Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 9.9-minute teaching, Ven Jampa Ignyen explains why Prātimokṣa ethics—the foundation of Buddhist practice—is central to the survival of the dharma. He shows how someone becomes an “upholder of teachings” not by giving lectures, but by maintaining pure vows in their mind. Drawing on Candrakīrti and Pabongka Rinpoche, he demonstrates how ordained sangha sustains the Buddhist tradition (teachings survive only while four fully ordained beings exist), and why keeping vows strictly—even for a single day when teachings are ending—generates greater merit than making lavish offerings for eons. The talk concludes with Pabongka’s advice on ethics and purification, emphasizing that ethical practice connects us to all future Buddhas.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 21 2001 06 21 LR.mp3
UUID: 0bc3065f-2622-40cd-a05f-c24698b78ee2
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Lam Rim 2001 Month 04-06 (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-21
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 9.9 minutes
Words: ~963
Also, the Prātimokṣa Vow is the basis of or medium of the two higher vows. So that’s the the vows of the bodhisattva and the tantric vows. Right. So then Candrakīrti continues to say that the upholder of the teachings by the upholder of the teachings, we do not mean someone who teaches Dharma from a meditation throne. You are an upholder of the teachings if you keep properly the vows you have in your mind stream.
So in fact, upholding the teachings really comes from having vows in one’s mental continuum. This is the base ground that qualifies or defines a person as being an upholder of the teachings. If you study and contemplate the transmitted Dharma, you you uphold the transmitted Dharma. If you keep your vows of ethics pure, you are an upholder of the insights into the teachings. In other words, here it’s talking about the vows as transmitted by the Buddha really are the basis of the teachings.
And then having those vows in our continuum and maintaining them is in fact the what? It represents being a holder of the teachings. But on this earth, the teachings will only survive as long as the Sangha, the ordained Sangha survive. And it said that this and the Sangha itself only survives as long as there are a minimum of four fully ordained beings. Once those four fully ordained beings no longer exist, then the teachings of the Buddha will no longer survive.
And this is directly said in the Prātimokṣa, in the teachings on ethics. And then it’s also said in Sūtra, where there is a monk upholding the Vinaya or the ethics or discipline, that place has illumination. It has light. I will see to it that the place will not be empty. Such a place will not give me much cause for concern.
So again, the Buddha is saying that wherever there’s a being that’s upholding the pratimoksha, there there will be light. And the Buddha will, in a sense, bless that place. And such a place will not give the Buddha much concern. So then Pabongka goes on and explains this in in some depth. And then of the central importance of ethics.
And here, it’s not not simply ethics in a general sense, but ethics that has a lineage from a fully ordained being, which is of specific importance. And then ethics in the sense of taking vows in a in a lineage from that that being is of, again, of specific importance. And then it said in other other sutras such as the king of Samādhi, the Samādhi Rāja Sūtra. One may, because one’s mind is cleansed on the ten million Buddhas with food, drink, parasols, banners, and rows of lamps for as many eons as there are grains of sand in the Ganges. But whoever at a time when the Tathagatas’s teachings will end, which is when the holy Dharma will completely perish, practices whoever at that time practices a single training for a day and night will receive much greater merit.
So here, this is indicating the importance of the practice of ethics, because it is the practice of ethics. And maintaining that ethics purely within one’s continuum, which will be the support of all future development. So then Pabongka continues to talk about, say, the ethics of a monk and the the fortnightly confession that occurs for the ordained. And that even just maintaining that ethics for an ordained monk is a really a profound practice, a monk or a nun. And for instance, actually, is in the Vinaya, in the confession ceremony, one monk, or it is recited at that point.
Those who still have their ethics will meet with the coming Buddhas. So this also is a statement in the in that ceremony, that actually having a foundation of ethics within our continuum will be the cause for us to meet Buddhas in future. And, of course, the reason for saying this is that there is a causal connection there, that what one has inside will eventually manifest outside. And the cause for meeting Buddhas in future is really what we’re creating at present inside. And the cause for meeting Buddhas in future is taking to heart what Buddhas say in the present.
Really taking to heart what Buddhas say in the present is really, what, assimilating their instruction and keeping it alive in our hearts. And by doing that, then it creates the connection. It creates the possibility of actually meeting with Buddhas in the future. So that it’s very actually, read this section is very inspiring. And it goes on to give some instances also of those who disobey their ethics and what potentially happens for those of us who who break our vows and so forth, and the necessity to purify, and the necessity to then having purified the vows, then to maintain them as purely as possible.
So this we need to be aware of as clearly as we can. This issue may seem a little bit sometimes a little bit traditional or a little bit I don’t know, conservative or and so on. But actually, this the issue of ethics is very, very important. And Pabongka Rinpoche then gives some brief advice on the whole question of ethics. So if possible, should read through this because even if we don’t understand the meaning in the beginning, often we things will stick in our minds and then those things that stick in our minds are often what we’re ready to hear because they they sort of have an effect on us.
And then we’ll think about them until we eventually come to an understanding of them. Anyway, we’ll just stop there. Have a break.