Maintaining the Bodhisattva Vow and the Bodhicitta Precepts

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

When the Bodhisattva vow is taken, it should be renewed three times or six times in each twenty-four hour period. If, due to the normal pressures of daily existence, three times is impossible, then the vow should be renewed at least once or twice a day. Great benefit will accrue from this daily practice. The habit of renewing the vow and reviewing one's daily activities will protect one more and more from

negative influences and increase virtuous propensities.

The Bodhisattva mind is pure and stainless, without fault, and naturally possessing all transcendental knowledge. This is the result. For the beginner, the vow is to this great goal like the seed is to a great tree. It must be nurtured in order to bear fruit. However, if this is done according to the instructions contained in this book, the result will follow with absolute certainty.

The practitioner, whether new or old to this tradition, should view this book as a set of precious instructions. But this is only half the treasure map. The other half is the practitioner's attitude. Just like a worldly treasure it will never be found if the instructions are not followed. Reviewing the vow each day will remind the practitioner of the importance of the Six Paramitas. Contemplating the Paramitas and practicing them will help develop humility and devotion. The practitioner will gradually come to realize the profound interconnections and wisdom contained in this book. (preface, Lama Lodrö)

Citation

Lodrö, Lama. Maintaining the Bodhisattva Vow and the Bodhicitta Precepts. San Francisco: KDK Publications, 1984.

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Full translation of

triskandhakasūtra [त्रिस्कन्धकसूत्र]. 'phags pa phung po gsum pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo [འཕགས་པ་ཕུང་པོ་གསུམ་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ]. [The Sūtra of the Three Heaps (84000)]. Kangyur, RKTSK 284 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=284&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

The Sūtra of the Three Heaps (Skt. Triskandhakasūtra; Tib. 'Phags pa phung po gsum pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo, Toh 284) is a Mahāyāna liturgical sūtra set at hermitage called chos kyi dbye dgon pa. Its first part is an extended practice in which the practitioner offers homage, makes offerings, confesses all obscuring karma, rejoices in the virtue of all beings, exhorts the buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma, and supplicates them not to pass into nirvāṇa. The practitioner then takes all roots of virtue as their own, dedicates them to awakening, and generates bodhicitta on the model of past buddhas and bodhisattvas. In the second part, Mañjuśrī teaches the bodhisattva Sarvadharmapratijñāsthita the "irreproachable" heaps of confession, rejoicing, exhortation, supplication, and dedication, understood in the light of emptiness and non-apprehension. This text should be distinguished from the popular confession liturgy addressed to the thirty-five buddhas, widely recited as the "Three Heaps" or Bodhisattva's Confession of Downfalls. That liturgy circulates under the same Tibetan title, 'Phags pa phung po gsum pa zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo, but its content is an excerpt from the Upāliparipṛcchā (Toh 68), which itself calls the practice the "Dharma discourse of the Three Heaps." It is the Upāliparipṛcchā passage, not Toh 284, that Śāntideva quotes in the Śikṣāsamuccaya (ch. 8) and prescribes for recitation three times by day and three times by night in the Bodhicaryāvatāra (5.98).