Chapter 7: Protecting the Possessions and Merit
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- Chapter 1: Giving One's Body, Possessions, and Virtues
- Chapter 2: Upholding the Dharma from the Perfection of Discipline
- Chapter 3: Perfection of Discipline: Protecting the Dharma Teacher
- Chapter 4: Perfection of Discipline: Discussion of Major Harms in the Sūtras
- Chapter 5: Perfection of Discipline: Avoiding the Harms
- Chapter 6: Protecting the Body
- Chapter 7: Protecting the Possessions and Merit
- Chapter 8: Expiation of Sinful Actions
- Chapter 9: Perfection of Patience
- Chapter 10: Perfection of Effort
- Chapter 11: Praise of Wilderness
- Chapter 12: Purifying the Mind
- Chapter 13: Mindfulness
- Chapter 14: Purification of the Body
- Chapter 15: Purification of Possessions and Merit
- Chapter 16: Enhancement of Body, Possessions, and Merit
- Chapter 17: Benefit of Prostration and Other Practices
- Chapter 18: Recollecting the Three Jewels
- Chapter 19: Enhancing Merit
Śāntideva asserts in his opening statement that "one must engage in good works and know how to be content; one who follows such a principle will not find it difficult to protect possessions."[1] When one can fulfill one's needs even with meager and simple possessions, one would certainly not disregard good and abundant resources being laid to waste by oneself or others. A bodhisattva who is a householder must neither give nor stop giving if such an action hinders progress on the path to enlightenment for oneself or others or obstructs the rise of virtue. The bodhisattva who is a renunciate must not engage in giving material possessions but shall engage in giving teachings. In terms of material gifts, a monk can share food with fellow monks and give away extra robes. Other than that, if a bodhisattva focuses on giving material gifts to a few sentient beings, such work can distract from teaching many beings and bringing greater benefit.
Having explained what a bodhisattva cannot give away, Śāntideva next explains what a bodhisattva can give up. The Questions of Ugraḥ Sūtra (Gṛhapatyugraparipṛcchāsūtra) sums this up: "Take up the work for others and completely give up working for oneself."[2] This is further supported by citations from The Teachings of Vimalakīrti Sūtra (Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra), The Compendium of Dharma Sūtra (Dharmasaṃgītisūtra) and The Jewel Heap Sūtra, all of which underscore the essential point of working for the benefit of others. These sūtras advise a bodhisattva to give possessions and enjoyments to sentient beings with equanimity, loving kindness, and compassion, and eschew cherishing oneself.
On the topic of protecting merit, Śāntideva states that merit can be constantly protected by abandoning any selfish wish for results. For instance, a bodhisattva must not observe discipline in order to be born in a happy realm, to be born as a king, to be born as Indra, Brahmā, or Śiva, or to be born rich, handsome, famous, and so forth. Neither should he observe discipline out of fear of suffering and birth in unhappy realms. A bodhisattva must observe discipline with an intention to benefit all sentient beings, and in doing so he will not degenerate in his existential status and moral standing but be venerated by the different beings in the world. He will not take the four types of unfortunate rebirths: rebirth in a state where one is not free to practice Dharma, in a realm without a buddha, as an individual with wrong views, and rebirth in the unhappy realms.
Someone wishing to protect merit must not have regrets, for regret of a meritorious action can reduce it just as regret of a bad action can reduce or erase its impact. Regret and outspoken confessions are recommended for sinful actions, not for meritorious ones. The Buddha, Śāntideva remarks, advised on several occasions not to boast about meritorious actions but confess sinful ones.
Other vices to watch out for in order to protect merit are conceit and love for material gain and veneration. The Jewel Heap Sūtra warns that four things will erode the virtues which have already been cultivated and not let them increase. The four are: pursuing a materialistic view through self-conceit, holding householders in high regard for the sake of gain and veneration, hating and criticizing bodhisattvas, and disregarding sūtras which one has not heard or learned before. Among the four, the act of hating others and expressing anger is said to be the most destructive act, for it can erase merit so much so that a single instance of anger, Śāntideva says, can wipe out merit accumulated for hundreds of eons. He makes this statement at the beginning of the sixth chapter of his Way of the Bodhisattva based on The Play of Mañjuśrī Sūtra (Mañjuśrīvikrīḍitasūtra), which he cites in The Compendium of Training. As anger often arises from conceit and arrogance, a bodhisattva must eschew self-importance and arrogance and engage like an outcast in the world. Citing The Chapter on Transcending the World (Lokottaraparivarta), Śāntideva lists ten types of arrogant and self-aggrandizing acts a bodhisattva can engage in through haughtiness, pride, jealousy, self-conceit, superciliousness, hatred, attachment to offering and veneration, contempt, and presumptuousness.
Instead of treating others with arrogance and hatred, a bodhisattva must view sentient beings as the field from which one can grow the qualities of the Buddha and thus approach them with ten types of thought or mind: a benevolent mind, a delightful mind, an affectionate mind, a tender mind, a pleasant mind, a helpful mind, a protective mind, an equanimous mind, a master's mind, and a teacher's mind. A bodhisattva must see oneself as a student of all sentient beings and cherish all sentient beings as one would cherish the Buddha. In order to highlight how a bodhisattva must serve all sentient beings like a servant, Śāntideva cites The Extensive Actions of a Monk (Bhikṣuprakīrnaka) to tell the story of the Buddha and Ānanda serving and nursing a sick monk and washing his clothes.
Śāntideva quotes verses from the sixth chapter of his own Way of the Bodhisattva and also adds some verses to compare pleasing sentient beings to a wish-fulfilling gem and wish-fulfilling vase, showing it is the best way to please the buddhas, and so forth. Practicing loving-kindness toward sentient beings is far more meritorious than making limitless offerings to countless buddhas. Thus, it is wrong to treat such sentient beings with arrogance and to engage in bodhisattva practice with self conceit, which arises from inappropriate thoughts.
Finally, Śāntideva claims that the essential way to protect merit is to dedicate the merit toward the enlightenment of all beings. He cites The Teachings of Akṣayamati Sūtra (Akṣayamatinirdeśasūtra) to demonstrate that merit properly dedicated to enlightenment will not be exhausted, just as a drop of water which mingles with the ocean will not dry up until the end of existence.
Notes
- ↑ See Karma Phuntsho, ed., རྒྱལ་སྲས་ཞི་བ་ལྷའི་གསུང་རྩོམ་བཞུགས་སོ།། The Written Works of Śāntideva (Bhutan: Loden Foundation, 2026), 376: ལེགས་སྤྱད་དག་ལ་བརྩམ་པར་བྱ། །ཐམས་ཅད་ལ་ཡང་ཚོད་རིག་བྱ། དེ་ལྟར་བསླབ་པའི་གཞི་འདི་ལས། །དེ་ཡི་ལོངས་སྤྱད་བསྲུང་མི་དཀའ།།
- ↑ See Karma Phuntsho, ed., རྒྱལ་སྲས་ཞི་བ་ལྷའི་གསུང་རྩོམ་བཞུགས་སོ།། The Written Works of Śāntideva (Bhutan: Loden Foundation, 2026), 378: གཞན་གྱི་བྱ་བ་བྱས་ཤིང་རང་གི་བྱ་བ་ཡོངས་སུ་གཏང་བར་བྱའོ།།
