Bodhicitta in Practice

Revision as of 16:14, 5 May 2025

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 #Forsake any sentient being or give up on helping someone and seek individual liberation
 #Not engage in altruistic work or help even if one is in position to help
+<h4>Minor Downfalls</h4>
+Minor downfalls include the various physical, verbal, and mental actions as taught in chapter 5 of ''The Way of the Bodhisattva'', ''The Compendium of Training'', and many sūtras. They include bodily comportments, such as unbecoming behavior, nonvirtuous forms of speech, such as idle gossip and harsh words, and negative thoughts and emotions. Commentators on ''The Compendium of Training'' enumerate eighty minor downfalls, while Candragomin's ''Vows in Twenty Verses'' (''Bodhisattvasaṃvaraviṃśaka'') mentions forty-six minor downfalls. The following passage from ''The Compendium of Training'' summarizes the complex moral system and downfalls of bodhisattva practice.
+{{QuoteCite
+		|quote-text=In order to pacify the suffering and mental pain of all sentient beings in the present and in the future, and to generate happiness and mental pleasure of all sentient beings in the present and in the future, if a bodhisattva does not diligently engage body, speech, and mind without wavering, does not seek the conditions for them, does not work on remedying what obstructs them, does not take up the small suffering and mental pain which can overcome great suffering and mental pain, does not forsake small things for achieving greater things, and neglects doing so even for a moment, he/she commits a downfall. There is no downfall for not taking up what is beyond one’s capacity, as there is no rule made for that in reality. In other cases [i.e. where one is capable], it is either a misdeed by nature or by restriction.<ref>Śāntideva, ''Śikṣāsamuccaya'' (''Bslab pa kun las btus pa''), in Derge Tengyur D3940, dbu ma, vol. 111, khi, fols. 11a6-11b2, http://purl.bdrc.io/resource/MW23703_3940.</ref>
+}}