The Precept as Teacher

9.3 The Precept as Teacher

Outside Kuśinagara, between the twin śāla trees. When the Buddha first turned the wheel of the Dharma, the one He brought across was Ājñāta-Kauṇḍinya; with His last preaching, the one He brought across was Subhadra. All who were to be brought across had been brought across. This night was His last night in the world—it was the middle watch of the night, and all was still. And in that silence, for the disciples at His side, He spoke briefly the essentials of the Dharma. The first word was of the precept:

"Bhikṣus, after my passing, you should honor and revere the Prātimokṣa, as one who meets a light in the dark, as a poor man who finds a treasure. Know that this is your great teacher, no different from my remaining in the world."

After my passing, you are to honor and revere the Prātimokṣa—the precept code. Know that it is your great teacher; were I to remain in the world, it would be no different from this.

First set the weight of this sentence upright. While the Buddha was in the world, the disciples took the Buddha as teacher; after the Buddha's passing, the teacher who could be questioned face to face was gone—and it was the precept that took over the teacher's seat. Note well: this in no way says that from then on lineage may be discarded, that one need not draw near good spiritual friends; the sūtra locks it tight—"after my passing." What it speaks of is the office the precept assumes once the teacher no longer abides in the world. A human teacher is a teacher because he can point out, day by day, your going forward and your holding back; and the precept can carry the teacher's office after the teacher for exactly the same reason—it can be leaned on day by day, and day by day it can show you what to take and what to leave. The Buddha used two similes in a row for its goodness: as one who meets a light in the dark, as a poor man who finds a treasure. Look at the texture of these two similes—a lamp is for walking by; a treasure is for living by. What the Buddha compared the precept to is not a recondite doctrine for the studious to dig at, but a living thing usable on the spot, leanable day by day.

And this draws out the last question of this book.

Nine Parts read to this point, "what is the precept" has been seen from every face: it is an ability grown into the body; it is the fourth factor of entering the stream; it is the thousand-year transmission of the Vinaya collections; it is the map of the three clusters; it is a single seed in the storehouse consciousness; it is the keeping that has set down the sign and still keeps in full; it is the foundation of concentration, a gate in its own right, the mode of abiding-in, the stair that deepens with the ground. The doctrine is fully stocked. And once it is fully stocked, one last question remains: where does all of it finally land?

It does not land in "understanding." It lands in "doing, day by day."

This grates on the ear, but it must be said at the volume's end: a person who has read this whole book through and merely "understands a great deal" is not necessarily nearer to the precept than one who cannot read a single word and keeps it day by day. Doctrine is not there to be understood and then set aside; the entire use of its existence is to let the day-by-day doing be done in accordance with the Dharma, done without deviation. This book belongs to the Six Practice Gates—and they are called gates of practice, not gates of view, precisely because what the six gates gather are all things that can be done day by day, not principles to be thought about day by day.

Spread the first eight Parts out and read them over again, and you will see: what they speak of was never several doctrines laid side by side, but different faces of one and the same daily thing. Part One spoke of its root—the precept is character, is that one thought of volition turning from evil toward good. Part Five spoke of its establishment—receiving is the perimeter wall, set up once; following is the house, built day by day; receiving and following must sustain each other; only then is anything reached. Receiving is a one-time laying of the foundation; following is the re-enactment day after day—the place where the precept truly dwells is in that one word, following. Part Five spoke too of its very substance—a single wholesome seed perfumed into the storehouse consciousness at the moment of reception. The simile of the seed answers, all by itself, the question of why the precept must be kept day by day: a contract signed once is valid forever, but a seed must go into the field year after year—left long without issuing into action, the seed-nature remains, yet its force grows daily fainter; the keeping of each day is the perfuming of each day. Part Seven spoke of its temper—keep in full, grasp no sign. Those words bar both faces: done day by day with the heart absent, the precept becomes an empty-turning ritual—"keep in full" bars that; done day by day with merit secretly tallied, the precept becomes a hotbed of conceit—"grasp no sign" bars that. The more practiced the doing, the fewer the traces it leaves of "I am doing"—this is the temper of this daily thing.

The four faces of Part Eight land here too. Foundation and gate say it gives a handhold day by day—it can serve as the foundation of other dharmas and be guarded day by day, and it can stand as a gate of its own and be entered day by day. The mode of the practice-precept says its doing is a going-forward practice, not only a stepping-back avoidance. The stair of stage-allocation says it deepens as it is done—today's precept and the precept of ten years hence are the same in their items and different in their depth; and that deeper measure is earned by the doing, day by day.

And the illnesses of the previous two chapters find their place here as well. The root of both was the taking of the precept down from its living joint and the laying of it aside as a dead thing—set up on the shelf of "understanding," or laid out as a ledger, a ball of warmth. The antidote was never more doctrine; it is the setting of what is already in hand back into daily use: volition stirring day by day, the precept-substance established by the undertaking issuing into action day by day, the guarding against wrong calibrating day by day in the present moment—in its daily living turn the precept never has time to congeal into a dead, graspable sign, and is never for an instant parted from its root. The illnesses find nowhere to attach—not because they have been refuted, but because the precept is alive.

And since the precept is a thing done day by day, it opens forward of itself. The same Sūtra of the Buddha's Bequeathed Teaching says, in the very next breath: "grounded in this precept, the concentrations arise, and the wisdom that extinguishes suffering." And it leaves a simile for the gathering-in of body and mind: "let this mind go and it loses a man's good works; restrain it to one point and nothing is left undone." Gather the mind in toward one place, and there is nothing that cannot be accomplished. The precept in daily use does exactly this, day by day—day by day it gathers the scattered body and mind toward one place. When this work has grown practiced, the far side of the threshold is concentration. Part Eight has already seen that seam clearly; and what lies on the far side of the threshold, this book does not say in the next book's place.

Here the book closes.

Look back down the road: Jeta's Grove in Sāvatthī, Anāthapiṇḍika's Park, one day near evening, and Ānanda asked a question—what is the meaning of keeping the precepts? This book has walked the whole way down from that one question. The Buddha answered him: for non-regret. From non-regret, joy; from joy, rapture; from rapture, tranquility; from tranquility, happiness; from happiness, concentration—dharma benefits dharma and dharma causes dharma; thus this precept advances to the foremost: crossing from this shore, one reaches the far shore. Nine Parts walked, every link of that chain has been seen: the three things the precept carries and the fourth factor of entering the stream (Part One); the line-by-line drawing of boundaries in the Āgamas (Part Two); the Vinaya's laying-down of precepts and its transmission (Part Three); the Mahāyāna turn and the map of the three clusters (Part Four); the perimeter wall, the house, and that single seed (Part Five); the twelve vows that guard the conditions of the one who keeps precepts (Part Six); the sign-less keeping that sets down the sign and keeps the more strictly (Part Seven); the completion of foundation, gate, mode, and stair (Part Eight); today's two illnesses and one unchanging scale (Part Nine).

And all of it gathers into those four words the Buddha left between the twin śāla trees: take the precept as your teacher. In the age when the teacher does not abide in the world—which is to say, our age—the precept is here day by day, can be asked day by day, can be leaned on day by day. It does not demand of you how deeply you understand; it only puts to you, each day, that one question: Today—done, or not done.

In the long road of the Six Practice Gates, the precept is the fourth gate: repentance cleanses the karma, and only then can the new precept be received; the precept gathers in body and mind, and only then can one enter concentration. This book has finished speaking of the precept. What remains is not to read it again, but to do it, day by day.

When the doing has grown ripe, lift your head—the next gate is concentration.