Elaboration of Bodhisattva Vows 1 to 3

Introduction to the Root Bodhisattva Vows

When we take the bodhisattva vows, we are promising to refrain from two sets of acts. Although these are usually referred to as the root bodhisattva vows and the secondary bodhisattva vows in our Western languages, those are not the actual terms they are called in the original languages. There are 18 actions that if committed act as a “root downfall.” A “root downfall” means a loss of the bodhisattva vows, and it’s called a “downfall” because it leads us downwards in our spiritual development and it hinders our growth of good qualities. The word “root,” is called root because this is a root to be pulled out. eliminated. We want to pull out the root that would cause our downfall from being anchored in our vows. That’s why it’s called that, according to the commentaries. For short in the West, we call them the root bodhisattva vows, but actually, we’re vowing to avoid the 18 root downfalls.

Further, there are 46 types of “faulty behaviors” (the literal translation of the term), and these are usually called the “secondary bodhisattva vows.” If we transgress one of the root bodhisattva vows with all the factors that are needed in order to lose the vows, we lose the vows from our mental continuum. In other words, there are certain factors that have to be present, four attitudes, and if they are present in our minds when we transgress one of these root vows, we lose all the vows from our mental continuum; we no longer have bodhisattva vows, except in the case of the two exceptions. The exceptions are two vows where we don’t even need all four of them complete; if we merely transgress them, we lose the vows. With these 46 faulty actions, however, even if the four factors are complete, we don’t lose the bodhisattva vows. That’s the difference.

By the way, I should mention here, we were saying before that we take the bodhisattva vows for all our lifetimes, all the way up to enlightenment. Let’s say we took them in a past lifetime and, in this lifetime, we haven’t taken them yet. We have all these factors complete. If we had taken the vows in this lifetime and if these factors were complete, we would lose the vows from our mental continuum. For instance, if these factors are complete before we take the vows in this lifetime, in such a case, we don’t lose the bodhisattva vows. However, taking them now for the first time in this lifetime will strengthen what we’ve taken in previous lifetimes.

Let’s look at what these root downfalls would be: the so-called “root bodhisattva vows.” Although we can find many different commentaries and explanations of them which might be slightly different in their emphasis, we’ll follow Tsongkhapa’s commentary. By the way, there are several traditions of bodhisattva vows, deriving from different sutras of the Buddha, so what the Tibetans follow from one of the Indian traditions is from one sutra (I’m sorry I didn’t look it up to remind myself of the name of the sutra), but the Chinese traditions and the traditions that derive from the Chinese tradition have a different set of bodhisattva vows that derive from another sutra, just as the traditions of Vinaya monastic vows that are followed in the Tibetan and Chinese traditions are slightly different. Although in Theravada, and probably other Hinayana traditions as well, they do assert that there are bodhisattvas and they do assert that before becoming a Buddha we are a bodhisattva, it’s just not a path that most of us would follow; and I’ve never heard of a Theravada version of the bodhisattva vows that such bodhisattvas would take. Certainly, in Theravada as well, they have stories of Buddha in his past lifetimes.

Now, the 18 root bodhisattva vows are 18 negative actions that would bring upon a root downfall if we transgress them with all the factors complete. With each of these, we need to understand that there are several things that are stipulated and specified, in terms of what they actually mean.

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