wrote a wonderful commentary on all the sets of vows, the individual liberation vows, bodhisattva vows, and tantric vows, which has been translated into English.
Also, Sakya Pandita’s commentary has been translated. So there’s some wonderful sources that have already been translated. But for this class, these are the two main sources that the material I’m gonna be presenting or drawing from. Okay. I promise you just one more page.
You okay? Everybody alright? Alright. I think that’s enough for the initial session. Like I said, lots of details for this one but I just kind of wanted to show you where it fits into the path and review a little bit this thing of like the three scopes, the three levels just so we get some context.
Right? So now when we start getting into it, we’ll be able to think, oh, okay. This is avoiding non virtue. Oh, this is accumulating, you know, working on the six perfections to accumulate the the method and wisdom that I need to create the cause. So you have just an idea of the context.
So any questions on this or anything that we’ve done tonight before you’re completely overwhelmed. Alright. So next week and by the way, it’s not just because I’m teaching the class but I’d love to encourage you to just come to everyone as you can see, you know, there’s a continuity building up here and as we go through, it’ll just make a lot more sense. I know it’s a weeknight, it’s hard, it’s five weeks but it would just be great if we could kind of get a consistent group because then our discussion, especially when we get into discussing, you know, the minutiae of the vows, you’ll be able to just have that continuity. So anyway, not a personal advertisement, just an advertisement for the bodhisattva vows.
What we’ll do next time is start by talking about the vows for aspiring Bodhicitta. Okay? It used to be. Nowadays, usually, the ceremony is done all in one ceremony whether you’re at the aspiring level or the engaging level. And His Holiness does that.
He said, think about whether you’re just taking the wishing vows, the engaging vows, or he often says in these big public things when there’s fifteen thousand people, he says, just kinda promise to be nice. Just try and be kinder at the very least. Right? So we’re going to talk about the precepts for aspiring bodhicitta and then most of the rest of the time we’re going to be talking about the engaging bodhisattva vows, those sixty four vows that I referred to, really talking about how do they apply, what are the situations that they apply to and talking in a lot of detail. We have a handout for you so you can get a sneak preview between now and next week.
So let me just get these out and you can pass them around. This is a handout You can just take one and pass it down. This is a handout prepared by the FPMT Education Department and it gives a little bit more detail than just the one liner, right? So it’s a nice reminder. So you can keep this booklet, you can take notes on the booklet if you want or in your notebook and just kind of keep all the information there.
So, this is something to refer to and we’ll be going through the vows one by one. Okay? So, last questions? Everybody okay? Not too overwhelmed yet?
Alright. Alright. Let’s take a minute to dedicate the positive potential, our spiritual momentum. So amazing to have had this time even to think about bodhicitta, to go through the discussion that we’ve had this evening.
We’ll talk next time about the benefits of bodhicitta, but just even turning our minds towards bodhicitta, this incredible virtuous intention to do the incredibly hard job of attaining full enlightenment for the benefit of others just to be able to help others, Unbelievable virtue in focusing on this for the time that we’ve had together. So let’s put all of that positive energy, that spiritual potential into the karmic bank account. Now, it’s not just an aspiration. We have something to dedicate. We have a deposit to make into that bank account of our future enlightenment.
So let’s just take a minute to focus on that dedication. Thank you.